Huobi Korea Wants To Cut Ties With Parent Company, Operate Independently After Proof-Of-Reserves Report

Huobi Korea, the South Korean subsidiary of the crypto exchange platform Huobi Global, wants to cut ties with its parent company following its release of the Proof-of-Reserves (PoR) report in December, according to a report.

Huobi Korea, the country's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange platform, is set to detach itself from Huobi Global, operate independently and will have a new name, a South Korean news outlet reported Monday.

The decision was made after Huobi Global released the PoR report in December, which bred internal concerns after it stated that the parent company had more than $3 billion in reserves, 43.3% of which were in self-issued Huobi Token.

To sever ties with its parent company, Huobi Korea plans to negotiate equity ownership and will try to purchase all of its shares currently owned by Huobi Global.

Huobi Global co-founder Leon Li owns 72% of Huobi Korea's shares, which Cho Kook-bong, the chairman of the South Korean subsidiary and the owner of a major crypto-mining operation in the country, would take over.

International Business Times reached out to Huobi Global to get its official statement on the report and will update this story as soon as we hear from them.

The latest report about Huobi Korea surfaced on the heels of successive claims that said there's trouble in Huobi Global since late last year.

Earlier this month, Chinese reporter Colin Wu revealed through a tweet that Huobi is talking with its employees about changing salary from fiat to USDT or USDC and those who are not willing to embrace the said shift will be personally contacted by the HR on behalf of its adviser Justin Sun.

"Justin Sun's HR is communicating with all Huobi employees to change the salary form from fiat currency to USDT/USDC; employees who cannot accept it may be dismissed. The move sparked protests from some employees," Wu said in a tweet.

Rumors of Huobi reducing its workforce by 20% have been popping up online since December and while Sun vehemently denied this, a recent statement from Huobi's spokesperson Kate Li who said, "With the current state of the bear market, a very lean team will be maintained going forward," seemingly confirmed claims of layoffs.

The negative reports about Huobi impacted the performance of its native token HT, the TRON-based stablecoin USDD and Tron's token TRX.

As of 10:36 p.m. ET on Monday, HT was trading up 1.66% at $4.88 with a 24-hour volume of $10,745,418, TRX was trading down 2.52% at $0.05424 with a 24-hour volume of $295,346,075 while USDD was trading down 0.08% at $0.978 with a 24-hour volume of $22,595,371, according to the latest data from CoinMarketCap.