Huobi US shuts down, gives crypto traders 7 weeks to withdraw all funds

U.S. customers of cryptocurrency exchange Huobi are getting the boot—again.

Over the weekend, the firm’s US exchange HBUS announced on its website that it will be shutting down, ceasing all operations “so that it can return in a more integrated and impactful fashion as part of its ongoing strategic layout.”

Services on the San Francisco-based HBUS will cease on December 15, though US customers will still be able to access their accounts until January 31, 2020. Huobi US has asked that its clients withdraw all funds by that time.

Prior to the move, HBUS’s parent company, the Singapore-based Huobi Global, told its US customers just weeks ago that it would be freezing all assets belonging to US clients as a means of complying with regulators. Huobi Global, at the time, encourages all US customers to transfer their accounts over to HBUS in order to continue utilizing Huobi services.

The company gave its US clients until November 13 to withdraw funds, reflecting a change in the exchange’s terms of services that made it so customers in the United States were no longer permitted to use the Singapore-based exchange.

It was a maneuver that mirrored the way Binance, the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange by volume, handled its transition into the United States. The Malta-based exchange took similar steps to disable all services offered to U.S. users in September before opening its own American branch, Binance.US.

The difference, though, is that Binance.US remains active and is chipping away at the US crypto market currently dominated by Coinbase. At the moment, it’s unclear if Huobi has plans to re-open its US exchange in the future—and if so, when. Representatives for Huobi US did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for clarification.