Huobi, is announcing the launch of its new public blockchain, the Huboi Chain Project (HCP).

In order to create the new blockchain, Huobi will fund the Huobi Chain Superhero Championship Program (HCSCP) with an initial investment of 20 mln Huobi Tokens (HT), worth about $100 mln dollars. Huobi will also contribute a portion of its yearly revenue to the program.

The 21-month program will “[seek] out a global leader to lead the development of the Huobi Chain project.” The contest is divided into 10 different “milestones”, each with a prize pool. Each milestone is a contest between development teams from different parts of the world.

According to Founder and CEO of Huobi Group Lin Li, once the program is finished, all the code will be made open source and they will gradually migrate Huobi onto the new blockchain.

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

Huobi, the world’s third largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily trading volume, plans to build its first public and decentralised blockchain and fund it with 30 million Huobi Tokens worth about US$174 million.

Huobi, founded in 2013 by Li, has become the second largest mainland Chinese cryptocurrency exchange after OKEx. However, both exchanges have come under tighter scrutiny from the Chinese government. Last September, Chinese regulators ordered both exchanges to shut down their renminbi to cryptocurrency trading operations.