Huobi, the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, recently announced and launched a new currency. The Huobi Token (HT) rewards exchange users for their loyalty with lowered transaction fees while also carrying its own value in tradable pairs against popular currencies. The hope was to bring greater value to Huobi’s millions of users, mostly located in Asian countries. The launch of the Huobi Token follows in the footsteps of other loyalty-building tokens that other exchanges have launched. The first and most successful of these tokens has been Binance Coin (BNB). The creation of BNB secured Binance’s place as the world’s leading exchange. It offered discounted trading fees in exchange for customer loyalty, primarily functioning as a loyalty rewards system. Huobi officially announced its intentions to launch a new token on January 22, 2018. Over the course of 15 days, Huobi would distribute 300 million HT (60% of the total supply) to its pro users who purchased a discounted service package. Each morning, a new batch of HT would become available on a first come, first served basis. Huobi declared this token distribution scheme, “not an ICO,” due to the nature of the offering. Users are buying a specific service package, part of which includes HT that give a discount toward trading fees. The exchange launched the Huobi Token as part of an overall strategy to recover its user base after tightening regulations in China severely restricted cryptocurrency trading. In an interview with CoinDesk, Leon Li, Huobi’s founder, revealed that Chinese rule changes had decimated the trading volume on Huobi by 95% between September 15 and November 1, 2017. The HT token distribution began on January 24 and wrapped up on February 7, 2018. Each day of the distribution, millions of tokens sold out in mere minutes after going on sale. At that point, 300 million HT had been distributed to Huobi Pro members who bought packages. That’s 60% of the total supply currently in public circulation. Another 200 million HT, 40% of the total supply, was set aside. 20% goes toward user rewards and platform operation. The other 20% is vested for four years and constitutes the team reward. Huobi isn’t the first exchange to issue its own token. Binance (BNB), Bibox (BIX), KuCoin (KCS) and Coss (COSS) have all issued their own tokens as well.
Nimiq is a browser based blockchain. It was written in Javascript ES6 and because of this, the complete blockchain runs in the browser. The main goal of Nimiq is to solve the payment solution, and to provide a browser based payment solution of sending money. They also have nearly instant transactions as well. Nimiq is a CPU only mineable coin, since it uses the Aragon2D algorithm. Nimiq intends to lower barriers of entry for blockchain technology, and make it accessible for mainstream use. With an operational betanet already live, users can experience how simple it is to mine inside a browser - installation free. Nimiq is making blockchain technology as accessible as the internet, with a vision to truly decentralize the web. Current available cryptocurrencies are complicated and counterintuitive for the average person to use. True internet decentralization is impossible if access to blockchain technology is limited to only the technically oriented people. Until blockchain can be picked up with general recognition and general usage, its true power remains unrealized. Nimiq originally began as an ERC20 (Ethereum) token, known as NET or Nimiq Exchange Token. Nimiq held its ICO throughout June and July of 2017, and raised over 10 million USD. NET trading was enabled shortly after the ICO, and development began on the project’s Github. NET was converted to NIM, the currency that is based on the Nimiq blockchain and network, on March 31st of 2018. Nimiq’s wallet (Nimiq Safe) is built right into the Nimiq website, which means there is no need to download or sync a wallet application. The wallet will lead you through a setup guide, which will help backup and secure your wallet in the case of data loss. As the Nimiq wallet is based in the browser, however, erasing your cache could delete your balance – so keeping a backup is highly recommended.