Breaking free from the shackles of platform tokens, $HTX opens up new ideas for exchange governance

In 2017, Binance created a new asset class with BNB: exchange platform tokens. To this day, platform tokens have almost become standard for major mainstream exchanges and have evolved into an important track within the crypto ecosystem. Relying on the exchanges behind them, these platform tokens aim to provide users with practical value such as trading fee discounts and IEO participation qualifications. Currently, most platform tokens in the market, although they may differ slightly in functionality, do not have significant essential differences; however, the recently celebrated one-year anniversary of $HTX is bringing new ideas to the industry.

In fact, it is not accurate to call $HTX a platform token. Although it shares the same name as Huobi HTX and performs some functions similar to platform tokens—such as fee reductions—$HTX is essentially a native governance token issued by HTX DAO, which is a decentralized autonomous organization completely independent of Huobi HTX. Any $HTX holder can participate in the governance of HTX DAO, including proposing initiatives and voting, to decide how the ecosystem develops.

HTX DAO was established in early 2024, aiming to build a more transparent, efficient, and open digital economy ecosystem. Since the establishment of HTX DAO, Huobi HTX has become a builder of its ecosystem, providing liquidity, application scenarios, and other support for $HTX. According to the official HTX DAO white paper, the "H" in $HTX represents Huobi HTX exchange, affirming the latter's outstanding contribution to the ecosystem. As a "return," Huobi HTX hopes to achieve a grand long-term vision through HTX DAO: to govern a centralized exchange in a decentralized manner.

Recently, the well-known blockchain industry media ++CoinDesk++ published an article explaining the innovations of $HTX, pointing out that the difference between $HTX and traditional platform tokens lies in the underlying architecture. The latter is issued by exchanges, which have a controlling relationship; however, Huobi HTX is not the issuer of $HTX and therefore has no authority to control it. If $HTX is merely viewed as Huobi HTX's platform token, it overlooks its greatest utility: participating in the governance of HTX DAO.

As part of the entire HTX DAO ecosystem, Huobi HTX also accepts governance from $HTX holders. $HTX holders can express their opinions on any aspect of Huobi HTX's functions, products, decisions, etc., on the ++DAO Forum++, and the proposals raised are expected to be implemented on the platform. Additionally, to encourage more users to hold $HTX and participate in HTX DAO governance, Huobi HTX has granted $HTX a wealth of benefits—ranging from trading fee discounts similar to traditional platform tokens to qualifications for participation in signature activities like Launchpool.

Launchpool was launched last December, allowing users to earn dual benefits of wealth management and mining by subscribing to $HTX earning products, greatly empowering $HTX. In fact, this activity originated from a governance proposal on HTX DAO and was successfully launched.

Currently, HTX DAO is still relatively young, and Huobi HTX has a long way to go to fully realize decentralized governance, but the emergence of high-quality proposals represented by Launchpool has already demonstrated the potential of the DAO governance exchange model. Furthermore, proposals such as optimizing the voting process for listing coins on Huobi HTX have sparked enthusiastic discussions on the HTX DAO governance forum. In the future, as more users join HTX DAO and inspire more innovative ideas, the decentralization process of Huobi HTX will continue to advance, ultimately realizing the vision of a "people's exchange"; on the other hand, $HTX will also gain more empowerment and its value will continue to strengthen. Therefore, it can be said that $HTX has broken free from the framework of platform tokens, and its ceiling will far exceed that of traditional platform tokens. In just one year since its issuance, $HTX has already been listed on 28 exchanges, and as its potential becomes more fully recognized, listing on more exchanges will just be a matter of time.

As CoinDesk wrote, "The benefits offered by different platform tokens vary, but $HTX has achieved comprehensive integration:

• "Community empowerment and decentralized governance;
• "Staking assets generate returns;
• "Token burn mechanism maintains value;
• "Exclusive rights and privileges for holders."

If Binance's BNB represents the first wave of platform tokens, then the second wave initiated by $HTX—CoinDesk states—"provides unprecedented governance capabilities and opportunities to influence the exchange ecosystem."