Tron founder Justin Sun denied reports of problems at Huobi, stressing that users’ assets are safe.
火必@HuobiGlobal 近期业务发展势头良好，核心指标保持了高速增长，新注册用户数与资沉流入量日均增长率超过2022年峰值。并诞生了Pi、Bonk等首发千倍币，相关币种交易量均处于行业第一，引领了多个行业热点，持续带动市场行情复苏。
— H.E. Justin Sun🌞🇬🇩🇩🇲🔥 (@justinsuntron) January 5, 2023
On January 3, journalist Colin Wu reported that the exchange’s staff would begin receiving salaries in stablecoins rather than fiat currency, and those who disagree could be dismissed. At the end of December, his sources spoke of plans for the company cancel annual bonuses and to reduce its headcount from 1,200 to 600–800.
Justin Sun’s HR is communicating with all Huobi employees to change the salary form from fiat currency to USDT/USDC; employees who cannot accept it may be dismissed. The move sparked protests from some employees. Exclusive https://t.co/QB4sjDyHc7
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) January 4, 2023
Later, one member of the community wrote that Huobi allegedly closed internal channels of communication with employees. In his view, the situation within the company could lead to staff discontent and threaten users’ funds.
《重要提醒》
孙割火必今天已经关闭了和内部员工沟通群，封锁了所有和员工沟通反馈通道。这很危险，接下来不排除有内部员工造反直接rug走用户资产或者程序员添加后门木马。这类事件去年在多家交易所都出现过。
火币上有资产的务必火速提现有人，没资产的要卸载火必app，防止被自动更新成带木马版本。
— BitRun (@BitRunX) January 5, 2023
“If you have assets on Huobi, you should quickly withdraw your funds. If you have no assets, you should delete the Huobi app to prevent it from automatically updating to a Trojan version”, the author of the post wrote.
Within the community, rumors of potential insolvency at the exchange surfaced. According to Nansen, net outflows from Huobi over the last 24 hours amounted to $60.9 million.
In the past 24 hours, Huobi has seen a significant increase in net outflows
$60.9M* of the $94.2M* net outflow in the past week occurred in the past day alone
*Contains Ethereum, Avalanche, BNB Chain, Fantom, & Polygon flows pic.twitter.com/JV1Tg13QMY
— Nansen 🧭 (@nansen_ai) January 6, 2023
In a tweet on January 6, Sun said that “the key to success in the world of cryptocurrency is to ignore FUD and keep building.” He said that Huobi’s strategy is to “focus on the long-term and not be distracted by short-term distractions.”
But as a leading cryptocurrency exchange, our strategy is to stay focused on the long-term and not get swayed by short-term distractions.
— H.E. Justin Sun🌞🇬🇩🇩🇲🔥 (@justinsuntron) January 6, 2023
6 января Reuters со ссылкой на заявление биржи сообщило, что компания планирует уволить около 20% сотрудников в рамках сокращения расходов на фоне резкого падения интереса инвесторов к цифровым активам.
«Запланированный коэффициент увольнений составляет около 20%, но сейчас он не реализован», — пояснили в Huobi.
Представитель биржи в комментарии Cointelegraph подчеркнул, что оптимизация направлена на реализацию стратегии бренда и повышение эффективности. По его словам, заявления о неплатежеспособности компании не соответствуют действительности.
«Нам известно о комментариях, касающихся приложения Huobi и безопасности пользовательских активов. Такие необоснованные и подстрекательские слухи не только наносят ущерб имиджу бренда Huobi, но и в конечном итоге затрагивают интересы пользователей», — добавил собеседник.
На этом фоне цена токена TRON (TRX) снизилась за последние сутки на 7,8%, согласно CoinGecko. За неделю падение составило 6,8%.
The decline also affected Tron’s algorithmic stablecoin USDD. At the time of writing, the asset had lost its peg to the US dollar and was trading around $0.97.
In June Wu said that the exchange planned to cut staff by 30% amid a sharp drop in revenue after the ban on Chinese users in September 2021.
In the autumn, Huobi announced a rebranding, abandoning the official name Huobi Global, and also denied rumors of a potential merger with Poloniex.
Earlier, the company agreed to the sale of a controlling stake to the Hong Kong investment company About Capital Management. The financial terms were not disclosed.
According to Wu, the ultimate beneficiary of the purchase was Sun. This information was also denied — Huobi representatives said he had joined the advisory board.
As a reminder, on December 12, the Tron founder increased support for USDD in response to the loss of its peg.
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