Tron Founder Justin Sun Says Huobi Trying to Raise Funds From Stake Buyers Is April Fool's Prank

Bloomberg has reported that Justin Sun has been negotiating to sell a stake in Huobi Global that he acquired recently. However, the Tron founder took to Twitter to dispel this as an April 1 prank.

Sun holding talks about stake selling, per report

According to a recent Bloomberg piece, the "adviser" at Huobi Global exchange, Justin Sun, who bought the leading crypto trading platform in the fall of last year, has been negotiating a sale of a stake in Huobi to raise funds. The information was received by Bloomberg from a source that requested to stay anonymous. Per them, the valuation for Huobi that Sun allegedly seeks is unknown, nor were they able to name any particular potential investors for the crypto giant.

The Bloomberg report revealed that even though Sun claims not to own any stock at Huobi, he has used as much as $200 million of his own funds to support the exchange this year. In November last year, he paid a staggering $1 billion to buy a controlling stake in Huobi but now he denies owning it, adding a bit of mystery to the connection between himself and Huobi Global.

This crypto exchange is one of the oldest in the market as it was founded nearly 10 years ago in China. In 2020, the market share of Huobi declined from 22% to 4%. After a ban on crypto trading was implemented in September 2021, Huobi moved its operations from China to Singapore.

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Sun denies rumor

In a fresh tweet, Justin Sun stated that he appreciates April Fool's pranks but the reports about Huobi seeking to sell a stake are not true, he said.

He assured Huobi traders that the platform will continue to provide secure and stable conditions for their operations.

As much as I love a good April Fool's Day prank, I must deny the report that @HuobiGlobal is seeking a stake buyer. Rest assured, Huobi is committed to providing our users with a safe, reliable, and innovative platform for trading and investing in cryptocurrency. ❤️

— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) April 1, 2023

Sun plans to dive into crypto regulation

On Friday, the Tron founder tweeted that his term as the ambassador of Grenada to the World Trade Organization had finished. Sun voiced his plans for the near future to the Tron community.

He said that after transitioning his duties to a successor, he will remain in public service but will pull focus on crypto regulation and the digital economy as he believes that these two spheres are crucial to "the future of trade and development."

This is all happening while Sun has been sued by the U.S. SEC, which accuses Sun of selling billions of unregistered securities in the form of TRX and BTT tokens to investors via Tron Foundation and BitTorrent, while also creating a secondary market where they can be bought and sold.