The history of Huobi goes back to 2013 when Leon Li, who was an engineer at Oracle, created Huobi Global Exchange, a Chinese virtual exchange. This platform attracted $10 million a year in investments, and since then, this company has opened offices in the U.S., Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

Huobi Global is a reliable and very popular exchange that currently ranks second on CoinMarketCap with a trading volume of more than $11 billion. The Huobi exchange supports many cryptocurrencies, including its own Huobi Token (HT). This token was created in 2018 for the Huobi ecosystem. Huobi tokens enable holders to get discounts on transaction fees and to use an extensive list of Huobi services, including Hadax listing voting, OTC, Huobi Cloud, and community services. However, the most interesting thing about Huobi is its ECO chain.

The Huobi ECO chain (Heco) was created in 2020. This open platform has a lot in common with the Binance Smart Chain from Binance Exchange. Just like Binance, Huobi successfully operates numerous DeFi services by utilizing HT. Heco was developed based on the Ethereum blockchain so it also has a lot in common with Ethereum. Heco’s main selling points are its high performance, improved cross-chain user experience, and low gas fees.

Heco utilizes the Hybrid Proof-of-Stake (HPoS) consensus mechanism that secures on-chain transactions and assets. HT immediately gives holders access to liquidity and enables them to use this token in the rapidly growing Huobi ecosystem. Developers of Heco also plan to integrate Ethereum as a Layer 2 solution so that users of the Ethereum network can benefit from greater efficiency.

Heco users can minimize gas fees step-wise thanks to the meta-transaction function, as Heco covers the payment of the remaining part. This feature is especially useful for dApp developers because they can migrate at a reduced cost. Besides, it helps reduce costs for dApp users. In addition, Heco optimizes user experience by supporting cross-chain asset transfer.

The Main Heco Infrastructure Projects

1. Blockchain Explorer
   Huobi ECO Chain Explorer enables you to explore smart contracts and monitor validated blocks. This is a comprehensive analytics platform for Heco that also features a validators leaderboard and enables you to check the pending transaction query. Besides, you can verify and publish smart contract source code.
2. Huobi Wallet
   Huobi Wallet is an open-source decentralized crypto wallet that supports more than 1,000 cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, and EOS, as well as ERC-20 tokens. It features a dApp browser, cross-chain exchange, and a staking service for PoS networks. The wallet has a convenient design so you can quickly browse assets and make transfers in just a few clicks.

Users have complete control over their private keys because the keys are managed without any third parties involved. You can manage the security of your assets and export private keys with the wallet management backup mnemonics. You can also change the name of your wallet or hide it.

Many users may also want to add the Heco blockchain to MetaMask. To do it, you should visit the Settings page and add a new network:

RPC URL: https://http-mainnet.hecochain.com
Chain ID: 128
Symbol: HT
Block Explorer: https://scan.hecochain.com

3. dApps Explorer
   You can explore dApps from your Huobi Wallet, and you can also build your own dApps in it. Huobi Wallet is compatible with Scatter to reduce development costs and facilitate mobile environment adaptation. Also, a good list of HECO dApps you can find on the website: defibox.com
4. Main Decentralized Exchange (MDEX)
   MDEX is quite similar to Uniswap but it differs in economics. It enables you to swap pairs of assets by using its automatic market-making system. Swapping involves a 0.3% fee. Traders and investors can get rewards in MDX, which is the platform’s token.

The annual percentage yield doesn’t go to liquidity providers, however. The project team receives the trading commissions from the automated market maker and then takes 66% for traders who spend their money on MDEX. In practice, users immediately get their trading fees paid, receiving an equivalent amount of any traded currency in $MDX. 

Every time you trade on MDEX, you’re basically buying MDX with your 0.3% fee. Given that only 66% of the overall fee collected is used to compensate traders, the project team also issues an additional 34% of MDX to cover the 0.3% completely.

The Most Popular Heco DeFi Projects

1. Lendhub
   Lendhub is based on a modification of Compound. It’s a debit and credit protocol that provides mining capabilities for LHB.
2. FilDA
   This is a cross-chain lending DeFi project based on Heco. Launched on January 5, 2021, it features loan functions for HBTC, HUSD, HT, USDT-HECO, ELA-HECO, HLTC, HDOT, ETH, HBCH, HBSV, HXTZ, HPT, and 16 other assets. Being the first Heco-based project of this kind, FilDA also became Heco’s first platform for publishing APY data and real-time loan stats. The total value of loans and deposits on this platform peaked at $1,2 billion. This project has no pre-mining and no fundraising. Basically, it was created to become a DeFi loan platform of choice for Heco users.
3. HecoFi
   Heco Finance is an aggregate mining platform that helps users find the most profitable and safe mining projects on the Huobi ECO chain. Assets deposited by users are automatically placed into the mining pool with the highest profit. This platform also has HFI, an incentive token that users receive as rewards. Thanks to the unique features of Heco, the platform offers a low gas fee and minimizes the impact of transfer fees.
4. Channels
   This is the first 100% decentralized Heco lending platform. This platform offers great asset security, mining revenue, and user experience. The main focus of this platform is mainstream cryptocurrencies, such as USDT, HUSD, HBTC, ETH, and HT.
5. StarLink
   This is a decentralized search engine. Creators of this project noticed that Google and other mainstream search engines focus on the content from centralized websites so they created a search engine intended for people who are interested in the decentralized world. StarLink has its own ERC721 token — GOOG. Every GOOG is unique. Users can win these tokens by selecting any page and using the LP Token for a competitive mortgage. GOOG holders get a commercialization privilege of the corresponding page, additional revenue acceleration, page management rights, etc. This token can also be used for user-to-user transactions.
6. EarnDefi
   This DeFi platform can be used for mining, trading, and cross-chain operations. EarnDefi’s mission is to help users gather reasonable wealth. This platform offers some innovative functions compared to other decentralized wealth management platforms, and given that it’s built on the Huobi ECO chain, users can benefit from a low gas fee.
7. SOVI
   This is the first blockchain-based DeFi simulation game. The SOVI world is formed by smart contracts, and the game’s main goal is to build up an army and to start a DeFi revolution. Players can earn SOVI tokens by expanding their networks and sending invitations. Given that this game is integrated with a yield farming monetary supply, players can win real assets.

Wrapping Up

The Huobi ECO chain, or Heco, is a whole decentralized ecosystem that offers numerous benefits for both users and developers. It offers a great cross-chain experience and low gas fees. The Huobi ecosystem includes dozens of dApps, and dApp developers can migrate at a reduced cost thanks to the meta-transaction feature. Huobi has a great multi-functional wallet and a low-fee decentralized exchange so Heco is certainly worth considering if you’re a blockchain enthusiast.