Once China’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Huobi has said it is relocating to Japan and South Korea – a move triggered by the cryptocurrency trading ban imposed by Chinese government.
Huobi, OKCoin, and BTCC moved their shops to Hong Kong bitcoin market in late 2017 to address the demand for cryptocurrencies from individual investors in Asia. Huobi was rebranded to Huobi Pro to operate in Hong Kong and successfully started processing large volumes of cryptocurrency trading. It also has secured a strategic partnership with SBI Group, one of Japan’s largest financial institutions, to launch a large-scale cryptocurrency trading platform in Japan and South Korea.
The official partnership document further revealed that SBI Group had acquired 30 percent of equity in Huobi’s Japanese venture Huobi Technology Japan Co., Ltd.
The partnership between SBI Holdings and Huobi is particularly noteworthy, as that would prevent any potential conflict between the traders on the Huobi platform and Japanese banks. SBI Holdings is expected to provide the Huobi trading platform with virtual bank accounts and robust banking infrastructure.
The backing of a major financial institution will also significantly help Huobi penetrate into the South Korean cryptocurrency market, given that Japanese and South Korean banks are already collaborating on several cryptocurrency-related projects.
When China accounted for the majority of bitcoin trades in 2016, Huobi processed more trading volumes on a daily basis than any other trading platform in the global market. As such, Huobi will likely be able to provide a trading platform that can address the demand for bitcoin and cryptocurrencies from high profile traders and institutional investors.
The emergence of large-scale cryptocurrency exchanges will lead to an exponential growth rate of local cryptocurrency markets in both Japan and South Korea.