Crypto exchange HTX (formerly Huobi Global) has withdrawn its application for a cryptocurrency services license submitted just six days ago.
On February 21, HTX, which is backed by Chinese-born entrepreneur Justin Sun, reported the license application for its Hong Kong subsidiary, HBGL Hong Kong Limited.
The official website of the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) lists exchanges that are awaiting a license to operate as a virtual asset trading platform (VATP). At the moment, only two exchanges, OSL and HashKey Exchange, have already been officially licensed. HBGL Hong Kong Limited is listed as a company that has withdrawn its application.
The crypto exchange HTX has not disclosed the reasons for this action or what the decision to withdraw is based on. No comment was received from HTX. At the same time, Justin Sun wrote earlier that it would take up to 12 months to obtain a license from the SFC, and the cost of such a process is about $25 million.
Times have been tough for HTX and its subsidiary exchange Poloniex lately. The exchanges have recently experienced large scale exploits. In November, Poloniex lost $125 million when a fraudster withdrew more than 175 different tokens from the exchange.
In September, a hacker withdrew 4,999 Ether (ETH) worth $8.2 million from HTX. Justin Sun confirmed at the time that such losses would not be critical for the company, but were "within reasonable limits". Subsequently, it was reported that the fraudster had returned the stolen funds.
Justin Sun assured users that their funds on HTX, Poloniex and related cryptocurrency exchanges are "100% safe" despite the hacks, as the platforms have been able to recover from the exploits and have resumed withdrawals for holders of most assets.
"On HTX, we have already recovered 95% of the assets in dollar terms. At Poloniex, we have recovered about 85% of assets in dollar terms," Sun said, explaining that at HTX, the funds withdrawn by the hacker were only a small portion of HTX Global's total assets of $3 billion.
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