Huobi starts clearing out tens of millions of Chinese users and makes major internal structural adjustments

Wu said author | Colin Wu

Editor of this issue | Colin Wu

On December 14 and December 15, Huobi will stop the deposit and coin-to-coin trading services for users in mainland China respectively. The highlight of Huobi's liquidation work has officially arrived. On December 31, Huobi will close the RMB OTC business. At this point, Huobi Global Station's Chinese business will be completely closed.

In 2020, Huobi disclosed that it had 15 million users. Excluding some of the meaningless pure wool data, considering that Chinese users account for a large proportion, the scale of this round of withdrawal is at least in the millions, which is absolutely rare in the crypto industry and even in the history of business. Huobi's latest data disclosure: 15 million users, 150,000 daily active users, 80% overseas users questioned, and institutions contribute more than 50%

Wu said that what makes Huobi different is that it has adopted a thorough and resolute withdrawal strategy, leaving almost no room for maneuver, and internally emphasizes that "no one can stop the withdrawal work." A notable feature is that even if a user registers with an overseas company, but the main registrant/ultimate beneficiary is in mainland China, it will still not be accepted.

Huobi's complete withdrawal has a lot to do with its founder Li Lin being in China. On October 6, Li Lin said that he was unwilling to go abroad, his family and children were all in China, and his family was also unwilling to go abroad. "In the few months in Shanxi, I realized that only my family can't leave us." "Without Huobi, everyone will have Binance and OK. If everyone is disappointed, I'm sorry."

Huobi's model is similar to Bybit's, which is to completely cut off users in mainland China and focus on overseas markets. However, the difference is that Bybit focused on overseas markets from the beginning, and developed slightly in China in the middle, but then stopped domestic development; Huobi became the absolute number one in the Chinese region, and then completely cleared tens of millions of users and moved to overseas markets as a startup.

At the same time, Huobi's senior personnel are also undergoing drastic changes. After Li Lin and COO Zhu Jiawei returned from Shanxi, Zhu Jiawei gradually retired from the management, and personnel from related factions also left one after another. Some employees joined the well-developed Bybit, and some employees chose to start their own businesses. Qi Ye, the former CEO of Huobi Global Station, is suspected of leaving, Cao Fei, the head of Huobi Mining Pool, left, and Ciara, the head of Huobi Asset Center, also announced his resignation on December 13. The (not entirely accurate) executive structure diagram disclosed in 2020 has undergone a major change.

Huobi's top management has formed a decision-making committee with Li Lin as the leader, the former CTO as the general manager, and Du (in charge of marketing, etc.) and Lan (in charge of backend, etc.) as assistants. Currently, Huobi focuses on emerging markets such as Southeast Asia, Turkey, Russia, and Africa, and has accumulated millions of users.