Breaking: Seychelles FSA Issues Caution Notice Against Huobi Crypto Exchange; Denies Claims of Operations in the State

The Financial Service Authority of Seychelles issued a regulatory warning against Huobi Global Limited, the largest crypto exchange originating from China for allegedly claiming to be functioning under the International Business Company (“IBC”) FSA act 2013. FSA clarified that it had not issued any such operating license to the crypto exchange and never regulated the platform. The notice read,

The FSA hereby informs the public that the aforementioned IBC does not hold any licence issued by the FSA to undertake such type of activity. Therefore, the entity is not being regulated by the FSA nor has it been in the past.

Huobi on its official website still claims to be regulated under the authority of Seychelles under its legal statement on the official page that reads,

Any matters not covered in this statement shall be handled in accordance with relevant laws and regulations of the Republic of Seychelles. Where this statement is in conflict with relevant laws and regulations of the Republic of Seychelles, the latter shall prevail.

The FSA also issued a warning to investors to be wary of making any investment in the crypto platform as it could lead to fraudulent activities given the platform does not fall under the jurisdiction of the regulatory body.

Huobi Claims Similar to Binance?

The regulatory warning against Huobi Global is quite similar to Malta issuing a similar warning against Binance in 2020 where the exchange had claimed throughout its operation to be headquartered in Malta which eventually turned out to be false. The news came as a surprise back then, since Binance is one of the top crypto exchanges with revenue growing into billions. The exchange back then tried downplaying the incident claiming to be a decentralized organization with no physical headquarter.

Breaking: Seychelles, the headquarters of Huobi, China's largest crypto exchange, suddenly announced that it had never supervised Huobi exhange and reminded investors to be cautious. This is very similar to Malta's handling of Binance in 2020. https://t.co/993xHzu1S9

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) March 9, 2021

Huobi is yet to make any official statement on the warning raised against them, however, it won’t be a big surprise if they play it down too.