Huobi to Target Decentralized Finance With New Public Blockchain

Huobi Group is building a public blockchain specifically designed for use cases within decentralized finance.

In a press release Tuesday, the blockchain services firm and cryptocurrency exchange operator, said the planned offering - for now dubbed Huobi Finance Chain - will allow financial institutions, businesses and exchanges to launch their own blockchains, tokenized assets and DeFi services.

"Among other applications, the project will have the potential to host lending services, debit services, stablecoins, security token offerings and other means of asset issuance, decentralized exchanges, real-world payment services, and more."

For the tech side of initiative, the firm is teaming up with blockchain network Nervos, which offers a base proof-of-work blockchain, over which sits a protocol layer aimed to support scaling and other solutions.

The joint project will be made open source, and will provide support for multiple assets, as well as smart contracts, allowing third-party developers to "Build and deploy a wide range of DeFi services." Also support will be multi- and side-chain architectures.

Aimed to be "Regulator-friendly," Huobi Finance Chain will also support decentralized identifier and offer identity protocols such as know-your-customer verification to allow projects to comply with anti-money laundering rules.

Huobi is further enabling regulators to contribute to the network as validators.

"The mission of Huobi Group is to make finance more efficient and make wealth accessible to all. This project is not only in line with Huobi's overall strategy, but it also fulfills our core mission. From a strategic point of view, decentralized financial services are still in an early stage of development. The market demand is clear and we believe this is a very definite business opportunity."

"Although Huobi is currently a"leader" in the crypto industry," the space is likely to undergo "Far-reaching changes," he said.

"Exploring public chain technologies and business models both keeps us innovative and serves as a strategic defence," according to Li. Leon Li image via CoinDesk archives.