Huobi, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, has entered the lucrative South Korean market with the launch of a new exchange, called Huobi Korea.
The Singapore-headquartered company launched its newest exchange on March 30 with 100 coins listed, which can be traded in 208 markets (33 USDT markets, 98 BTC markets, and 77 ETH markets).
To make the platform resilient against the rising number of thefts from cryptocurrency exchanges, Huobi has taken a number of rigorous measures to make the new platform as secure as possible. Huobi Korea is storing 98 percent of its clients’ funds in cold storage to protect them from any attack on the exchange.
Moreover, the exchange has increased the complexity of internal access procedure of the funds. South Korean wing of the news agency ZDNet quoted an official of the exchange: “in order to open the repository, we have added security to complex procedures that require multiple people to authenticate together.”
“We are also creating an investor protection fund and run an investor protection program to immediately compensate for losses that are not investor error,” the official added.
Ambitious plans
Though initially launched with 100 cryptocurrencies, the exchange has affirmed that it will add more cryptocurrencies over time. The current list includes all the major coins include a fleet of altcoins.
However, the exchange is not stopping on this as it has plans to introduce trading against KRW as well. Despite South Korea’s strict policy of KRW trading, the official website of the exchange noted: “the KRW market is in the process of being prepared and will be available soon.”
Currently, one four major cryptocurrency exchanges in the country – Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit – offers cryptocurrency trading against KRW as banks are cautious to issue virtual accounts to smaller exchanges.
“We are concentrating our ability to prepare for the rapid opening of the Korean won market…All employees will work hard to provide safer and more stable trading services,” the official from Huobi continued.
Resurrection against all odds
After the Chinese crackdown on the cryptocurrency exchanges from its borders last year, Huobi was forced to shut its lucrative business in the country. However, it soon moved to the neighboring crypto-friendly regions – Hong Kong and Singapore – to restart its business. Today, the company expanded its territory in five countries – Singapore, the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong.
The result of the Korean inclusion is reflecting clearly in the exchange’s performance, as according to Coinmarketcap.com’s listing, Huobi became the second largest exchange in terms of trading volume lagging only behind Binance with over $1 billion trading volume in last 24 hours, as of press time.
(Photo: Huobi)
