Huobi Review 2020 – How good is it?

GENERAL INFORMATION

Huobi is a Singaporean-owned firm that was initially conceived as a brokerage for the Chinese market. Initially, they did not serve global clients at all, but have since evolved into a worldwide company. Right now, there are two brokerage branches in Huobi Global and Huobi Korea, and in this review, we’ll be focusing on the first one. When the company rebranded to serve global customers, it moved to Singapore, or more precisely to 10 Anson Road, #03-58, International Plaza.

In fact, even with the rebrand, things seem not to have gone too well for Huobi. Namely, many of their customers complain about poor service in English when dealing with customer support. Perhaps that wouldn’t be much of an issue, but it combines with a severe lack of information on its website. The mix creates a situation where you need to go in more or less blind, relying on the limited info you can get from third party sources.

So already, the brokerage leaves a faulty first impression, one that makes it seem unreliable and intentionally secretive. Further down the line, we’ll see that our first impression, sadly, doesn’t seem to be far from the truth. However, for now, let’s look at the main draws for Huobi:

• CRYPTO-SPECIFIC

Huobi is a rare example of a brokerage that decided to go all-in on a specific type of service. Usually, firms will provide various asset classes in order to draw in as many customers as possible. However, that ends up weakening their average service, often landing them in underwhelming territory. Huobi only specifies solely in crypto trading, which, at least in theory, should lead to a much better user experience in that area.

• FOLLOW-UP CRYPTO SERVICES

One of the advantages of being a crypto-exclusive brokerage is the ability to include additional digital currency features into your service. As such, you can make the entire crypto trading and safeguarding process much more convenient by bundling everything up. Huobi took advantage of that opportunity and integrated many features, such as mining and exchanges, into its core service. As such, specific crypto traders might find it more convenient than the average all-around broker.

• COIN VARIETY

Some crypto brokerages provide quite a limited offer of different coins, even though they offer a specific service. That’s somewhat understandable, as the vast majority of digital currency traders trade on a few prominent assets. However, that can make portfolio diversification and individual trading tactics challenging, if not impossible, to achieve. Huobi has a healthy variety of crypto both as individual assets and pairs, which is always a welcoming sight.

Funds Trading and Security

The previous section of our Huobi review might’ve made you think the company was worth working with, as the positives sound quite appealing. However, even the worst brokers have a few advantages, but they get vastly overshadowed by the negatives. While Huobi doesn’t fall into that extreme category, its issues definitely make it dance on the border.

The first red flag is that the company is unregulated, meaning you need to rely on its goodwill to keep your money safe. And it does take some measures in that direction, such as cold storage and encryption, but it’s not nearly enough. Namely, the company enjoys a resoundingly poor reputation among customers, with many complaints about thievery and malicious behavior. For example, a user complained about customer support copy/pasting the same terms and conditions clause over and over regarding a withdrawal issue. Even worse, others have stated that Huobi straight-up drained their accounts of funds.

There are also other minor issues, such as the broker requiring verification for withdrawals but not deposits. Overall, it’s apparent that Huobi is an attempt of a scam at worst or has very disappointing etiquette at best. The negative reputation and lack of regulation are enough to paint an ugly picture, but there’s even more.

The site was hacked a few years back, although there was allegedly no damage done to its customers. That exposed the broker’s technical security measures as flawed, but at least the results weren’t too bad. However, a sign of clear deception on the broker’s end is that many professional sources are convinced that it’s faking its trading volume. False marketing is a common occurrence in the trading world, and it seems like Huobi is part of the issue.

The Trading Accounts

Adding onto the pile of security issues we mentioned in the last part of our Huobi review, there’s a lack of info. That includes any information on what’s required to open an account or what that account gets you. The one thing that’s apparent is that the demo account is absent, so you need to pay to find out what the broker offers.

From user reviews, we’ve gathered that, unlike with some crypto brokers, Huobi’s account does have a minimum. We can’t be sure how much that is since the firm doesn’t state the amount anywhere.

Trading Conditions

Like everything else, most trading conditions at Huobi remain a complete mystery. The one thing that we can say with certainty is that the leverage is 1:5, which is quite underwhelming compared to most modern brokers. There seem to be fees when withdrawing and trading and many users have complaints about those being relatively high. One positive thing is that the firm does offer bonuses, which can serve as a small way to bolster your funds.

Additionally, the extra crypto functionality might serve some traders well. Unlike with many other digital currency brokerages, there’s an option to buy cryptocurrencies with your card directly. However, the spreads, account possibilities, and platform remain a secret.

Trading Platform

As we’ve already stated throughout our Huobi review, it’s unsure which platform the brokerage uses. From some wording on their website, it sounds like it’s a proprietary one, but we can’t exclude more standard options either. It’s quite unfortunate that you can’t even tell which software you’ll need to use before you sign up. Some good news is that the brokerage allows web and mobile trading, at least.

Huobi’s Trading Products

Luckily, we have a bit more info regarding Huobi’s assets than other parts of its service. It only provides digital currencies and their pairs, making it quite a specified brokerage. The total count of trading products comes in at over 200, which is quite solid, considering they essentially only provide one category.

Customer Service

Sadly, even most of the firm’s customer support info remains hidden. There is an integrated live chat option on their website, and that’s the only visible one. We have also managed to find an email and phone line, but we’re not even sure they still work.

Phone: 852-3616-0815

Email: support@huobi.pro

Conclusion

While Huobi does show some promising features, it holds itself back severely. By far, the most prominent issue is that there’s simply no way of knowing what you’re getting into. Before finding out anything about the brokerage, you’d need to provide personal info and deposit funds, which is, as it should be, unacceptable to most.

Aside from that, the service seems underwhelming from the information it provides. Underneath all of that, the firm has security issues that only seem to worsen as time passes. As such, we can’t recommend using this broker for your crypto trading needs.