HTX Gets EU Red Card Two Months After UK's Yellow 🍟

The European Union has added HTX, the crypto exchange owned and advised by Tron founder Justin Sun, to its 21st Russia sanctions package adopted Thursday, listing the platform under its operator Huobi Global SA alongside 217 other entities in what the bloc called its largest individual sanctions round in four years. From August 23, EU residents will be barred from transacting with HTX, though the measure does not freeze the exchange's assets and stops short of a full designation. HTX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The package broadened the EU's crypto measures across multiple jurisdictions, extending the bloc's transaction ban to 14 crypto-related service platforms based in Georgia, Panama, the UAE, the Marshall Islands, Kyrgyzstan, and Belarus, while adding four designations tied to the "A7" cross-border network, citing its new links to Africa. The EU also raised for the first time the possibility of imposing a full ban on a third country's crypto services, framing it as a deterrent to jurisdictions hosting platforms that help Moscow evade restrictions. "We're hitting over a hundred banks and crypto operators," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in a statement, adding that, "With each round of sanctions, we squeeze Russia's economy and its capacity to prolong its illegal war." European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X on July 23, 2026: "I welcome the agreement on the 21st sanctions package against Russia. At a time when Ukraine has built military momentum, our sanctions continue to weaken the economic foundations of Russia's war effort. We're adding 32 more Russian banks to our transaction ban list."

HTX, formerly Huobi and founded in China in 2013, reported more than $3 trillion in trading volume in 2025. The UK sanctioned it in May, the first time Britain applied the measure to an exchange of that scale, flagging it as suspected of channeling more than $1.5 billion to the Kremlin and accusing it of servicing A7, whose ruble-pegged stablecoin A7A5 experts say Moscow uses to move money. The EU listing lands two days after blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs said HTX had "rebuilt its on-chain plumbing" since the UK action, cycling hot wallets across TRON, Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, and Solana fast enough that address screening "cannot keep pace." TRM had noted at the time that neither Washington nor Brussels had designated the exchange, a gap the bloc has now partly closed.

HTX has rejected the accusations. It told Decrypt the wallet activity reflected "routine, security-driven platform operations," and after the UK action claimed that Huobi Global S.A. was "distinct from the online HTX exchange," with user funds safe and operations unaffected. The UK's Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation emphasized that Huobi's ownership of HTX makes the exchange subject to the measures.