Huobi Crypto Exchange Returns To Profitability In Q1 After It Restructured

After cutting down employees and benefits, Huobi crypto exchange allegedly made a $30 million profit in the first quarter of 2023.

Based on an April 10 post by Justin Sun, the de facto owner of Huobi Global crypto exchange, the company realized $150 million in revenue in Q1 2023 compared to $120 million in expenditures, which resulted in a net income of $30 million.

Sun insisted that “a large number of measures were taken to reduce costs and increase efficiency” in Q1 2023. For Q2 2023, he expects that the crypto exchange will attract $187 million in revenue and $76 million in expenses, resulting in a net income of $110 million.

Huobi was one of the biggest crypto exchanges by volume until the off-boarding of its Mainland Chinese users started in 2021. Its market share subsequently dropped from 19% in 2020 to about 2.2% in Q4 2022. Sun, who alleges to be an ‘adviser’ at Huobi Global, allegedly acquired 100% of the exchange’s stake from co-founders in November 2022 via his entity About Capital.

Earlier in 2023, Huobi Global is said to have sacked 20% of its employees and cut payment benefits as part of its restructuring efforts. A major incident happened on March 10 when the exchange’s native token, Huobi Token (HT), suffered a flash crash resulting in an over 90% plunge in its price within hours.

This token has since recovered a majority of its losses; nevertheless, one major user, who goes by the Twitter handle Lantian666, alleges to have lost $4 million because of margin liquidations on HT in the flash crash.

Dear colleagues in the crypto circle, I am the owner of the account that was forcefully liquidated for 4 million dollars on March 10th at 5:00 am by the Huobi platform's HT pin liquidation. I will continue to share all the details and what Huobi did at that time #ShameonHuobi pic.twitter.com/HzDf7xE2Gv

— nnn (@lantian6666) March 26, 2023

Lantian666 insists that they are yet to get full compensation from Huobi because of the incident despite allegations from Sun that all users affected by the crash will get compensated.