The United Kingdom has added Huobi Global S.A., operator of HTX, to its new sanctions list. London believes the company may have been linked to the Russian shadow network A7, through which, according to British authorities, money was moved to circumvent restrictions.
HTX rejects these accusations. The exchange insists that the matter concerns Huobi Global S.A. as a separate legal entity, not the trading platform itself.
At the same time, new data from blockchain analysts has emerged. They claim that HTX may have processed billions of dollars in transactions linked to Russian counterparties and other high-risk entities.
The sanctions were announced on May 26 as part of a new package of restrictions against Russia. The British government said the measures target crypto and shadow financial networks that Moscow allegedly uses to evade Western sanctions.
The focus is on the A7 system. In the West, it is called a shadow infrastructure through which money is allegedly funneled into the Russian economy.
The new UK sanctions list includes 18 companies and individuals. Some of them are linked by London to the A7 network. Among those listed is a bank from Kyrgyzstan and a major crypto exchange through which, according to the British Foreign Office, more than $1.5 billion could have been moved in Russia’s interests.
For companies on the list, this means asset freezes and bans on financial operations in the UK.
See Also: Echo Protocol Lost $816,000 Due to Admin Key, Not Code Hack
After this, HTX issued a statement on X. The exchange insists that the restrictions apply to Huobi Global S.A. as a separate company, not to the HTX platform itself or to users’ funds.
HTX also says it has long monitored addresses from sanctions lists and blocks suspicious transactions. At the same time, it considers the blockchain analysts’ findings controversial and plans to challenge the UK’s decision.
The exchange also reminded that it does not operate in the United Kingdom and does not serve local users.
Nevertheless, the new analysts’ report puts HTX in an awkward position. It states that in recent years, billions of dollars linked to Russian counterparties and darknet services may have passed through the platform.
Global Ledger estimates the total volume of such high-risk flows through HTX at about $21 billion for the period from 2021 to May 2026.
Of this amount, about $7.64 billion, according to the company, was linked to Russian high-risk entities and darknet marketplaces. The report mentions Garantex, its successor Grinex, the A7A5 project, the closed marketplace Hydra, as well as Kraken darknet and Mega darknet.
Global Ledger’s head of investigations, Vladislav Sirotin, said that the company uses its own risk assessment system from 0 to 100. For this study, transactions with a rating above 70 points were considered high risk.
See Also: Hyperliquid Launched Prediction Markets and Moves Beyond Futures
According to him, this category includes sanctioned entities, darknet markets, fraudulent schemes, and other types of illegal activity.
Sirotin also noted that data on address and transaction attribution is constantly updated and is based on on-chain analysis, which the company uses both in internal investigations and in work with clients.
The report separately mentions large flows of funds linked to Huione Group, the Iranian exchange Nobitex, Hezbollah and the North Korean group Lazarus. According to analysts, this may indicate a broader exposure of HTX to high-risk operations, not just the Russian direction.
At the same time, British authorities previously stated that about $1.5 billion could have been moved through HTX in Russia’s interests. The Global Ledger estimate is much higher; analysts now speak of more than $7.6 billion in Russian flows based on years of tracking bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether transactions on the Tron network.
HTX processed transactions linked to high-risk entities. Source: Global Ledger
In Sirotin’s opinion, the sanctions story shows that circumventing restrictions through crypto remains a major problem. He says that exchanges receive not only direct transfers from sanctioned entities but also money that passes through long chains after hacks, scams, and darknet marketplaces.
Sirotin also recalled that HTX continued to serve users from Russia for almost all of 2023. The exchange only introduced restrictions for Russian clients closer to the end of the year, in November.
Separately, Sirotin drew attention to another problem: compliance systems often simply cannot keep up with the speed of funds movement.
According to him, suspicious assets can now pass through swaps, bridges, and mixers in just a few minutes—faster than many systems can detect and block them.
Pressure on HTX in the UK Continues to Mount
In addition to sanctions, HTX has also faced claims from the UK financial regulator FCA. Back in October 2025, the agency began proceedings in the High Court against Huobi Global and related parties.
UK authorities believe the platform illegally promoted crypto services to British users, violating local financial advertising rules.
See Also: Bitcoin Is Trapped Between $74,000 Support and $80,000 Options
HTX itself disagrees with the accusations. The company again emphasized that the sanctions concern a separate legal entity, not the exchange itself. HTX also stated that it continues to cooperate with law enforcement and comply with compliance requirements.
According to platform representatives, the exchange continues to operate as usual, and users’ funds remain safe.
At the same time, Global Ledger claims that Russian networks linked to sanctions still continue to use the liquidity of major centralized exchanges, despite growing pressure from regulators.
Sirotin believes that HTX is no exception in this regard. According to him, even the world’s largest exchanges often become part of complex money laundering schemes.
He noted that such chains often use mining, stablecoins, cross-chain bridges, and long series of transactions between different blockchains to hide the origin of funds.
