Huobi, a major cryptocurrency exchange, announced the public testnet launch of its open-source decentralized finance (DeFi) blockchain, Huobi Chain, on Feb. 29. Its aim is to provide a regulator-friendly framework for financial services companies to deploy applications in a variety of finance-related sectors.

Huobi Chain incorporates a flexible governance model that supports both regulators and enterprises. Based on a delegated proof-of-stake consensus, it allows regulators to contribute to the network through unique regulatory nodes.

The implementation of Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money lLundering (AML) protocols is complimented by a Decentralized Identifier system to provide verifiable digital identities on the network.

For DeFi to thrive, the ecosystem requires regulators and enterprises to establish standards together, according to Huobi Group vice president of global business, Ciara Sun:

"With Huobi Chain, we want to provide the decentralized framework that facilitates industry-wide collaboration, which is critical to the widespread adoption of DeFi."

Innovative features

The chain’s architecture is designed to support the high-volume transactions required by financial services, and its proprietary asset management capabilities provide support for multi-asset, cross-chain interoperability.

It has been developed to interact with a wide variety of centralized and decentralized networks, through support for user-deployed smart contracts and third-party sidechains.

The chain supports popular assets such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), along with Huobi-issued assets, including Huobi Token (HT), which will act as the sole utility token on the network.

As Cointelegraph reported, decentralized finance is only now starting to realize its full potential, with many finance-related sectors adopting DeFi protocols to enhance their services.