Huobi's HADAX Postpones Voting for New Token Listings After Changing Rules

Huobi’s autonomous token listing exchange, HADAX, has announced it is postponing the next round of voting for new token listings on the platform. The statement, posted July 2, follows recent updates to its voting rules.

HADAX is a segment of major crypto exchange Huobi, on which users can vote using native Huobi tokens (HT) to select digital assets that will be listed and traded on the platform.

Last week, Huobi announced updates to the rules governing the voting process for new listings. After launching HADAX in February, Huboi soon introduced a voting system in which submitted projects must pass a preliminary audit by the Huobi team. Audits are followed by a peer review by so-called “Super Nodes”: a jury of highly reputed investment firms from both traditional and crypto-specific backgrounds.  

On June 29, Huobi announced it was introducing a hierarchy into the balance of power between the different firms acting as Super Nodes for its voting system, dividing them into two subsets - dubbed “Standing Nodes” and “Selected Nodes.”

The new rules stipulated that any project not supported by at least one Standing Node will henceforth be removed from the voting ballot, effectively granting Standing Nodes greater leverage in deciding which tokens can be listed on the HADAX platform.

For its 14 Standing Nodes, Huboi announced it would be inviting major traditional venture capital firms to join such as ZhenFund, FBG, Unity Ventures, and Draper Dragon, as well as crypto industry heavyweight Bitmain and major South Korean crypto fund Hashed.

As per the June 29 announcement, Selected Nodes include smaller crypto venture firms such as Node Capital, Dfund and BlockVC.

Voting under this new system was due to commence today, July 2, but Huobi has now delayed its opening - due to be the 1st round of the 4th phase of voting since the platform’s launch.

Today’s announcement says that “due to the participation of new nodes” as well as the introduction of new rules, which are “still being discussed intensively,” the company has decided to delay voting until further “specific arrangements” will be announced.

Singapore-headquartered Huobi is currently the world’s fourth largest crypto exchange by trade volume, seeing around $492 million in trades over the 24-hour period to press time.

The company has been proactively expanding in 2018 - both diversifying its investment products and services and targeting overseas markets, launching a subsidiary in South Korea as well as a “strategic” partner trading platform in the U.S.

Just last week, Huobi confirmed the opening of its London office, with over-the-counter (OTC) trading tests set to begin in the third quarter of this year.