Huobi buys self-made Singaporean businessman’s licensed crypto exchange

Photo Credit: Eric Cheng

Barely four months after acquiring Japanese-licensed cryptocurrency exchange BitTrade with his hard-earned money, Singaporean entrepreneur Eric Cheng is cashing in on his investment.

Cheng today announced that global crypto giant Huobi has taken a controlling stake in BitTrade for an undisclosed sum.

He believes the deal is the “right step as we look to continue our rapid growth.”

Huobi’s chief financial officer Chris Lee says they plan to tap Cheng’s international network in their ongoing expansion.

Cheng is an air steward-turned-real estate developer who began exploring crypto investments last year. In an earlier interview with Tech in Asia, he shared how he sold his multimillion-dollar house and luxury cars to help raise the US$50 million he needed to buy BitTrade. That made him the first foreign investor to own a full stake in a Japanese-licensed trading platform.

Huobi is the world’s third-largest crypto exchange by trading volume. Launched in 2013, it moved its operations from Beijing to Singapore last year, following China’s crackdown on crypto trading.

The deal with Cheng comes as no surprise. Huobi had aimed to set up two crypto exchanges in Japan this year through a tie-up with Japanese financial group SBI. That plan didn’t pan out, however, after SBI decided to go it alone.

Tech in Asia has requested for the specifics of the deal, but the parties declined to divulge the information.