In 2025, as contract trading competition intensified, Huobi HTX's contract business saw a doubling of its user base, thanks to robust risk control and continuous product iteration. As 2026 approaches, how will Huobi Contracts plan its next steps? What are the insights behind the recently highly anticipated "Copy Trading 4.0"?
In the fifth session of Huobi Executives Face-to-Face, YOYO, the head of Huobi HTX's contract business, for the first time, systematically addressed users, fully deciphering the key progress of Huobi HTX Contracts over the past year and clearly outlining the business blueprint for 2026.
Copy Trading 4.0: A System-Level Product Restructuring
Copy Trading 4.0, a product refined over three years (launched in 2023, iterated in 2024, and booming in December 2025), is regarded as a benchmark for the humanized transformation of Huobi HTX's contract business.
YOYO summarized this upgrade with three keywords: more humanized, more transparent, and safer.
In terms of product structure, the copy trading system was for the first time deeply integrated with the contract trading interface, achieving "develop once, cover both ends." This means that all new contract features can be seamlessly synchronized to the copy trading system in the future, significantly improving product evolution efficiency.
In terms of user experience, Copy Trading 4.0 introduced an intelligent copy trading mode. Users can complete relatively risk-reasonable follow operations without complex parameter configurations, greatly lowering the barrier for beginners. Additionally, users can freely switch between the roles of follower and lead trader.
In terms of risk control logic, users follow different traders using independent fund pools to avoid mixed positions; it also supports copy trading users fully replicating the leverage settings of traders to achieve risk synchronization. Furthermore, the order logic has shifted to position logic, making information clearer and more concise.
In YOYO's view, Copy Trading 4.0 is a key step forward but not the end point. In the future, Huobi HTX will continue to evolve around the copy trading ecosystem, on one hand strengthening the introduction of high-quality traders and AI strategy capabilities, and on the other hand continuously enhancing the risk control system, driving copy trading toward a safer, more intelligent, and long-term usable direction.
Annual Review: What Did Huobi HTX Contracts Do Right in 2025?
Looking back at the nearly past year, YOYO described the momentum of Huobi HTX's contract business as "accumulative development." She revealed that in 2025, Huobi HTX's contract user base achieved a 2-3 times growth.
In YOYO's view, this growth did not come from short-term market红利 (dividends), but was a natural result of users' long-term trust in the platform, underpinned by Huobi HTX's two core advantages that have been continuously strengthened over the years—brand foundation and service capabilities. These capabilities are increasingly being translated into sustainable core competitiveness for the contract business.
● Security and Risk Control: The Underlying Pillar of Long-Term Trust
First and foremost is the risk control and security system. For contract trading users, security is always the core decision-making factor.
YOYO pointed out that Huobi HTX has continuously沉淀 (accumulated) and refined its risk control system over 12 years, forming a complete defense line covering user fund isolation, system stability, and应对 (response to) extreme market risks. Whether it was the recent 10·11 industry volatility or the multiple sharp market shocks earlier in the year and mid-year, Huobi HTX's contract side did not experience any major systemic risk events. This stable performance under multiple real stress tests, this "proven reliability," has become an important foundation for the long-term accumulation of user trust.
● Liquidity Building: Key Progress in Contract Business
Regarding liquidity, YOYO revealed that since April this year, Huobi HTX has achieved significant improvement in liquidity depth for mainstream coins and some secondary mainstream coins, with the overall level basically doubling, making this one of the important进展 (advancements) for the contract business in 2025.
She also admitted that there is still room for improvement in liquidity for some long-tail assets and hot assets. In the future, the team will continue to optimize liquidity across all assets through more diversified solutions while consolidating the foundation for K2 and secondary mainstream assets. This capability will also be built by Huobi HTX into one of the most core and long-term competitive barriers for its contract business.
● Transaction Speed and System Capability: For High-Frequency and Quantitative Users
For high-frequency and quantitative trading users, transaction speed and system capability are particularly critical. YOYO introduced that in May 2025, Huobi HTX launched the Unified Margin system, which not only supports cross-currency hedging strategies like BTC and ETH but also increased API transaction speed by nearly 4 times.
Currently, a significant portion of high-frequency quantitative trading on the platform has migrated to this system. Meanwhile, the underlying matching system is also being continuously optimized, with a new matching engine expected to be launched in the first quarter of 2026, further enhancing the smoothness and stability of contract trading.
● Financial Product Matrix: Improving Capital Efficiency and User Retention
While continuously strengthening basic trading capabilities, the gradual formation of Huobi HTX's financial product matrix has become an important supplement for promoting long-term user retention.
Starting with the launch of Flexible Savings (Yu Bao Bao) in December 2024, Huobi HTX Contracts has focused on improving capital usage efficiency. Flexible Savings is designed with "low threshold, deposit and withdraw at any time" as its core; users can earn annualized yields as long as funds are stored in their优选本位 (preferred standard currency) accounts. YOYO revealed that Flexible Savings will undergo a new round of iteration in 2026, and while keeping the usage threshold unchanged, the annualized yield capability is expected to increase by 2–3 times.
At the same time, Huobi HTX is also continuously upgrading its grid trading and copy trading systems. The grid system upgrade was completed in 2025, and Copy Trading 4.0 was launched at the end of the year.
In 2026, the team will further increase investment in AI strategy trading tools, including AI trading assistants and strategy capability integration,致力于 (committed to) opening up proven mature strategies to users in a lower-threshold manner to help them achieve long-term, sustainable profit growth.
YOYO stated that throughout the business growth process, the Huobi HTX contract team has always insisted on facing users directly, listening to their真实声音 (real voices) through various channels, and using this as the core driving force for product optimization and iteration. This良性互动 (positive interaction) has not only won increasingly deep user trust but has also become a solid foundation for business development. Meanwhile, the entire team始终秉持 (always upholds) a sincere and earnest attitude in serving every user. Coupled with the group's strong resource support for the contract business, it is明显感受到 (clearly felt) that the team's response speed from "receiving user feedback" to "completing product iteration" is becoming faster and faster.
Next-Phase Capability Building for Contract Trading
Looking toward 2026, Huobi HTX Contracts' strategic direction remains clear and focused—continually solidifying the underlying capabilities of the contract business around product refinement, liquidity structure optimization, improvement of user capital usage efficiency, and deepening of the risk control system. On this basis, a particularly important change is being put on the agenda: exploring giving more active risk control rights back to users.
In YOYO's view, the platform's responsibility is not only to provide users with a stable system and safety net but also, through product and mechanism design, to provide users with sufficiently mature, clear, and operable risk management tools, enabling them to actively participate in the management of their own trading risks under the premise of fully understanding the risks. This also means that, on top of the existing system security and risk control framework, HTX Contracts will help users establish a more transparent and controllable risk management path, making risk control no longer a passive outcome but part of the trading decision-making process.
Clearly, Huobi HTX Contracts'布局 (layout) does not stop at scale expansion but further points toward more mature trading infrastructure and a clearer risk management paradigm.
From system-level product restructuring to risk control concept upgrades, Huobi HTX Contracts is trying to answer a more long-term question: in the highly volatile crypto market, how to enable more users to participate in contract trading in a more controllable and rational manner and achieve long-term value—this, perhaps, is where its next-phase competitiveness truly lies.
About Huobi HTX
Huobi HTX was established in 2013. After 12 years of development, it has evolved from a cryptocurrency exchange into a comprehensive blockchain business ecosystem covering digital asset trading, financial derivatives, research, investment, incubation, and other businesses.
Huobi HTX, as a leading global Web3 portal, adheres to the development strategies of global expansion, ecological prosperity, wealth effect, and security and compliance, providing comprehensive, secure, and reliable value and services to global virtual currency enthusiasts.
To learn more about Huobi HTX, please visit https://www.htx.com/ or HTX Square, and follow us on X, Telegram, and Discord. For further inquiries, please contact [email protected].
