Asian Investors to Expand to Europe by Acquiring ABCC Exchange

The Singapore-based ABCC Exchange announced on Monday that a consortium of investors for undisclosed sum had acquired majority control of the company, with a plan to “aggressively scale ABCC into a world-leading crypto exchange platform.”

The exchange is currently ranked as the 71st largest crypto exchange by reported trading volume on CoinMarketCap (USD 23 million in the past 24 hours.)

According to a statement from the exchange, the consortium is led by ABCC’s co-founder Calvin Cheng and the high-profile Singaporean investor Eric Cheng. The company did not provide any other details about the transaction.

In May of 2018, Eric Cheng reportedly became the first foreigner to own 100% of a Japan-registered crypto trading platform after he bought crypto exchange BitTrade for USD 50 million, and later sold most of the shares to the Chinese crypto exchange Huobi. Meanwhile, Calvin Cheng spearheaded a Hong Kong-based consortium to acquire the assets of BTCC, then the world’s oldest crypto exchange.

ABCC is headquartered in Singapore, but also has offices in Malta and Gibraltar. The exchange’s trading volume has fluctuated in recent months, and was among the top 10 exchanges in the world by trading volume in the second half of 2018.

The company said that the focus going forward will be on continuing to build its presence in South East Asia and Europe, which it considers its two primary markets.

“I am confident in the future of ABCC with its globally renowned and highly scalable platform. ABCC is well-established in the west, particularly in Europe, and is one of the top 10 exchanges in the world by volume,” Eric Cheng said in a comment.

ABCC Exchange offers trading in a large selection of crypto pairs, including some pairs based on the popular stablecoin Tether. Although the exchange does not support fiat-to-crypto trading, it still offers an over-the-counter (OTC) service where users can buy bitcoin and ether for US dollars or euros.

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