On December 1, 2025, Huione Pay announced the suspension of its business.
This is not just a simple closure of an ordinary payment company, but a complete collapse of a gray and black financial network spanning payments, guarantee black markets, and crypto stablecoins, under the pressure of sanctions and regulatory blockades from multiple countries.
The true center of this network is Huione Group.
Countdown to Huione's Fall
Once, Huione was known as "Cambodia's Alipay," the largest third-party financial system in Southeast Asia's gray market, and a hidden ruler of USDT payments. Its downfall was not sudden; it was a countdown to a conclusion that had long been written.
As early as March of this year, Huione had its license revoked by local financial institutions, losing its legal status; in May, the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a final rule under Section 311 of the Patriot Act, designating Huione Group as a "significant money laundering risk entity," completely severing its connections to the U.S. financial system; in October, the U.S. Treasury and the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) jointly launched the largest coordinated sanctions in history, again designating Huione as a "major money laundering entity," accusing it of being involved in the illegal flow of at least $4 billion.
At this point, Huione's fate was sealed.
The Secret Network of Huione Group
The predecessor of Huione Group was Huione Currency Exchange (Cambodia) Co., Ltd., established in 2014. After ten years of expansion, it gradually transformed into a large financial group. Multiple investigations have shown that its capital flows intersect and overlap with the business network of Chen Zhi, known as the "prince" of Cambodia, indicating a deep-rooted gray background from the beginning.
By around 2024, Huione Group's subsidiaries, including Huione Pay, Huione Guarantee, and Huione Crypto, had formed a complete money laundering industrial chain, each performing its role and creating a closed loop.
Huione Pay: The Front-End Channel for Gray and Black Funds
As the core front-end tool of Huione Group, Huione Pay undertakes functions such as cross-border payments, stablecoin deposits and withdrawals, over-the-counter exchange matching, merchant acquiring, and underground currency exchange entry. On the surface, it is Cambodia's "Alipay," but secretly it is deeply embedded in Southeast Asia's gray and black industrial chain.
According to statistics from blockchain security company Slow Mist, from January 1, 2024, to June 23, 2025, Huione Pay processed a total of over $50 billion in USDT deposits and withdrawals on the TRON chain. The number of active deposit addresses surged from less than 30,000 to over 80,000, with nearly 150,000 withdrawals in a single day at its peak. In July 2024, Tether froze 29.62 million USDT associated with its addresses. Although the platform claimed to "strengthen KYC" afterward, violations continued to emerge.
Huione Crypto: An Amplifier of Regulatory Loopholes
Huione's crypto business allows users to directly deposit and withdraw using virtual currencies like USDT, with rapid transaction times, making it a favored channel for gray market activities.
Notably, in September 2024, Huione launched its own stablecoin, USDH, claiming it was "unfreezable" and not subject to traditional regulatory constraints, pegged 1:1 to the U.S. dollar, supporting ETH, TRON, BSC, and its own Huione Chain network, aiming to circumvent asset freezing mechanisms like those of USDT. This meant that a "no-risk channel" tailored for illegal funds was officially opened. According to Elliptic data, the Huione Crypto platform has processed suspicious transactions amounting to billions of dollars.
Huione Guarantee: The Credit Machine of the Telegram Black Market
If payments and crypto are the pipelines, then Huione Guarantee is the "credit core" of gray and black transactions.
Huione Guarantee has long operated on Telegram, providing intermediary guarantee services for black market transactions, covering various illegal activities from telecom fraud services to money laundering, black cards, and data trading. The platform not only facilitates transactions but also offers "fund custody" and "dispute arbitration," ensuring that illegal transactions can be completed smoothly.
Public investigations show that since 2021, Huione Guarantee has facilitated black market transactions totaling over $27 billion, primarily serving telecom fraud and cybercrime. In May 2025, prompted by an Elliptic report, Telegram banned thousands of its accounts, leading to the platform's shutdown. Nevertheless, the guarantee market was quickly taken over by new forces like "Tudou Guarantee," and gray transactions did not disappear.
Shocking Bills
According to FinCEN investigations, since 2021, Huione Group has processed transactions exceeding $50 billion, of which at least $4 billion is related to illegal activities: $37 million sourced from cryptocurrency stolen by North Korean hackers (such as the Lazarus Group), $36 million from "pig butchering" investment scams, and $300 million involved in other online fraud.
Elliptic's estimates are even more staggering, suggesting that the total amount of related illegal crypto transactions could reach $98 billion.
The downfall of Huione Pay is not just the bankruptcy of a "payment company," but a wake-up call for the Web3 industry. Technology itself is neither good nor evil; the key lies in how to fill regulatory gaps and establish a more compliant, safe, and transparent financial system.
Only by strengthening regulation and guiding the healthy development of technology can we avoid large-scale financial disasters like "Huione Pay."
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