HitBTC is not a reputed exchange when it comes to Bitcointalk. They have history of accusations by many users on this forum. One of them is that they will lock someone account and they the person to get verified. It was common that time. No one is mentioning the exchange when it comes to advising someone to use a centralized exchange.
5+ years ago it was in the top 10 I think, that's why I ended up on it when I saw it on cmc in the top exchanges, maybe they were gaining momentum to get into the top 10 at that time, I didn't trade there, I just happened to be there, my main exchange is binance and a few others in the top 10. But just so I can understand how I could have gotten there, it seems like binance came along later than hitbtc. It doesn't look like I got on an exchange that is somewhere far out there in the top, it was more popular back then.