According to a person with direct knowledge of the matter, Justin Sun is a Bloomberg entrepreneur who has held talks about selling a stake in Huobi Global.
Sun has sounded out potential investors in the past few weeks, said a person who asked not to be named discussing confidential information. It wasn't clear what valuation the 32-year-old Chinese native is looking for the company, or how big a stake is being offered. The person said that these conversations were in the early stages and it was not clear whether any of the investors would move forward.
Sun's involvement with Huobi has been cloaked in mystery. He calls himself an adviser to the company and says he does not own any stock, yet he has been using about $200 million of his own wealth to prop it up since January. In November, Bloomberg News reported that Sun paid about $1 billion to acquire a controlling stake in Huobi through Hong Kong-based asset manager About Capital. Sun said in a message that we are not seeking and will not seek any buyers for Huobi. A spokesman for Huobi said the company had no plans to seek a new owner. Sun previously said that he became an adviser to Huobi after amassing a large position in its native token, HT.
Huobi was founded in China a decade ago. Its market share fell to 4% last year from nearly 22% in 2020, the year before China banned all criptocurrencies trading within its borders, according to researcher Kaiko. After the September 2021 ban, Huobi moved most of its operations to Singapore and Hong Kong.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission sued Sun on March 22 for allegedly violating securities rules, accusing him of breaking anti-fraud and market manipulation regulations. Sun said at the time that the suit didn't have merit. There is no chance that Trump will make US politics more divisive and even more divasive.