Huobi Group, owner of the third largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, announced today that it plans to invest $166 million to launch two new initiatives, the Huobi Chain Project (HCP) and the Huobi Chain Superhero Championship Program (HCSCP).

The Huobi Chain Project is apart of an effort by the company to further decentralize its operations. The new public blockchain, which is completely open for anyone to join, will provide individuals and organizations with a trustworthy and autonomous platform for value exchange, fundraising, securitization and more, as detailed in the announcement.

To incentivize community participation in the development of the Huobi public chain, the company has also launched the Huobi Chain Superhero Championship, which will be supported by the $166 million initial investment. Huobi’s investment comes in the form of 30 million Huobi Token (HT), the token of the Huobi exchange.

In the announcement, founder and CEO of Huobi Group, Lin Li, shared her vision for the future of Huobi’s public blockchain platform.

“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.”

The move by Huobi comes months after Binance announced its own plan to launch a blockchain platform. Named Binance Chain, the public blockchain will focus on the trading and transferring of blockchain assets and will complement their existing centralized exchange.

Huobi has been very active over the past few months. In early May, the company shared plans to open an office in Canada during an event at EDCON (Community Ethereum Development Conference) in Toronto. Just last week, Huobi announced that it launched its first exchange-traded fund (ETF), HB10, a trading vehicle that tracks the HUOBI 10 Index.

Beyond its initial investment, Huobi plans to fund the blockchain program through a percentage of Huobi’s yearly revenue.

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