Huobi has announced its most far-reaching plan yet – the ‘Huobi Chain Project’. This is a new autonomous blockchain onto which the entire company will eventually migrate.

Huobi is the third largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, handling $1.1 billion of daily trading volumes from more than 5 million customers in more than 100 countries.

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Originally from China, Huobi opened offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea under the name Huobi Pro after the Chinese government cracked down on its business. It also signed a partnership with a major Japanese company in order to open an exchange in that country this year, and has announced new offices in San Francisco and London too.

The end goal of the new initiative is a public blockchain which is completely open. Huobi currently operates as a centralised exchange.

Its new blockchain will be built by “teams from the around the world” enlisted by way of the ‘Huobi Chain Superhero Championship’. Teams will contribute open-source code in a competition format, motivated by a $166 million prize pool provided by Huobi.

According to the press release, the plan is divided into ten stages, the first of which is to select a global leader.

Lin Li, founder and CEO of Huobi Group, said: “We firmly believe in a decentralized future and the main goal of the Huobi Chain project is to transform a centralized corporation to a decentralized one that’s run by the community. Our dream is for Huobi to run on the public blockchain and become a truly decentralized autonomous organization.”

Finance Magnates asked Gordon Chen, head of the Huobi Chain Project, a few questions:

Are you providing any guidelines as to the technical specifications of the new blockchain, or is it to be designed completely from zero?

“We are providing the requirements of the new chain. We are starting a Huobi Chain Superhero Championship to find a tech lead to lead our developer community to start Huobi Chain design and implementation from the ground up.”

Do you worry about a backlash from governments that think that Huobi is trying to avoid regulation?

“We are not avoiding regulation. In fact, we think in the future, blockchain projects will need to find a way to coexist with government regulation. One of the requirements is that Huobi Chain be regulate-able in some form.”

What is the financial incentive for the Huobi team to migrate to an entirely peer-to-peer system, where presumably less profit will be made?

“We believe in the future, blockchain will bring about a new world where autonomous organizations replace existing corporations. We want to make history and lead this transition. If we don’t do it, someone else will do it and Huobi will one day be replaced anyways. Another reason is that we believe Huobi Token will rise in value, which will bring a good profit for Huobi even if we give up most of our operational profits.”