Justin Sun, a Huobi advisor, announced on Twitter on Monday that the exchange is submitting an application for a cryptocurrency trading licence in Hong Kong and will soon be creating a new Hong Kong-based exchange to cater to the needs of high net worth individuals and local institutional investors.
In an interview with Nikkei Asia, Sun stated that he intended to grow Huobi’s operations in the financial centre by hiring 200 new employees there by the end of this year. He attributed his decision to the Hong Kong government’s recently implemented crypto-friendly rules, which include enabling retail involvement in the market.
The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong released plans on Monday for a new crypto licencing system that may permit retail investors to trade specific “large-cap tokens” on platforms that comply with the regime.
The new licencing regime is anticipated to go into effect on June 1, 2023, and the SFC is accepting public feedbacks on the proposals through March 31.
Huobi aims to expand its business despite having considerably reduced its employees this year. 20% of the exchange’s staff were let go around January 6. In the hours that followed, Huobi Token’s (HT) value decreased by around 6% as a result of that news.
In the last 24 hours, HT increased in value by over 3% and currently has a market cap of over $963 million.
[Read More: Hong Kong Steps Up on Crypto Engagements, Issues HKD 800M Tokenized Green Bonds]
