Seychelles-based crypto exchange, Huobi is once again rumored to be up for sale. Justin Sun, the founder of Tron — a blockchain-based platform — was reported to have been in discussions with prospective buyers for his stake in Huobi.
Many names have been rumored, with some being famous ones too.
Binance was reportedly among the names of the possible buyers. However, an anonymous source said that Binance has turned down an offer to purchase Justin's ownership stake in Huobi. Binance allegedly declined the offer to acquire their rivals due to the former's reported affiliation with mainland China.
In fact, Huobi was founded in China but currently has offices spread in South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and the United States.
Binance is reportedly eager to steer clear of any controversy resulting from China being a communist-run nation. Justin seems to be knowledgeable about this as he affirmed in an interview that he wanted to start a crypto exchange, Huobi Hong Kong and get it licensed there.
A recent Bloomberg report stated that Justin Sun had been talking to prospects who would buy. He rejected those theories of him wanting to sell his stakes, likening it to an April Fool's joke.
He also denied the rumors about Binance, tweeting, "I must point out that in the past week or so, I have not proposed any offer to CZ regarding the purchase of Huobi, nor have we even discussed it in the past week or so."
He also said on Twitter,
"Huobi has been a trusted name in the cryptocurrency industry for over 10 years, providing a safe, reliable, and compliant platform for trading digital assets."
Justin further tried to quell those rumors saying, "We want to assure our users that Huobi has no intention of changing ownership. We remain fully committed to building our platform and improving our services for the benefit of our customers."
Binance is not the only big name that has been mentioned in these rumors regarding buying the crypto exchange in question.
Last year, FTX CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried declined to buy Huobi.
A Bloomberg report surfaced that FTX had plans to purchase the exchange after the co-founder, Leon Li, held talks with SBF about selling his majority stake, which was worth $1 billion then.
In a tweet, SBF debunked such talks.
"Just to be explicit because apparently a lot of people are saying this: No, we are not planning to acquire Huobi."
Previously, FTX and Alameda Research – under SBF's guidance – had assisted crypto companies that had liquidity issues during the bear market.
He opined that both firms had "a responsibility to seriously consider stepping in, even if it is at a loss to ourselves, to stem contagion" because it would be "healthy for the ecosystem."
To that end, Alameda proffered a $200 million USDC loan to Voyager Digital and a $ 250 million revolving credit facility to BlockFi.
Huobi is the 16th biggest crypto exchange by volume. Whatever decision they make on their ownership could have an impact on the overall crypto market.
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