Huobi Shutting Down in Thailand Following Agency Ruling

Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revoked the operating license of cryptocurrency exchange Huobi Thailand on Wednesday, prompting the company to say it will soon cease operations in the country.

In a statement posted to Huobi’s website, the company explained it will close the platform down permanently on July 1 and is working to contact its customers so that they can withdraw their assets from the exchange before it’s too late. According to data from CoinMarketCap, Huobi Global is a top-ten exchange, conducting $2.3 billion in trading volume over the past 24 hours.

“We are sorry our journey has come to the end,” said Huobi Thailand, adding, “We sincerely thank you for your long support.”

Huobi’s short-lived Thailand venture

Huobi’s venture in Thailand was a relatively short-lived one; the company launched its platform in the country just over two years prior in late February of 2020, according to its parent company’s website. And its services had been suspended since early September of last year following a ruling from Thailand’s SEC.

The agency cited a failure to comply with rules and regulations it holds exchanges operating in Thailand accountable to in revoking its license, after the company asked for an extension to fix issues identified by Thailand’s SEC that included trading, information technology systems and customer asset retention on Huobi Thailand’s exchange.

During the review period, the company was required to return assets to its customers, and while the company said it’s undertaken its “best efforts” to do so, Huobi Thailand said there are “still an amount of out of reach customers” which the company hasn’t been able to make contact with.

Once the exchange is permanently closed, customers will have no way of reclaiming assets that were on the exchange and “Huobi Thailand will no longer have any connections nor legal bindings with Huobi Group and its affiliates,” the company’s blog post states.

It provided contact information for customers to reach the company via email or using the encrypted messaging service Telegram.

It’s not the first time Huobi has had to remove itself from a country. Parent company Huobi Technology Holdings Ltd. was required to disable trading for customers in the U.S. because of laws and regulations regarding cryptocurrency assets, the company said in a blog post in November of 2019. 

The exchange was also forced out of China amid a crackdown on the crypto industry that took place last year, costing Huobi about 30% of its revenue, according to Huobi co-founder Du Jun.

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