HTX Exchange After UK and EU Sanctions: Russian Traffic Triples, and What KYC, Fees and Withdrawals Look Like

Russian traffic to the HTX exchange almost tripled in a month: from about 327,000 visits in August to 904,000 in September, according to Wu Blockchain's reading of Similarweb data. The platform has been under UK sanctions since late May and under an EU transaction ban since August 23, and in the same weeks Bitget shut its doors to clients with Russian passports. The coincidence is not accidental. A venue that Western regulators accuse of serving Russian payment networks has become one of the few large exchanges that still onboards Russian users with full verification. This piece looks at what the traffic numbers actually measure, what the two sanctions decisions mean for an ordinary account holder, how registration and KYC work, how rubles get in and out, what spot and futures trading cost, and which risks come with choosing this particular venue.

Key takeaways

• Russian visits to HTX rose from 327,000 (23.2% of 1.41 million) in August to 904,000 (18.5% of 4.89 million) in September; total traffic grew 247% and recovered the level lost after the UK designation in May.
• The UK designated Huobi Global S.A. on May 26, 2026 over alleged services to the A7 payment network and Garantex; the EU added HTX to its 21st sanctions package on July 23 with a transaction ban from August 23. Neither decision bans Russian users directly, but AML tools now flag transfers from HTX wallets.
• Registration takes a minute and a Russian passport passes KYC; unverified accounts can trade spot but face withdrawal limits and cannot use ruble P2P.
• Base fees are 0.2% maker and taker on spot, among the highest of the large venues, and 0.02% maker / 0.05% taker on futures, with up to 25% off when fees are paid in the HTX token.
• From July 1, 2027 Russian residents may trade crypto only through intermediaries on the Bank of Russia registry, and no foreign exchange is on it, so any offshore venue is a tool with an expiry date.

Russian traffic tripled: what the numbers measure

Wu Blockchain's figures describe website visits, not accounts, and that matters for reading them. In August about 327,000 visits came from Russian IP addresses, 23.2% of the exchange's 1.41 million. In September HTX received 4.89 million visits, up 247%, and the Russian share fell to 18.5% even as the absolute number rose to 904,000. Russia stayed the largest source of visitors, followed by India and Ukraine.

Context makes the rebound more striking. In May the site collected 4.33 million visits; after the UK decision June brought 2.13 million and July 1.64 million, with Russia at 24.8%, or roughly 370,000. September therefore returned the venue to its May audience, and the Russian part of that return was the fastest. For comparison, Russia's share of Bybit traffic in September was 27%, about 3.3 million of 12.1 million visits; Binance drew 34.66 million visits with South Korea as its largest audience, and OKX 33.23 million. Across the twelve venues in the sample, traffic rose 11.4% month on month to 150.7 million.

What pulls Russian traders here shows in the dates. On October 16 Bitget quietly added Russia and Belarus to its list of prohibited countries, halted trading and staking on October 18, and asked users to withdraw by October 21; we covered the details in our piece on Bitget's restrictions for Russian users. The search for a new venue had started earlier, as other exchanges tightened their checks, and HTX ended up on the short list of platforms that still accept a Russian passport.

UK and EU sanctions on the HTX exchange: what changes for a user

On May 26, 2026 the UK Foreign Office designated Huobi Global S.A., the legal entity behind HTX, together with 17 other companies and individuals tied to the A7 payment network and its ruble-backed stablecoin A7A5. The stated ground: reasonable suspicion that the company provided financial services to A7 and Garantex. For UK persons this means an asset freeze and a ban on any dealings with the venue, and under Regulation 17A UK banks may not process payments that passed through HTX or are destined for it. The exchange replied that the designated Panamanian company does not operate the trading platform, and carried on.

On July 23 the European Union listed "HTX (Huobi Global SA)" in its 21st sanctions package as a third-country crypto-asset service provider. That is not an asset freeze but a ban on EU operators engaging in any transactions with the venue from August 23; EU residents could apply for authorization to withdraw funds and close accounts within three months. A client with a Russian passport faces no direct prohibition in either decision, but the indirect effects are real: since the summer, AML services have been tagging transfers from HTX wallets as sanctions-linked, and an address that received funds from there can run into questions at another venue or a payment partner. We showed how such blocks work in practice in our breakdown of the 16 services Binance cut off.

From Huobi to HTX: Leon Li, Justin Sun and two hacks

The company was founded in China in 2013 by Leon Li, a Tsinghua graduate and former Oracle engineer. In 2014 it raised $10 million from Sequoia Capital; after China banned crypto trading in 2017 it opened offices in Seoul, Singapore and Tokyo, and in 2021 it stopped serving mainland Chinese clients altogether. In 2022 control passed to structures linked to Tron founder Justin Sun, and in September 2023 the venue renamed itself from Huobi to HTX. The exchange is registered in the Seychelles; its 2025 trading volume is estimated at $3.3 trillion.

Two episodes are worth remembering. In November 2023 attackers drained about $87 million from the HECO bridge and a further $12 to 14 million from the exchange's hot wallets; Sun promised to cover client losses in full, and withdrawals resumed. In January 2024 the HT token was replaced by the HTX token at a rate of 1 to 1,000,000, with the swap run by HTX DAO, and the conversion mechanics were criticized at the time for opacity. For a user this means two things: the venue has shown it can absorb losses from its own pocket, and any platform token here can be rewritten by a decision from the top.

Registration and KYC

Registration takes a minute: email or phone, password, confirmation code. Verification comes next, in tiers. Level 1 asks for country, name, date of birth and ID number; Level 2 requires a passport or driver's license upload; Level 3 adds a face check. A Russian passport is accepted, which is the main difference from Bitget and a number of other venues. How KYC on exchanges works in general, and which data leaked in past breaches, we covered in a separate guide to exchange verification.

Is verification required at all? Without it you can open an account and trade spot, but third-party guides put the withdrawal limit for unverified accounts at around 5 BTC per day, and P2P deals in rubles are unavailable without a confirmed identity. Verification is also mandatory for most promotions and for Earn products. The practical conclusion is simple: if the goal is to buy with rubles and withdraw to your own wallet, KYC is unavoidable, and it is better done before money lands on the account.

Deposits in rubles and buying crypto

There is no direct deposit from a Russian bank card; fiat comes in through the P2P section. The pattern is standard: a seller posts an ad, the buyer picks a payment method, sends money to a card or via SBP (Russia's instant payment system), and the seller releases USDT from escrow. Listed payment methods include Sber, T-Bank and SBP. Market depth trails Bybit: fewer ads, slightly wider spreads, and at a bad hour a large purchase has to be assembled from several deals. How such deals work and where the traps are, we described in our piece on how P2P trading works.

From there the USDT moves to the spot wallet and can be exchanged for bitcoin, ether or other coins. Market orders are enough to buy at the current price; a limit order sets your own. Liquidity in the main pairs is sufficient for an order of tens of thousands of dollars to fill without visible slippage; in altcoins the order book is thinner. Ruble top-ups end at this stage: inside the exchange everything settles in crypto.

Fees: spot, futures and withdrawals

The base spot fee is 0.2% for both maker and taker, one of the highest levels among large venues, where 0.1% has become the standard. Paying fees in the HTX token cuts them by up to 25%, and further reductions depend on 30-day volume and account balance. Futures are cheaper: 0.02% maker and 0.05% taker at the base tier. Perpetual contracts with leverage open after a separate risk acknowledgment; what these derivatives are and what you pay for, we explained in our article on futures on a crypto exchange.

Withdrawals are charged as a fixed amount in the coin, and fees here float: on several networks they are noticeably above the market, so compare the cost across blockchains before sending. USDT on Tron is usually cheaper than on Ethereum. Internal transfers between users are free. For futures positions a separate funding payment is charged every eight hours and depends on market skew, not on the venue's tariff.

Staking and Earn

The Earn section combines flexible and fixed-term products: staking for proof-of-stake coins, USDT deposits and subscriptions to new tokens. Rates change daily with demand, so the number in an ad should be checked inside the product before subscribing. Fixed-term staking locks funds for the stated period, and early exit is either impossible or wipes the accrued yield. What an exchange actually does with client coins in such programs, and how it differs from staking on-chain, we discussed in our piece on exchanges as a bridge between banks and DeFi.

Withdrawing funds

Withdrawal takes two steps. First move the crypto from the trading or futures account to the main account, then create a withdrawal request with the network and address. The exchange asks for an authenticator code and an email confirmation; a new whitelisted address activates with a delay, which is protection against account takeover rather than a nuisance. A small test transfer before the main amount saves money: a wrong network choice is irreversible.

If you need rubles, the exit runs through the same P2P section: sell USDT, receive a transfer to your card, confirm receipt. A transfer to another exchange or to a cold wallet takes from a few minutes to an hour depending on the network. A general walkthrough with the typical mistakes is in our guide on how to withdraw crypto from an exchange.

Reviews, risks and the July 1, 2027 rule

User reviews over the past year agree on three points. Support is slow, and Russian-language replies often read like machine translation. Spot fees are higher than at competitors. On the other hand, verification with a Russian passport goes through without trouble, and the venue has not closed Russian accounts unilaterally. A risk mentioned less often: funds sent from here to another venue can be held for review because of sanctions tags.

The biggest long-term factor sits in Russian law. In its clarifications of October 12 the central bank reminded users that from July 1, 2027 citizens may buy and sell crypto only through intermediaries on the regulator's registry, and no foreign venue is on that registry or will be. What exactly the clarifications say, we covered in our piece on the central bank's cold wallet ban. For a trader this means that any offshore exchange, HTX included, remains a working tool for the next eight months, after which its place in the chain has to be reconsidered.

Where Russian users go after Bitget: HTX or Bybit

If the choice is between the two venues Russian traders actually use, the picture is this. Bybit is three and a half times larger by audience, deeper in ruble P2P and cheaper on spot, but periodically tightens its checks. The HTX exchange accepts a Russian passport and handles rubles, but sits under restrictions from two jurisdictions and charges 0.2% per trade. A third option, MEXC, works without mandatory identity checks on small amounts, but its ruble market is thinner still. A comparison of every venue where trading can be moved is in our overview of crypto exchanges accessible from Russia.

A sensible strategy for autumn 2026 is not to hunt for one perfect exchange but to spread the load: keep trading funds on a venue that works today, withdraw the rest to your own wallet, export trade history for the tax return, and check rule changes on the venue's official site rather than in Telegram channels. The exchange that accepts you today can change its terms with an email on a Friday evening, and Bitget has just shown how that looks.

Key terms

• Designation: inclusion of a person or entity on a sanctions list; for UK persons it triggers an asset freeze and a dealing ban.
• Regulation 17A: the UK rule that bars correspondent banking relationships and payment processing involving a designated entity.
• Transaction ban: the EU measure applied to HTX, which prohibits EU operators from dealing with the venue without freezing its assets.
• P2P section: the marketplace inside an exchange where users buy and sell crypto for fiat with the exchange holding the crypto in escrow.
• SBP: Russia's instant payment system, used alongside bank cards for ruble P2P settlements.
• Maker and taker: the two sides of a trade; a maker posts a resting order, a taker fills it, and each pays its own fee rate.