Huobi’s over-the-counter (OTC) trading desk has launched trading services for Ripple (XRP) on the platform.
XRP has become the seventh digital asset listed on the exchange along with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Tether (USDT), EOS (EOS), Huobi Token (HT), and the exchange’s comprehensive stablecoin HUSD.
#Huobi OTC #announcement is now here!$XRP @Ripple will launch on #Huobi #OTC at 10:00 6 March. Details here: https://t.co/BsBc3KEN37 @bgarlinghouse #Ripple pic.twitter.com/cpCZjG0Cmv
— HuobiGlobal (@HuobiGlobal) March 5, 2019
Commenting on the listing, Livio Weng, CEO of Huobi Global, said: “The addition of Ripple is a big step forward in expanding our already extensive offering here.”
For the majority of fiats, the platform has set the fee at 0.2 percent, however, for four currencies - IDR, MYR, AED, and SAR - the maker fee is spiked at 0.7 percent.
“In addition to serving as Huobi Global's main onramp, Huobi OTC is also our main platform for users who prefer peer-to-peer trading. It's very important to our overall trading ecosystem,” Weng added.
Shifting Focus Towards Institutional Clients
To target the institutional clients, many crypto exchanges are now adding OTC desk services. Last month, South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb opened an OTC desk to execute block deals by high-volume traders. Other major cryptocurrency exchanges including Bitrex, Coinbase, Binance, and Circle also jumped into the business of offering OTC service.
Meanwhile, despite the year-long bearish trend, Huobi had seen a tremendous influx of traders as the exchange doubled its trading volume in 2018 compared to the figures of the previous year, Finance Magnates reported earlier.
Huobi also launched a digital asset derivative Trading Platform – Huobi Derivatives Market (Huobi DM) – last December and the trading volume in the platform touched $12 billion within a month and surpassed the $20 billion mark just a few days later.
The Wrath of the Market
The exchange, however, is not immune to the implications of the so-called “Crypto Winter.” According to reports, the exchange is planning to cut down its workforce, a popular trend in the Blockchain industry to survive the bear market.
Last month, the global wing of Huobi took over the operations of its Australian subsidiary citing “poor market conditions” as the reason.
