Exclusive: Wu learned that Huobi, China's largest exchange, is trying to acquire Japan's largest exchange Bitflyer and Korea's largest exchange Bithumb. The price of Bitflyer is US$500 million. However, as Huobi is investigated by the Chinese government, both will be suspended.

Bitflyer is Japan's largest crypto exchange with 2.5 million users. Bithumb is South Korea's largest cryptoexchange. According to Coingecko's spot data, Bithumb ranked 12th, Bitflyer ranked 19th, and Huobi ranked 7th.

The globalization of Huobi is relatively slow. Most are Chinese employees. Investment, users and revenue mainly come from China. In November 2019, Huobi announced its withdrawal from the US market. Japan and South Korea are the only remaining international market parts.

Huobi also recognizes the risk of relying too much on the Chinese market, so it is very urgent to expand overseas markets. But Japan and South Korea are not a good investment target. Their users are very closed, and the government has super strict supervision.

This also shows that Huobi's financial situation is very good. With the rapid rise of Huobi Contract derivatives and other businesses this year, a large amount of profits can be used for acquisitions. Bloomberg once disclosed that Huobi's revenue in 2019 was approximately $680m..

...the profit margin is estimated to be 50% or higher. Due to the sharp rise in currency prices this year, Huobi's revenue is expected to rise by more than 50%.

Both acquisition negotiations lasted for a while, but due to the sudden investigation in early November, both acquisitions will be suspended until the Chinese government's investigation end. Founder of Huobi is not allowed to leave China since 2017.