HECO Network, a decentralized blockchain platform built by Huobi, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, will officially discontinue its services on January 15th, ending its journey after four years of operation.
HECO Bridge suffered an $87 million hack last year.
Users who hold HRC20 assets are encouraged to redeem their assets before the network closes. The list of affected HRC20 assets includes HRC20ETH, HRC20TUSD, HRC20LINK, HRC20USDC, HRC20UNI, HRC20SHIB, HRC20HBTC, and HRC20USDT, as noted in a Nov. 24 advisory.
Holders of these assets are advised to deposit their assets at the designated address before January 10, 2025, in order to avoid potential losses. These deposited assets will then be converted into points, which will then be exchanged for a new token, HTX.
The fall of HECO
HTX distribution will occur in 12 equal batches, starting January 15, 2025. Users will need to provide their TRON network address during the redemption process to receive the allocated HTX.
Launched in December 2020, HECO aims to provide an efficient and low-cost environment for developers to create decentralized applications (dApps) and engage in decentralized finance (DeFi).
Blockchain has played an important role in the development of the Huobi ecosystem. At its peak in 2021, the total value locked of the HECO Network reached approximately $3 billion.
However, blockchain has struggled due to the prolonged market downturn and the steady growth of its competitors.
Ethereum, Solana and Binance Smart Chain continue to lead layer 1 blockchains. The arrival of newcomers like Avalanche and TRON also challenges HECO’s position. Additionally, HECO was also hit by a hack that caused users to migrate to other platforms.
Hacks kill platforms
In November 2023, the HECO bridge was exploredleading to the theft of approximately US$87 million in various cryptocurrencies. Hackers reportedly gained access to the bridge’s private key and stole several cryptocurrencies, including a large amount of Ether and Tether.
Alongside the HECO Bridge exploit, cryptocurrency exchange HTX, a prominent project in the Huobi ecosystem, suffered a separate attack that resulted in an additional loss of around $30 million from its hot wallets over the same period.
These attacks followed an attack targeting Poloniex, another exchange backed by Justin Sun, which lost over $100 million.
Following the attacks, HTX took steps to secure the remaining funds. Sun also confirmed that HTX would fully compensate for losses incurred from these breaches.
HTX (formerly Huobi) was acquired by the founder of TRON in 2020. In January this year, Sun said that the platform’s original token, HT, has been completely converted into a new token called HTX. The transition replaced almost all HT-related benefits with HTX equivalents, including transaction fee discounts.
In addition to the conversion, HTX also introduced the HTX DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization based on the HTX governance token. The DAO was created to improve community governance and transparency.
At the time, the conversion sparked controversy among crypto insiders. Some users felt that the transition meant abandoning the original Heco chain and the HT token, particularly after a hack that affected both HTX and Heco.
Falling prices
Data from CoinGecko shows that the HTX DAO’s HTX token fell 5% to $0.00000178 following HECO’s closure announcement. It is now trading around $0.00000183, down around 2% in the last 24 hours.
The decline could also be linked to the recent pullback in Bitcoin. Bitcoin fell below $96,000 on Sunday before rising above $98,000.
Even so, the HTX token recorded weekly growth of 9%. In the last 30 days, its value has increased by 27%.
Huobi Korea, a cryptocurrency exchange originally established as the South Korean branch of Huobi Global (now HTX), announced its closure earlier this year. The closure, following the severing of ties with HTX in January 2023, was due to a challenging business environment.
Some regional exchanges also announced their closure at the time, such as Cashierest and Coinbit, due to difficult market conditions and increased competition.
