Binance announced restrictions on transactions involving 11 exchanges and platforms, naming HTX among them alongside EXMO and nine others. The exchange said deposits and withdrawals tied to those platforms may be held for compliance review after the restrictions take effect, and addressed the notice to all users without specifying a country.
Justin Sun, the Tron founder who acquired a major stake in HTX through an investment vehicle in 2022, pushed back on the scope of the announcement. In a post on X on Aug. 14, Sun said he spoke directly with Binance and that the exchange clarified the restrictions apply only to its users in the UK and the European Union.
"This matter concerns only Binance users in the UK and EU," Sun said. "HTX does not conduct business in the UK or EU, and settlement negotiations with UK and EU regulators are already in progress."
HTX rebranded from Huobi after Sun's 2022 investment. Sun sits on the HTX Global Advisory Board and said he is closely monitoring the regulatory proceedings. He expressed confidence that HTX will work with UK authorities to address their concerns.
The settlement talks Sun referenced involve UK and EU regulatory authorities. Sun did not name the specific agencies or provide a timeline for those negotiations, but said HTX is already engaged with them. He characterized the Binance restrictions as a consequence of those ongoing discussions rather than a new action against HTX operations globally.
Sun said HTX's customer service team is available to handle individual cases. If any user is affected during the settlement process, HTX will coordinate a resolution with them directly.
Binance's notice, as published, named no specific country and applied the compliance review language to all users transacting with the listed platforms. That blanket framing drew attention before Sun's clarification narrowed the practical scope to UK and EU accounts.
The inclusion of HTX on Binance's restricted list connects to sanctions compliance pressure in Europe. The restrictions tie to EU Russia sanctions enforcement, which has pushed exchanges operating in those jurisdictions to scrutinize counterparty platforms more carefully. HTX's prior identity as Huobi and its ties to Sun have placed it under European regulatory focus, even as Sun argues the exchange does not operate in those markets.
Sun's response is consistent with the posture he has maintained as HTX faces scrutiny. Rather than contesting the underlying regulatory concerns, he has drawn a geographic boundary: the problem, in his framing, is jurisdictional, and HTX's absence from the UK and EU markets limits who is actually affected by Binance's action.
The practical question for HTX users outside the UK and EU is whether Binance's compliance review language creates friction for transfers regardless of where those users are located. Binance's notice did not explicitly carve out non-EU, non-UK users—Sun's post on X is the source of that distinction, not Binance's published announcement itself.
