Huobi, the Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange, beat out Binance and OKEx by earning $483 million through commissions in 2018.

A lot of cryptocurrency advocates were burned in 2018 as the entire market plunged in value. Bitcoin, which had reached an all-time high of nearly$20,000 in December 2017, plummeted down to just over $3,000. Other coins had even greater falls. However, that doesn’t mean that money wasn’t being made. Cryptocurrency exchanges still turned a profit as people continued to trade despite the ongoing bear market. BitPay earned their highest revenue total ever due to $1 billion in trades occurring on the platform. Another exchange reaped a massive windfall in 2018 – Huobi, which made $483 million in 2018.

Making a Tidy Profit

Huobi, based in Singapore, found that 2018 was a very good year. A media outlet, Sporbiz, in South Korea reports that the exchange actually beat out Binance and OKEx last year.

The media outlet uses figures cited from a commodity specialist, Hwaseong Jae Kyung, for their report. He states that Huobi made a killing last year, earning 545.2 billion won ($438.9) million from trading commissions. This narrowly beat Binance, which earned $463.9 million, and far surpassed OKEx, which made $293.4 million.

While retail investors who jumped onto the Bitcoin bandwagon as the price skyrocketed were burned, those handling the trading came out smelling like roses.

Huobi Looking Ahead

Although 2018 was a money-maker for the exchange, they expect bigger things as 2019 rolls along. First, the exchange plans on supporting the BitTorrent Token (BTT) airdrop for TRON (TRX) holders that is expected to occur on February 11th.

Huobi is also looking at creating their own stablecoin and seeing more action from institutional investors to make this year a banner year. Speaking at an event in Singapore, Chris Lee, CFO and Board Secretary for Huobi Group, said:

2018 brought us huge challenges, but I’m personally optimistic about the crypto market. I do think we’ll see things get better this year.

He added:

This year will be huge for stablecoins and we will be a part of that. Likely Huobi Group will launch its own stablecoin in 2019 in the first half of the year.

Lee envisions a larger number of institutional investors entering the cryptocurrency ecosystem this year, which means more profits. He says:

I think 2019 will be a good time for institutional investors. We’ve really started to see growth in this area.

Overall, the Singapore-based exchange is practically printing money and looks to expand upon their already good fortune as the year progresses.

Are you surprised that Huobi made so much money in 2018? Let us know in the comments below.

Images courtesy of Pixabay and Twitter/@HuobiGlobal.