Binance Poaches Huobi's European and Latin American Business Lead

Binance, the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by 24-hour volume, has hired an exec from one of its foremost competitor exchanges, Huobi.

According to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on Jan. 30, Binance has hired Josh Goodbody as its new director of European and Latin American growth and institutional business. 

Prior to joining Binance, Goodbody worked as head of Europe and Americas at Huobi, where in November 2019 he formed the Global Institutional Business department — a team and line of products specifically targeting institutional products, under which the exchange recently launched its Huobi Brokerage platform. 

Before Huobi, Goodbody worked as a financial lawyer, providing counsel to such major firms as JPMorgan, Credit Suisse and State Street. Per his LinkedIn profile, he also as an advisor to the founder at Equilibrium, a multi-chain network for decentralized finance products and stablecoins backed by cryptocurrency. 

Binance co-founder Yi He said that Latin America and Europe are key markets for Binance, and that Goodbody will help the exchange expand its business into the region. In his new role, Goodbody will focus on offering products tailored to both retail and institutional investors.

Hire comes as part of a wider expansion 

Binance has already been making moves in Latin America, having launched a fiat gateway for clients in the region last month. On Dec. 19, the exchange announced that a new platform, Latamex, will operate under the Binance Fiat Gateway and allow users to purchase cryptocurrency directly in association with Settle Network. 

The initial launch of the platform in Argentina and Brazil will enable the direct purchase of Bitcoin (BTC), Binance Coin (BNB), Ether (ETH) and Binance’s stablecoin Binance USD (BUSD) with Argentine pesos and Brazilian reals.

Regarding Europe, Binance added six new trading pairs against the euro on Jan. 3.  The new pairs follow the addition of euro deposits and withdrawals in November, along with identical services for the Russian ruble, Ukrainian hryvnia and Kazakhstani tenge.