One of China’s top trading brokerages, Futu, plans to start cryptocurrency trading later this year.
According to an earnings call held on Wednesday, Senior Vice President of Futu, Mr. Robin Li Xu issued statements to analysts, saying that the company is working on applications for digital currency licenses to start crypto trading in the U.S, Singapore, and Hong Kong. However, in accordance with China’s ban on cryptocurrencies, Futu will not be able to trade cryptocurrencies in China as it will become something very difficult to deal with since the Chinese government is actively performing crackdowns on Bitcoin mining and trading. Xu specifically said that Futu would not be offering any digital currency trading services to any mainland Chinese users.
Potential Risk of Crypto
This week, the Chinese government also released a joint notice on its own official account on WeChat from its internet banking industry associations, warning citizens and financial institutions, and organizations not to indulge in crypto trading. Otherwise, strict action will take place.
Despite the recent huge crypto market crash due to multiple bans and Tesla’s abandonment, Robin Li Xu is still determined to offer cryptocurrency trading. It is still yet to be determined whether this implementation will bring any benefits to Futu, or it might end up really bad. Futu already has a nice growth rate, and the implementation of cryptocurrency may still have the potential to bump it up even more.
Futu’s Ongoing Growth
Futu’s expansion into international markets has also been a catalyst to Futu’s increasing growth rate. The earnings call revealed that Futu gained an additional 270,000 paying clients. The surprising part is that most of these clients have been international, mostly originating from the U.S, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Futu’s revenue stream saw a growth of a staggering 350%, reaching around $283Million. This is the fifth straight quarter that Futu has maintained a 100% growth rate. The global user base of Futu has also reached about 14Million with trading volumes reaching an overwhelming $289Billion.
Cryptocurrency popularity has topped many charts worldwide. The recognition and trading volumes have grown to an extreme level. The Asian cryptocurrency space still has a lot of potentials to grow. Seeing this as a great opportunity to grow, Futu intends to develop an early user base that can have major contributions to its international growth rate.