HTX Review: Fees, Security and the Huobi Legacy, Tested Hands-On

HTX started in 2013 as Huobi, once one of the three biggest exchanges in China. After a 2022 change of control that Bloomberg ties to Justin Sun, it rebranded in September 2023, and within two months of the rebrand platforms linked to Sun were hacked four times. It still serves over 55 million users across 160+ countries, with 815 coins, futures leverage up to 200x and one of the longest Proof of Reserves records in the industry. I ran registration, KYC, deposits, trading and withdrawals end to end before writing this review.

Our verdict: 6.0/10 — the cheapest native BTC withdrawals among major exchanges, on an exchange with no tier-1 license anywhere and the whole EU closed.

Fees

This is HTX’s biggest weakness. Base spot fees are 0.20% maker / 0.20% taker, double the standard: Binance, OKX, Bybit, KuCoin and Bitget all charge 0.10% on a taker trade. On a $1,000 trade, that's $2 versus $1 at competitors. Holding the native HTX token gives a 25% discount, bringing the effective rate to 0.15%. A referral code at signup adds another 20%, and it stacks with the token discount: 0.20% → 0.15% (with HTX) → about 0.12% (with the code). That gets close to the 0.10% standard at competitors, though it still doesn’t make HTX the cheapest on spot. What the code saves at your own volume is in the calculator on our HTX referral code page.

Futures fees are 0.02% maker / 0.06% taker (USDT-M). How that compares:

Where HTX wins is withdrawals. On the native Bitcoin network it charges about 0.000016 BTC, against roughly 0.0002 BTC at Binance and OKX. Withdraw once a month for a year and you pay about 0.0002 BTC in total on HTX, a single withdrawal’s worth at Binance. The edge holds only on the Bitcoin network itself: if you can take wrapped BTC on another chain, OKX over Aptos and KuCoin over BEP-20 are cheaper still. ETH on ERC-20 runs about 0.0021 ETH, USDT on TRC-20 is 1 USDT, and on BEP-20 around 0.3–0.5 USDT.

Security

HTX’s recent security history is a more honest guide than its feature list. 2023 was a rough year, with two significant incidents.

September 2023: 4,999 ETH (~$7.9M) was drained from a hot wallet through a compromised private key. The full amount was recovered on October 7, 2023 after a 5% white-hat bounty was offered; no users lost funds.

November 2023: the HECO bridge was exploited for ~$86.6M, with another ~$12M drained from hot wallets in the same window. The attack is attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group; the funds were laundered through Tornado Cash and never recovered. Justin Sun pledged compensation from company reserves. In the weeks after the hack, net outflows hit ~$258M, a serious blow to trust.

November wasn’t an isolated week. On November 10, twelve days before the HECO breach, Poloniex, another exchange tied to Sun, lost over $100M to what looked like a private-key compromise. Counting HTX’s September loss, platforms linked to Sun were hit four times in two months, for more than $200M. Lazarus Group, the suspect in the HECO case, is the same group blamed for Bybit’s $1.5B loss in 2025.

For EU readers the situation is simple. HTX never applied for a MiCA license and now lists every EU member state among its restricted jurisdictions, with all services closed — not just derivatives. Existing balances aren’t frozen, but new business is off, and anyone still holding funds there should plan the exit rather than wait.

What protects your funds today

• $250M BitGo custodial insurance.
• A 20,000 BTC Security Reserve, announced by Huobi in 2018.
• 90-98% of funds in cold storage with multi-signature.
• A CER.live AA rating (86/100) and CertiK Skynet 84.40.

There has been no publicly reported breach since November 2023, and HTX publishes Proof of Reserves every month. Read the June 2026 report closely, though: about $1.3B of reserves, including 99% of its USDC, moved to a third-party custodian HTX doesn’t name, so part of what backs your balance can’t be checked on-chain anymore. Together with the 2023 hacks and thin regulation, that makes HTX a riskier place for large sums than Binance, OKX or Bybit.

Justin Sun and the regulators

Officially, Sun is HTX’s “Global Advisor.” In practice, Bloomberg and documents disclosed in legal proceedings identify him as the de facto owner after the late-2022 change of control at Huobi. In March 2023 the SEC sued him over alleged unregistered TRX and BTT offerings and wash trading.

Since then the picture has split in two:

• The FCA filed a High Court claim in October 2025 over alleged illegal financial promotions to UK consumers, its first such action against a crypto company. The case is now in settlement talks under a court stay.
• March 2026: the SEC moved to dismiss all claims against Sun, the Tron Foundation, and the BitTorrent Foundation. Rainberry Inc. paid a $10 million civil penalty with no admission of wrongdoing, closing the case that had been open since 2023.

One practical note for users: HTX has a thinner compliance footprint than the tier-1 licensed exchanges, and funds arriving from it can draw extra review at platforms with strict onboarding. That usually means a source-of-funds request, not a block, but it’s worth factoring in if your main account sits at a regulated venue.

Verification and deposits

Registration and verification take about 10 minutes. Limited trading is available without KYC (withdrawals capped at 0.06 BTC/day), but most use cases require Level 2 (government photo ID), which unlocks up to 200 BTC/day.

• Unverified: email/phone only, 0.06 BTC/day.
• Level 1: name, date of birth, ID number, deposits and withdrawals unlocked.
• Level 2: government photo ID, up to 200 BTC/day.
• Level 3: face scan + proof of address, up to 3,000 BTC/day.

Deposits: crypto, Visa/Mastercard via Alchemy Pay/Banxa/Mercuryo/Simplex (2-4%), bank transfer (SEPA, Faster Payments, SWIFT, PIX for BRL), and P2P (45+ fiat currencies, 90+ methods, 0% platform fee). Internal HTX-to-HTX transfers are free and instant.

Where HTX beats competitors

• Cheapest native BTC withdrawals among major exchanges. About 0.000016 BTC, roughly 12x less than Binance and OKX; a year of monthly withdrawals costs less than one withdrawal there.
• 815 coins and fast listings. New tokens often appear on HTX earlier than on tier-1 exchanges.
• Zero-fee P2P. 45+ fiat currencies and 90+ payment methods at a 0% platform fee; you only pay the spread. Where card and bank on-ramps are thin, that matters more than the spot fee.
• Up to 200x futures leverage, above Binance’s 125x cap. A tool for the experienced and a fast path to liquidation for beginners.

Where HTX falls short

• Spot is double the standard. 0.20% versus 0.10% at every major competitor, and even with the HTX token and a referral code stacked it only gets to 0.12%.
• No tier-1 regulation. No licenses in the US, UK, Singapore, Japan, or Hong Kong; the registrations in Lithuania, the British Virgin Islands, and Australia don’t qualify. HTX never applied for MiCA, so the entire EU is closed to all services. The FCA promotions case from October 2025 is still open, now in settlement talks.
• Trustpilot 1.3/5 (80 reviews, 89% one-star). Common complaints: account freezes, withdrawals blocked "for review," scripted first-tier support. Big exchanges rarely score well there, but Binance has 1.6 and Bybit 3.1.
• App ratings of 3.7/5 iOS and 3.4/5 Android, versus 4.4–4.8 at Binance, Bybit and MEXC; it lags during volatile periods.

How HTX compares to alternatives

Bottom line

HTX earns 6.0/10 from us. Its real edge today is narrow but concrete: the cheapest native BTC withdrawals among major exchanges, zero-fee P2P and 200x leverage. Almost everything else needs a caveat: spot fees double the standard, four hacks on Sun-linked platforms in 2023, part of the reserves with an unnamed custodian, and no tier-1 license anywhere. EU and UK readers can’t use it at all. Elsewhere it works as a second account for moving BTC and buying through P2P, not as a place to keep savings.