June 6, 2018

Huobi Unveils Plan to Launch Public Blockchain, Develop ‘Next Generation Financial Protocol’

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Major cryptocurrency exchange Huobi has unveiled plans to launch a public blockchain that it hopes will serve as the foundation for a “next generation financial protocol.”

Announced on Wednesday, Huobi Chain aims to fulfill the dream of the blockchain-based decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) by enabling the Singapore-based exchange operator to gradually migrate its operations to a decentralized platform and automate them using smart contracts.

Huobi Chain product director Gordon Chen told CCN that the initiative is an extension of Huobi’s experiment in community decision making. Consequently, governance is one of the first processes that the company intends to migrate onto its new blockchain.

“The future will need a new type of financial system,” he said, but “going forward, we’re going to do things gradually.”

Chen said that Huobi hopes to pursue community-driven governance, including decisions about the development of the blockchain itself. This will gradually replace the company’s current corporate governance structure “by necessity” as the company — formerly based in Beijing — expands its global reach.

Later on, Huobi hopes to build a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange (DEX) around its blockchain, which will enable users to trade cryptocurrencies without holding their coins in an exchange-controlled wallet, which presents an attractive attack vector for hackers.

At present, Huobi’s centralized trading platform ranks as the world’s third-largest exchange with a daily volume of approximately $1.1 billion.

The company will fund the initiative with an initial investment of $100 million worth of Huobi tokens (HT) as it seeks to attract technical talent to help develop the new platform.

As CCN reported, Huobi is not the first major cryptocurrency exchange to explore moving its operations onto a blockchain. Binance — the highest-volume exchange — announced in March that it was building a public blockchain to serve as the foundation for a DEX. About that same time, OKEx, the second-largest exchange, unveiled similar plans. All three of these exchanges have launched Ethereum-based utility tokens that will ultimately be transferred to their new blockchains to serve as their native assets.

Additionally, US-based exchange Coinbase recently acquired a DEX, though it has not announced plans to move any of the company’s core operations to a blockchain.

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Published at Wed, 06 Jun 2018 13:11:07 +0000

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April 4, 2017

Ukraine Sees Bitcoin Investments Up 500% in 12 Months

Ukraine’s bitcoin investment figures have shot up 500% in a single year, according to bitcoin Ukraine founder Andrey Dubetskiy.

Dubetskiy: Growth Reasons ‘Same Throughout The World’

The figures, which Dubetskiy revealed in comments to local news resource Payspace, represent growth from 500,000 hryvnia ($18,400) to 2.5 million ($92,000) hryvnia per week through 2016.

“The reasons behind the growth are the same as those throughout the world,” he told the publication.

Specifically, distrust of national currencies, an unstable economy, asset movement restrictions, the shadow economy, little choice and regulation of financial instruments, demand for digital and global financial instruments, growth potential for bitcoin’s price as an investment and many others.

Ukraine has become an active participant in both Blockchain studies and bitcoin as a consumer asset.

Despite its recent turbulent political and economic history, cryptocurrency usage has been fostered – or at least left untouched by premature regulation – and continues to serve as an investment alternative to the hryvnia, which since 2014 has lost two thirds of its value.

Localbitcoins volumes in Ukraine have also seen their best times ever in recent months, with weekly trading edging towards new highs each week.

“Considering the general upward trend in bitcoin’s exchange rate, the majority of customers are buying in order to profit from speculative operations, while some investors transfer a part of their assets to bitcoin,” Mikhael Chobanyan, CEO of local exchange Kuna.io, added.

Weak Economy + Bank Crisis = Blockchain

In a bid to bail out its creaking economic infrastructure, Ukraine was forced to nationalize main lender Privatbank last December amid concerns “panic” would arise if things were left as is.

“Other banks would not be getting their loans back from PrivatBank, a series of bankruptcies would begin, and there would be panic,” Oleksandr Savchenko, head of Kyiv’s International Institute of Business, commented on the situation prior to the move being finalized.

On the Blockchain front meanwhile, a scheme involving the Central Bank to introduce the technology to governmental processes appears to be gaining momentum.

Q3 last year saw publication of a roadmap from the National Bank of Ukraine for its Cashless Economy scheme, which set out ways and deadlines for use of Blockchain in cases such as payments.

“The [National Bank of Ukraine (NBU)] Board has approved and presented a roadmap for Cashless Economy, which will use Blockchain technology in Ukraine for the first time,” spokesman Konstantin Yarmolenko wrote on Facebook at the time in a post subsequently removed.

Elsewhere, Ukraine was the first country in the world to launch sanctioned bitcoin futures trading on its national exchange. Investor interest was also given as the main motivation for the move, which authorities announced in the midst of the Privatbank debacle.

What do you think about Ukraine’s bitcoin growth? Are you there and seeing changes? Let us know in the comments below!

Images courtesy of Coin Dance, Shutterstock

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