Huobi Cloud Wallet no more: Exchange pulls plug

on DeFi multi-token wallet

Huobi has announced the impending closure of its Huobi Cloud Wallet service, citing strategic adjustments for the move.

Cryptocurrency exchange Huobi has announced that it will discontinue its Huobi Cloud Wallet platform in May 2023, citing “strategic and product adjustments.“

As per an announcement on Huobi’s support page, maintenance and upgrades of the multi- token wallet service will officially stop on Feb. 13. Users that are still using the cloud wallet are being encouraged to transfer cryptocurrency and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to their main Huobi accounts or other wallet addresses.

Huobi Cloud Wallet’s withdrawal and transfer functions will work for the next three months, while users are cautioned not to transfer digital assets to their cloud wallet. Huobi Cloud Wallet’s official decommission date is May 13, 2023.

Huobi Wallet was rebranded to iToken in May 2022 following a $200 million investment from Huobi Group. The Huobi Cloud Wallet was originally launched in October 2021 as a feature of Huobi Wallet, allowing users to manage digital assets without private keys.

The provision of a custodial wallet service was aimed at driving easier access to decentralized finance (DeFi) applications and services. Huobi Cloud Wallet allowed users to hold tokens without managing private keys, with a third-party management system keeping users’ private keys in escrow.

Binance Says BUSD

February has been a great month for the narrative that crypto’s natural home is in Asia.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s attack on crypto has continued for a second week. Just as Asia got to work on Monday, the Wall Street Journal had a bombshell: the SEC was going after

Binance-branded stablecoin BUSD. Going after BUSD might seem like a strange tactic to some observers. While the stablecoin wears Binance’s branding, it's issued by Paxos and regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services. As opposed to Tether, which fought in court to keep what’s backing USDT a secret, BUSD is the right way to do a stablecoin.

Traders reacted to the reports starting Asian morning hours on Monday, with BNB Chain's native BNB tokens sliding 7% and BUSD seeing some $52 million in inflows to exchanges - a sign of bearish sentiment, data firms like

CryptoQuant said.

Sources close to the matter say the whole thing came without warning. But that’s not good enough for the SEC.

The regulator has placed a curse on it - the Howey Test - a 1933 U.S. Supreme Court case that determined that If a transaction is found to be an investment contract, it’s considered a security.

To be sure, there is an argument – an ancient one in crypto years –that stablecoins are securities.