Huobi is among the most prominent Chinese platforms whose primary focus is on the Chinese audience and is based in Beijing, China, where Leon Li founded and established the trading platform in September 2013. Ideally, Huobi is a renowned global online financial trading platform that has gradually grown to provide retail investors with Spread Betting trading, Forex trading, Social trading, and Share Dealing trading. Huobi is a significant global broker; it can be highly time-consuming and difficult to get a reliable broker that meets and satisfies your needs when trading in the financial markets.
Here, we will dig deep into the Huobi review and examine how well the trading platform operates in its significant role as an international multiple financial asset trading platform for traders. Frequently, you have to visit and read through numerous broker websites, all of which have different language uses. It is not surprising that users complain that the wording can be very confusing because choosing an online broker like the Huobi trading platform can be a difficult task.
Content
- Huobi Account
- Huobi Trading
- Is Huobi secure?
- How can I get started with the Huobi trading platform?
- Performing with trades with Huobi
- Verification at Huobi
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support
- User Experience
- Security
- Supported Countries
- Is Huobi safe?
- Is my money safe with Huobi?
- Pros and Cons of Huobi
For beginners, the first few obstacles can come in the form of what comes up as a complex online or mobile trading platform that is entirely hard to understand investment technology and confusing fee structures. However, in this Huobi review, we break down what the trading platform has to offer, the pros and cons of being involved with it, what countries it is available in, and who regulates the Huobi trading platform.
Having a capable and reliable broker is vital to your success in online trading; therefore, it is imperative to ensure that your broker is entirely reliable and not fake to avoid losing your investment. Additionally, make sure that your needs significantly fit the profile of your broker, too, so that you can have a unique working profitable relationship. That is what explains the reason behind us taking the time to comprehensively review only the best and outstanding brokerage firms, their practices, their fee structure, and all other essential aspects.
With this comprehensive guide, we want you to evaluate carefully, assess, and analyze the Huobi trading platform to make a decision where you can trust your hard-earned funds with solely the best and safest brokers in the market. Investing online can be just as potentially risky as any other kind of typical offline investment. Like any investment, it is crucial to know and extensively research the company you are dealing with.
When trading financial assets with Huobi, such as Spread Betting trading, Share Dealing trading, Forex trading, and Social trading, you should have confidence in the Huobi trading platform and know that the management of your financial investments on the exchange platform is in excellent and safe hands. Moreover, it is a common myth that online trading is confusing; however, it is only problematic for people who have not done their due diligence. Fortunately, in this detailed article, you will learn crucial and helpful information concerning Huobi that will be more than enough to help you get started in the vast world of online trading.
Essentially Huobi claims to have hit a record amount of 380000 BTC traded daily on February 25, 2014. Huobi additionally owns a trading platform known as BitYes, primarily concentrated on international users and provides trading services in LTC/USD and BTC/USD pairs. Many recognize Huobi as one of the largest and most popular online digital asset exchanges internationally, best recognized for its wide array of features and high liquidity.
Huobi has wide support for numerous altcoins and a huge variety of stable coins accompanied by its invention(HUSD), a USD-backed stable coin. Moreover, Huobi has a token known as Huobi Token or HT. They continuously attempt to market as a utility token and strive to enhance its usage for competitions, voting on particular matters, fee discounts and more. Imperatively, Huobi’s user experience is outstanding compared to other altcoin exchanges, although it is not necessarily perfect.
The website is straightforward to navigate and automatically strikes a nice and significant balance between visually pleasing, functionality, and elegance. The customer service is ascertained to be quick and reliable. Additionally, there is a live chat representative who is readily available and quick to answer questions to the best of their knowledge.
From a majority perspective, Huobi’s performance is average since the numerous allegations that Huobi permits wash trading on its platform to inflate volume numbers take away the weight in this category. However, they can easily manage to attract potential significant volumes to their platforms, and a majority of the trading pairs they offer witness high trading activity compared to other exchanges. Fortunately, you can be sure that Huobi receives a favourable score even though a few concerns may be hard to sweep under the rug.
First and foremost, Huobi is incorporated and operated from Singapore, where crypto regulations are highly advanced and generously promote blockchain startups. Secondly, Huobi is capable of providing its users with several ways to safeguard their accounts. Also, while 2-factor authentication is readily available working with both authentication apps and SMS, the platform does not need any special or specific confirmation if the account is logged into from an unfamiliar IP address or location., and there is no option to whitelist addresses for asset withdrawal, permitting funds to be sent to any address input. It is imperative to note that Huobi was never hacked.
However, they do signify a lucrative target for attackers, and we strongly believe the exchange takes these threats seriously and continuously does everything in its power to protect the exchange from hacks that are eventually detrimental. It is worth mentioning that Huobi does store user funds in cold storage to restrict access to them. Huobi Global has entirely managed to build a successful exchange platform that strongly operates in the space for a long time, with its reputation steadily growing.
The Huobi exchange provides a wide variety of coins to trade across numerous markets, and numerous users choose to place their hard-earned funds and entirely trust the company because of their distinct proven track record and lucrative features outside the score of regular exchanges and their impressive team. Even though many may not agree with some of the business decisions Huobi has made, like minting an exchange token, Huobi’s rating stands to the impartial.
Certainly, it deserves a high score in the recognized ultra-competitive crypto exchange landscape. Huobi is still ranked within the top twenty cryptocurrency exchanges by volume today but lowers down the list than what was previously the case. In 2019, Huobi was establishing clear and significant effects to reclaim more of the market. Huobi has recently announced the launch of an OTC desk for institutional investors.
Essentially, Huobi concentrates on customer safety and security and a reliable and secure platform where they adapted special distinct security measures and procedures. It primarily uses offline cold storage, multilayer verification processes and collaboration which industry specialists and Goldman Sachs. Trading fees at Huobi amount to 0.2%, while the withdrawal fees and minimum depend on the currency and account type verified or unverified.
It is important to note that Huobi greatly supports fiat currencies and has special if not specific regulations for the deposit and withdrawal of USD. Moreover, it provides a VIP membership that is accompanied by a VIP fee schedule. The higher the VIP membership level is, the lower the fees get and the lower the VIP membership level is, the higher the fees get.
Unlike the rest, the level does not depend on the volume traded but purchased before with Huobi Tokens. Huobi accepts several payment methods such as Bank account, PayNOW, PayPal, SWIFT, etc. Huobi trading platform is straightforward and provides leverage trading where customers are required to sign an additional agreement.
Additionally, it exists as a mobile app and works with charts from the trading view, and unlike the rest, the Huobi trading platform portrays the statistics of coins and informs the trader about the coin. Furthermore, Huobi also provides two complementary ones like UTC and HADDAX. ADDAX, which stands for Huobi Autonomous Digital Asset Exchange, is more for professional traders. On the other hand, the OTC section concentrates on certified merchants that want rather anonymously to move huge quantities of Cryptocurrency.
Huobi Account
The user interface is easy and very practical; however, there are factors that one has to consider: the version of Huobi and the user’s geographical location. Huobi’s international site works outside the US, while American residents use Huobi US or HBUS.
It is challenging to find the right international website among huobi.com, Huobi.pr, hbus.com, and hbg.com, which is quite confusing for users. Regarding privacy and security, signing up on Huobi consists of two-factor authentication, which is highly important to prevent fraud.
Huobi VIP Membership Fees
Huobi provides fee discounts for their VIP trading group of traders according to their levels of membership since the higher the level, the higher the discount as explained; VIP 1 is 10%, VIP 2 is 20%, VIP 3 is 30%, VIP 4 is 40%, and VIP 5 is 50%.
Huobi’s Social Impact
Huobi Group announced its commitment to $1million BTC and fiat currency to UNICEF in April 2021 to abet global lockdown innovations and development to impact children. Through Huobi Charity Limited, Huobi distributes funds to the UNICEF Crypto Fund and UNICEF’s innovation fund.
Both funds focus on securing Cryptocurrency and financing open-source technologies for social welfare and children specifically. Similarly, the vision of Huobi Charity is to potentially shape the impact that crypto can have on the wellbeing of these children and societal issues like education, poverty, and healthcare.
A part of the donation includes seven BTC to the UNICEF Crypto Fund, estimated at $350000. At the same time, the rest will go to the UNICEF Innovation Fund to support the growth of a digital financial future fully.
Huobi’s Features
Huobi has impeccable, quick and reliable customer service that is ready at your beck and ball all 24/7. Additionally, Huobi has the following features; trading pairs, user protection fund, institutional trading accounts, derivatives trading, and margin trading.
Moreover, social trading and copy trading is readily available with the Huobi trading platform. Huobi trading platform also provides Advanced Financial Chart comparison tools and a Research-backed analysis of top analysts’ financial markets and investments.
Essentially, the Huobi exchange platform is readily available on several devices, including online through a standard web browser. Huobi provides a straightforward and simple-to-use trading platform consisting of tools for new traders and seasoned experts.
Huobi Fees
Crypto exchanges generally have different trading fees for market takers and market makers. The latter adds liquidity to the market book by placing an order different from the current market price. At the same time, the former eliminates liquidity from the order book by placing any order executed against an order of the order book.
Most exchanges usually only have deposit fees for fiat currencies; however, a few of them also charge you whenever you make crypto deposits, which are generally done when they are deemed small. Withdrawal fees apply in almost every exchange, and they commonly represent a fixed amount of the currency to be withdrawn. Imperatively, the largest Chinese trading platform has the following fee schedule where for US Dollar trading, it is as follows:
The maker fee is 0.1% of the amount successfully traded. For volumes traded in the last month or thirty days, the taker fee is as follows: for below fifty BTC, the taker fee is 0.2%, for over fifty BTC, the taker fee is 0.18%, for over two hundred BTC, the taker fee is 0.16%, for over six hundred BTC the taker fee is 0.14%, for over one thousand and five hundred BTC the taker fee is 0.12%, for over five thousand BTC the taker fee is 0,10%, and for over ten thousand BTC the taker fee is 0.08%.
Ideally, trading in the Chinese Yuan has a fiat fee of 0.2% of the amount successfully traded. Please note that the exchange abolished the no-fee policy in January 2017 to prevent the influence on the market and consequently increase liquidity. Importantly, deposits made in Chinese Yuan are free of charge while deposits in the US dollars are charged as per the following schedule; firstly, for an international wire transfer, it is 1% of the amount where a maximum amount transferable is $150,000, and secondly, with OKPAY it is 1.5% of the amount.
Next, withdrawals in US Dollars are as follows: for an international wire transfer, it is 1% of the amount where the minimum fee is thirty-three dollars, and with OKPAY, it is 0.5% of the amount. Withdrawals in the Chinese Yuan are charged per the levels where each level is reached when the particular number of points is accumulated or gathered, and points are gathered through trading.
For VIP0, which is 0 points it is 0.50%, VIP1 which is ten thousand points it is 0.45%, VIP2 which is one hundred thousand points is 0.40%, VIP3 which is three hundred thousand points is 0.38%, VIP4 which is five hundred thousand points is 0.35%, VIP5 which is one million points is 0.30%, and VIP6 which is solely paid service is 0.30%. It is crucial to keep in mind that withdrawals in cryptocurrencies are charged 0.0001 BTC and 0.001 LTC, respectively.
Minimum Deposit
Surprisingly, Huobi requires a minimum deposit of 1 GBP/USD when opening an Huobi trading account. Ideally, a minimum deposit defines the minimum amount of money needed by Huobi to open a new online brokerage account with them. Let not that brokers like Huobi, who charge a minimum deposit to open an account, scare you away.
Brokers that charge higher minimum deposits frequently provide additional premium services that are not available for free on other platforms. Additionally, brokers that provide lower minimum deposits are generally focused on a more mainstream audience that does not require more advanced features and research tools.
Brokers that do not charge minimum deposits do so commonly to attract new potential customers. Therefore, they have to make some way, so transaction commissions and other trading fees may be higher with a low minimum deposit account.
On the other hand, brokers that need a significant minimum deposit amount commonly provide a more excellent range of trading features on their platforms. These brokers frequently have more in-depth technical analysis and research tools and enhanced risk management features than the rest.
As more and more online trading platforms have entered the market, minimum deposit requirements to open a live trading account have decreased as a surging number of brokers compete for new clients. Depending on the type of trading account, it would be best to opt for some brokers who need a minimum deposit as high as 6500 GBP/USD, where some brokers can even go as high as 10,000 GBP/USD.
Withdrawal Fees
Huobi withdrawal fees significantly vary per your selected withdrawal payment method. Each broker has its own particular withdrawal rules in how your funds can be withdrawn from your trading accounts because each brokerage firm will have different withdrawal methods, and each payment provider may have differing transfer processing fees, a potential currency conversion fee, and processing times.
The Conversion fee is entirely dependent on your base currency, your receiving currency, and your payment provider. For example, Huobi will allow you to withdraw your funds to Cryptocurrency.
Inactivity Fees
You may not know it, but Huobi charges a fee for inactive accounts, where an account inactivity fee is charged to the registered brokerage client. Brokers may have specific trading activity requirements that clients may have to fulfil under the terms and conditions of the accounts.
If a client’s trading account does not have any buying and selling over some time dictated by the broker, an inactivity fee may be knocking at their door soon enough. Inactivity fees are not particular to online trading accounts since numerous financial service companies may charge inactivity fees. It would be best to check on the broker’s website and ensure that you are aware of and satisfied with all the services and fees you may be charged.
If you are no longer working with your trading account, close it with the broker’s customer support and make sure that you have a confirmation that any remaining fees are not due. According to the type of account you have signed up for, you can solely be charged an inactivity fee under particular circumstances.
As part of a broker’s regulation, they must be transparent and disclose any inactivity fees. Some brokerage companies may charge inactivity fees as compensation for maintaining your account on their expensive trading platforms in an attempt to claw back the revenue for the lack of commission fees from your trading.
Deposit Fees
Essentially, Huobi does charge deposit fees. You must consistently review deposit fees as some brokers may charge a fee when you deposit funds from your payment method to your trading account because the payment method you use to fund your account may accrue a fee.
The fee may be a fixed fee when you deposit a specific fiat currency to your account. For instance, fees are high when depositing funds from a credit card, and this is if your broker accepts funding your account through a credit card.
Huobi’s Commission Fees
It is also essential to bear in mind that Huobi charges a commission on CFD instruments. A broker may charge a commission fee as a service charge for facilitating the operations of buying and selling financial assets through your trading account.
A brokerage may make most of its revenue from charging registered traders a commission fee on client transactions. Commission fees can significantly differ depending on the trading type, financial asset type and what level of trading account you have.
Broker commissions are charged if the brokerage fulfils an order, cancels an order or even modifies the order on your behalf. If your brokerage does not fulfil a market order, usually no commission is charged. Nevertheless, be aware that if your order is modified or cancelled, your brokerage may charge a commission fee.
Huobi Trading
The exchange provides the following order types: limit order, market order, and stop-limit order. Besides that, margin trading is readily available in both LTC and BTC with five times leverage and a 24-hours fee of 0.1%.
The most exciting and captivating feature here is the Flash Trade function which realty incorporates chart index, order book, and market chart. Additionally, the Flash Trade enables real-time trading, most especially in times of high volatility. Moreover, the exchange does not support future trading and derivates.
Additionally, consider that different entities under Huobi provide different trading instruments because of the regulatory restrictions. The trading instruments provided may differ depending on the country of residence of the client.
You can trade a wide variety of instruments with Huobi over one hundred and forty instruments. If you are searching for Forex brokers to trade currency pairs on global Forex markets, Huobi provides a substantial amount of currency pairs.
Huobi is among the very few brokers that provide both MetaTrader platforms, which are MTR4 and MT5. Also, Huobi provides mobile apps for Android and iOS, making it easier to keep an eye on and execute your trades while you are on the move.
Also Read: What is Margin in Forex?
Is Huobi secure?
Huobi safeguards the personal information of its clients through a different technology known as SSL encryption in its mobile platforms and PC.
Huobi also urges its clients through its official web platform to always look for the SSL security sign, symbolized by a lock sign on the browser while operating Huobi, to ensure that everything is running smoothly and is secure.
How can I get started with Huobi’s trading platform?
When opening a trading account with Huobi, you will need to sign up on their official website. You have immediately received your login details by email, submit your identification documents for account validation, and make a deposit.
The consequent step is to download the trading platform of your choice. Also, you will need to offer some essential documentation to prove your identity as part of the Huobi onboarding and usual KYC identity checks. These checks are standard practice and significantly assist Huobi in offering a safe financial environment for over ten thousand users.
Performing trades with Huobi
Huobi permits you to execute a minimum of trade of varies depending on the account you open. Huobi also allows you to execute a maximum trade of varies.
As a market maker, Huobi may have lower entry requirements than an ECN broker who benefits from a higher volume of trades and usually has more considerable capital and minimum trade requirements.
Market makers usually have lower minimum deposits, more minor minimum trades requirements and no commission on trades. As with most brokers, margin requirements do vary depending on the instruments.
Also Read: Forex Trading Strategies
Verification at Huobi
The verification process on Huobi.com is slightly more demanding than average. The website is in Chinese and solely meant for Chinese traders; however, foreigners can also register and trade. Immediately after successfully registering and providing personal information, the user will have to verify an email address.
After the email verification is completed, the website inquires for verification of the user’s real name. The name provided by the user must be entirely identical to the name of the bank account user who wants to connect to the Huobi account.
This is most especially essential for foreigners because bank employees in China are prone to making spelling errors when it comes to the names of foreigners or even putting the names in the incorrect order.
Therefore, the name has to match on both accounts to facilitate transfers between Huobi and the bank. After the name section of the verification process, the exchange requires nationality verification, where users can easily choose from a drop-down menu.
For foreigners, a passport is automatically selected. At the same time, the Chinese residents have more options at the table, including a Chinese ID card, Chinese mainland driving license, a passport, military officer certificate, and a social insurance number.
Consequently, the user has to submit a selfie with the government document and a clear snapshot of the most recent three deposit transactions.
Additionally, mobile verification is required as well, and it is crucial to note that the exchange accepts two fiat currencies, which are Chinese Yuan(CNY) and the US Dollar(USD), and also accepts two digital currencies like Lite coin(LTC) and Bitcoin(BTC).
Ease of Use
The interface, as earlier mentioned, is aesthetically pleasing and is reasonably straightforward to work with.
There are two languages available: Chinese and English; however, the website is only partially translated into English, which makes it challenging to use for foreigners.
The website is responsive and fast, which is of specific importance to the exchanges with high liquidity like Huobi. Additionally, the Huobi trading platform also provides iOS and Android apps for mobile users.
Customer Support
As mentioned earlier, Huobi has an outstanding and impressive support team that can be easily reached by phone, email, SMS, ticket, or social networks such as Twitter.
The staff us very impeccable and polite, and willing to go above and beyond their means to solve a problem.
Typical response time is approximately two to three hours where they will get back to you with a detailed solution to your issue.
User Experience
Several complaints about the Huobi trading platform are worth mentioning, such as some users primarily claim that the trading platform is violating Chinese laws.
Additionally, there are reports that the exchange has taken money from its user’s accounts to cover or cushion the loss of at least five thousand bitcoins caused by employee error.
Security
Certainly, Huobi has invested heavily in security and even passed numerous third-party tests to provide two-factor authentication, email and SMS notifications and PGP encryption for emails.
Over 98% of the customer assets are stored in the multi-sig cold wallet, whose outputs are entirely limited to Huobi’s hot wallet.
The wallets are carefully monitored 24/7 so that the staff can communicate immediately in case of a breach.
Unfortunately, there was a time Huobi exchange platform was hacked however no customer funds were stolen or misappropriated.
Supported Countries
Numerous people ask if Huobi is global. The answer is yes, it is global as it is available in over one hundred and ninety-four countries and nations such as Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania.
Several countries can facilitate the operations of the Huobi trading platform, and they include Germany, Thailand, UK, South Africa, Australia, China and the USA in all states except New York, Alabama, North Carolina, Connecticut, Hawaii, Arizona, Louisiana, Vermont, Georgia, Washington, and all U.S territories.
Is Huobi safe?
When choosing a broker like Huobi, the broker’s administrative body and regulatory status are highly essential. Brokers who conduct and operate trades without the supervision of a regulatory body do so at their discretion and any capital you invest in at significant risk.
Huobi is regulated, which signifies that Huobi is extensively supervised by and is checked for conduct by the Japans Financial Services Agency(FSA) regulatory bodies.
Regulated brokers will not manipulate market prices; therefore, when you send in a withdrawal request to Huobi, this will be honoured, and if Huobi violates any regulatory rules and policies, their regulated status could be stripped, thus putting your capital at risk.
Is my money safe with Huobi?
Any payments processed to any Huobi accounts by traders are held in a segregated bank account, and therefore, for added security, Huobi works with Tier-1 banks for this.
Tier 1 is the official measure of a bank’s financial strength and health. Tier 1 banks are considered the safest and most secure regarding client capital.
Imperatively, Tier 1 is a term defining the financial strength; therefore, a Tier 1 bank has solid core capital reserves and financial regulators.
It is essential to work with Tier 1 banks since they can withstand unprecedented or unexpected financial losses.
Additionally, having any money you deposit with Huobi in a Tier 1 bank signifies that your funds are very safe in a bank that has enough capital to accommodate your withdrawal wishes, even if Huobi goes out of business for whatever reason.
Hence we can safely and firmly conclude that Huobi is safe and secure, and with that said, kindly keep in mind that you can lose funds when trading in financial assets.
Accounts can lose money because of either not putting substantial effort into researching the markets, lack of experience or not working with the tools provided by the brokerage platform.
While trading in financial investments, losing money quickly because of trading Forex trading, Share Dealing, Spread Betting, and Social trading are not uncommon.
The advice here to take home is only to take the risk of trading when you understand that your invested capital is at risk at any time because of the market volatility.
Huobi also clearly explains on their platform that your capital is at risk; therefore, there is no room for ignorance.
Pros and Cons of Huobi
Benefits
The pros of this largest Chinese exchange are that firstly there are no fees for Chinese traders, there is 24/7 phone support meaning you can reach the exchange at any time and anywhere as long as you have your phone.
Lastly, the exchange is accompanied by super high liquidity. Huobi is used by over ten thousand users and traders, which means it is a very trusted trading platform.
The trading platform established in 2008 and is regulated by Japan’s Financial Services Agency requires a minimum deposit of $1, making it easy and convenient for many to begin their operations with the exchange.
Downsides
On the other hand, the cons of this enormous trading platform are that there is minimal information in English which makes it very difficult for foreigners to use and understand.
The other depressing con of this trading platform is that there is a possible chance they are faking the trading volume, which is malicious and misleading.
Also, Huobi does not allow scalping, and the FCA does not regulate it.
