Huobi Token, HT, is up 18% amid a high-profile announcement from general advisor Justin Sun that the exchange has applied for a crypto trading license in Hong Kong. The last time Huobi Token saw such intraday price action was in October, when Sun's appointment was unveiled. HT currently trades at $6.1 per token.
According to the announcement, Huobi plans to launch a full-fledged new exchange in China's special administrative region, Huobi Hong Kong. The new platform will target Hong Kong high-net-worth institutional investors and individuals, and its operations will be licensed and comply with local regulations.
Hong Kong is for crypto
The announcement from Justin Sun perfectly coincided with the news that Hong Kong plans to allow retail investors to trade cryptocurrencies. To that end, a new licensing regime for cryptocurrency exchanges will be introduced from June 1, 2023.
There are currently only two platforms offering brokerage services for digital virtual assets in what is considered one of the world's financial centres, OSL Hong Kong and HashKey.
Together with Huobi Token, quotes of other Chinese tokens such as Conflux (CFX), Phoenix (PHB), VeChain (VET) and NEO have also turned green on the recent news. Projects associated with Justin Sun, such as TRX and JST, are showing modest but also positive momentum.