East to West: Huobi Launches US Dollar Gateway for Global Crypto Traders

In 2019, the Singapore-based exchange conglomerate Huobi Group is prioritizing Wall Street partnerships for the first time.

Since it was founded six years ago, Huobi Group has come to dominate several global crypto exchange markets, thanks in part to its popularity among deep-pocketed Chinese traders.

According to company officials, Huobi Group has managed $1 trillion in accumulative turnover, or annual net sales.

Now the U.S.-based sister exchange HBUS - a separate entity primarily funded by Huobi Global CEO Leon Li - is leveraging its global network for an unprecedented push into North America that's beginning with a partnership with Prime Trust, a Nevada trust company, that will provide fiat deposit and withdrawal services for its exchange users.

Even if those partnerships don't pan out, diverse crypto options with fiat liquidity could be a game-changer for HBUS, which Fu said has roughly 60,000 U.S.-based account holders, in addition to a few dozen Chinese users on-boarded through a partnership with Huobi Global.

Huobi's new global asset flows could indirectly give Chinese traders the ability to convert yuan for cryptocurrency through Huobi Global's OTC desk, then send the cryptocurrency to the U.S.-based exchange to cash out in USD. Lester Li, Huobi Global's head of London operations, told CoinDesk he estimates between 50 and 200 of the global platform's institutional clients are companies run by Chinese founders but based abroad in order to avoid China's stringent compliance standards and capital controls.

Huobi Global already has a banking partner in Australia, Goldfields Money.

Separately, Huobi's OTC desk works with Signature Bank in New York, but the relationship is strictly at the wholesale level, as the institution did not want to handle the exchange's retail customers, a person familiar with the situation said.

Beyond Chinese users, the U.S.-based exchange aims to be a compliance-centric portal for Huobi Global's estimated 13 million users worldwide.

"We will start from the U.S. but our vision is to provide a global services platform," Fu said.