Two major Chinese payment companies – Alipay and Wechat Pay – have requested cryptocurrency exchange Huobi to remove their payment services from its over-the-counter (OTC) trading, according to a report by the local media agency Sina.
As per the report, both payment firms have sent legal notices to the Singapore-headquartered exchange claiming that the use of their name and logo on Huobi’s platform is unauthorized as none of them is officially offering their services or provide permission to use their trademarks on the crypto exchange.
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Huobi allows its OTC traders to upload QR codes from both systems in order to facilitate trading.
Huobi’s Response
Huobi, however, denied all claims and said that it had not received any letter and the use of the logos of the payment providers are merely for showing a payment link. The exchange further added that the no formal cooperation is needed with the payment companies as the money transfers are done in a peer-to-peer ecosystem.
This is not the first step taken on the part of both the Chinese payment giants against crypto transactions, as in August last year, Alibaba-backed Alipay restricted user accounts through which cryptocurrency OTC payments were attempted or made.
Tencent’s Wechat Pay also started its crackdown in the same month by blocking a number of accounts with suspicion for publishing initial coin offerings (ICOs).
Conquering Crypto
After its exile from China in 2017, Huobi has again established itself as one of the largest global crypto exchanges. It is expanding its reach across the globe and has opened an office in Russia following the extension of its support to the local blockchain firms with legal advice.
Last month, the firm launched Huobi Derivative Market (Huobi DM), the digital asset derivative trading platform, which turned out to be a huge success for the exchange. Earlier this month, Huobi reported that the trading volume on the platform has surpassed $20 billion in just over a month of its launch.
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