The addition of an in-house communications service known as “ChatMe”, a cryptocurrency exchange (Huion Crypto), and a US dollar-backed stablecoin (“USDH”) shows that Huion Guarantee is truly full-service. , wants to become a self-reliant platform. , Elliptic researchers say USDH's website describes it as “not restricted” by regulators around the world and says it “avoids the typical freezing and transfer restrictions” that can be applied to other cryptocurrencies.
In its work last year, Elliptic found that in its first three years of operation, Huon Guaranteed Seller Nearly $11 billion transferred On stage. After less than a year, researchers estimate the cumulative total to be $24 billion. Various extensions to the platform are contributing to growth, but ultimately its escrow and transfer services are the core service.
“With Huion Guarantee, the primary thing being sold is actually the laundering of the proceeds of online scams,” Robinson alleges. “The majority of funds coming into the market are in relation to vendors who are openly offering money laundering services who talk about the types of fraud proceeds they are willing to accept.”
Meanwhile, as trading has boomed, researchers say the platform's owner, Huon Group, has worked to reduce the connection between its association with the marketplace and other connected services like Huon Guarantee and Huon Pay. The marketplace has also been rebranded as “Haowang Guarantee”, although Huon Group confirmed to researchers that Huon Guarantee is still a “strategic partner and shareholder”.
“The Huon Guarantee Group continues to be used extensively on Telegram, with more than 139,000 users,” says Jason Tower, country director for Myanmar at the United States Institute of Peace. “Telegram groups are used to transfer large amounts of cryptocurrency at significant discounts. Comparatively, competing platforms have lost large numbers of users. This is probably a result of raid By the Chinese government.
Robinson says Elliptic's preliminary analysis found approximately $6 billion of transactions flowed through a Telegram bot, which is allegedly “used primarily for online gambling on Huon Guarantee ” Researchers' analysis suggests that it may also allegedly be linked to money laundering. Users deposit crypto into a wallet and can then transfer their balance to different minigames that exist in their own Telegram groups. However, the “games” are extremely rudimentary and involve no skill. Players place consecutive bets over a very long period of time, placing equal amounts of bets and leaving precise intervals between their bets. Robinson alleges that all this together “suggests automated gambling for the purposes of money laundering rather than entertainment.”
Despite Huon Guarantee's apparently too-big-to-fail strategy, Elliptic researchers say the platform is far from being completely self-sufficient. Robinson says that so far, Huion's stablecoin and cryptocurrency exchanges have failed to register significant volumes of transactions, despite some promotion within their existing communication channels. As the marketplace works to pursue change, its ongoing reliance on third parties may still be a weakness – at least for now.
“The Huion guarantee is still dependent on some centralized infrastructure, Tether and Telegram,” says Robinson. “I think there is an opportunity now to suppress it through those service providers. I think if we wait too long, they'll likely move to their own infrastructure and it will become more challenging.”