The virtual coin known as HT halved sharply at one point before paring a portion of the losses on Thursday, data from CoinGecko show. It is down 21% in the last 24 hours amid a broader decline in the crypto and equity markets.
Hayden Hughes, co-founder of social-trading platform Alpha Impact, said the forced liquidation of highly leveraged staking “has caused traders to fear the solvency of the Huobi exchange.”
Huobi advisor Sun tweeted that the exchange and its crypto wallet are secure. He added that Huobi is setting up a $100 million fund to increase liquidity and that the exchange will “bear all leveraged-through position losses on the platform” that came about due to the recent volatility in HT.
#Huobi will bear all leverage through loss of positions on the platform as a result of this market volatility event for #HT.
– HE Justin Sun å™å®‡æ™¨ (@justinsuntron) 1678419836000
Crypto analytics company PeckShield tweets showing a wallet linked to blockchain data Sunday $100 million worth of stablecoin USDC was moved to Huobi.
The collapse of the FTX exchange last year left the digital-asset sector on edge regarding the health of the remaining platforms. The panic is part of a wider crisis of confidence in crypto, which has been grappling with falling token prices, other explosions, and an intensifying US regulatory crackdown.
People familiar with the matter previously told Bloomberg News that Sun, 32, is a majority shareholder in Huobi. He has denied owning about 60% stake. They have said they are the largest holder of HT tokens and in response to a request for comment said their holdings have not changed.
Sun is the founder of the Tron ecosystem, whose native coin TRX is a top-20 digital asset by market cap. According to CoinGecko, TRX is down about 12% in the last 24 hours.
According to Defilama, HT and TRX combined account for nearly half of the Huobi exchange’s total asset reserves.
Riyad Carey, research analyst at digital-asset data provider Kaikyo, said transaction data indicated that more than $2 million in HT tokens were sold on Huobi in the span of just minutes after the coin’s price plunge on Thursday. . Subsequently, several large buy orders helped HT recover some of the losses, he said.
Sun transferred nearly $100 million worth of stablecoins to Huobi in January to support the exchange after it was hit by a wave of withdrawals. Around the same time, Huobi said it was planning to lay off 20% of its workforce, part of a wave of job cuts in the crypto industry.
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