Huobi Focuses on Expansion, Sponsors Contest to Send One Winner Into Space

Chinese blockchain company Huobi Global has kicked off a month-long eighth anniversary celebration that will include a series of events and prizes, including a trip to space for one winner. The celebration comes as Huobi’s cryptocurrency exchange winds down operations in mainland China after a government crypto ban.

In the flagship campaign for the anniversary, Huobi will offer one winner a trip to the “outer perimeters of Earth.” The company says the contest is open to all Huobi Global users.

Huobi didn’t specify the name of the company that would facilitate the space trip. Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and SpaceX are companies that are leading the race to put paying passengers in space. Last month, Huobi sent two crypto experts to the environment-focused Oceans 4.4 retreat in the British Virgin Islands at the home of Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson.

Back on Earth, Huobi will host its annual online industry forum on Nov. 8, which features panels with economists, government officials and crypto business leaders. The list of speakers this year includes former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

Global expansion will be a unifying theme to the anniversary celebration in the wake of China’s crypto ban. Huobi stopped accepting new user registrations in mainland China in late September. The company will gradually retire existing accounts by the end of the year.

Huobi Global has said it already derives 70% of its overall revenue outside of China, and its global expansion has targeted emerging markets such as Turkey, Brazil and Indonesia. Huobi gauges expansion success in terms of user growth and said it has started seeing strength in new markets it’s entering.

“In terms of user growth, we’re seeing increasing activity across Southeast Asia and the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] region. We only recently launched operations in Latin America, but the region is also showing a lot of promise,” Jeff Mei, Director of Global Strategy at Huobi Group, told CoinDesk.

Huobi continues to work toward its goal of increasing its global headcount to 3,000 by the end of the year, up from 2,300 in early October.

“We’re continuing to ramp up our global talent acquisition efforts but it’s also critical that we find the right people in each market. We’ve made some progress, but it’s still too early to say where we’ll land by the end of the year,” said Mei.

Read More: Ahead of Crackdown, Huobi Scrambled to Move Staff Out of China, Insiders Say