Huobi withdraws Beijing branch as Bitmain announces sale of Antpool

Cryptocurrency exchange Huobi announced the liquidation of its Beijing legal entity, created in 2013 to manage the platform. The information about this published in the National Enterprise Register.

On July 22 the company filed an application to dissolve Beijing Huobi World Network Technology Co., Ltd. The dissolution process is being overseen by Huobi Group founder and CEO Li Lin.

Representatives of the exchange, in a comment to The Block, said that the Beijing office “carried out no business operations, and therefore the need for it has disappeared.” The company did not specify the fate of staff based in China, but reiterated Huobi’s commitment to its globalization process.

During the trading session, Huobi Tech, another subsidiary of Huobi Group, plunged 21.88%.

Earlier Huobi suspended providing some services and products in certain countries, and also ceased hosting miners in Mainland China.

In June the exchange closed Chinese and British investors’ access to crypto-derivative trading.

Bitmain announced the spin-off of Antpool

On July 26, mining equipment maker Bitmain announced progress in the process of selling the Antpool pool.

“After receiving shareholder approval in the first quarter, all legal matters were closed by May 1. […] Antpool will independently develop its business overseas after receiving support from new shareholders,” the statement said.

Bitmain said it would focus exclusively on the development and sale of mining hardware.

In January 2021, co-founder Jihan Wu announced his departure as CEO after protracted disputes with Mikri Zhang.

Under the terms of the agreement Wu received compensation totaling $600 million, the BTC.com pool with the BitDeer cloud platform and mining farms outside China.

“Soon Antpool will be spun off into an independent company, led by Mikri,” Wu wrote at the time.

In February, online-lottery service provider 500.com Limited, later renamed BIT Mining Limited, acquired BTC.com.

In April the pool AntPool rose to the lead in hashrate over a 24-hour window.

The statements by the companies appeared after authorities tightened pressure on the industry. In May, three associations under НБК issued a joint notice prohibiting companies from supporting cryptocurrency-related businesses.

In the same month, Vice Premier Liu He said authorities intended to take action against mining and Bitcoin trading.

Later Xinhua News Agency criticized digital gold and its mining methods. Within the month, authorities in several Chinese provinces ordered miners to cease operations. Among them: Yunnan, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Sichuan and Inner Mongolia.

In July, journalist Colin Wu reported that the largest electricity supplier in China sent notices to all regions demanding to stop cryptocurrency mining. notices.

Galaxy Digital founder Mike Novogratz named the exodus of miners from China a “big plus” for the crypto industry.

Bittern MicroStrategy head Michael Saylor noted that the restrictive measures against Bitcoin mining in the PRC were a geopolitical misstep. He called it a “trillion-dollar mistake.”

In June it was reported that OKCoin liquidated Beijing Lekuda Network Technology Co., Ltd., based in Beijing.

In the same month, media reported that the former operator of China’s oldest Bitcoin exchange—BTCC—BTCChina sold its stake in Singapore-based ZG.com to an unnamed crypto fund in Dubai.

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