Huobi Lays Off Staff as insolvency Rumors Spread

According to a statement provided to Reuters, giant cryptocurrency exchange Huobi Global has reaffirmed its intention to fire 20% of its staff amid the current “bear market,” continuing a long-standing history of layoffs due to market volatility.

Speaking on the matter to the press, a Huobi spokesperson said: “The planned layoff ratio is about 20%,” adding:

“With the current state of the bear market, a very lean team will be maintained going forward.”

Huobi currently has 1,100 employees, meaning the layoff will see about 220 workers put out of work. This information comes after reports that the exchange had become insolvent.

On January 5, Justin Sun, the creator of the Tron blockchain who joined Huobi as an adviser and public face in October, took to Twitter to refute the claims. He stated that the company was “excellent” and that the “security of customers’ funds will always be properly maintained.”

火必基础安全能力强大，基础设施托管于国际知名云服务器，具备容错率极高的灾备能力，核心业务数据与技术架构不依赖任何中心化人力，具备自运转能力，安全底层强大，迄今已保持100%可用，十年无安全事故的行业最好安全记录，用户的资产安全将始终得到充分保护。

— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) January 5, 2023

The firm spokesman added that the layoffs were designed to “optimize the structure” and “improve [the] efficiency” of the company and that insolvency reports were inaccurate.

According to data from CoinGecko, Huobi’s native token, HT, dropped by over 11% in the past seven days to reach $4.64. The exchange has also experienced a rise in outflows over the previous week, and on the last day alone, its total trading volume fell from $443 million to $366 million.

Nansen Flags Massive Outflows From Huobi

Prominent analytics platform Nansen revealed that it has been tracking the transaction volume of Huobi, revealing that approximately $60.9 million had been withdrawn by Huobi users in the past 24 hours. This sum represents more than 64% of the $94 million in outflow it experienced over the previous seven days.

According to Nansen, customers with large wallet balances withdrew USDT and USDC stablecoins the most.