Huobi DeFi Labs has launched a global DeFi alliance, which is set to establish universal protocol standards for the DeFi space and improve communications within the DeFi ecosystem. The alliance will also conduct research on emerging DeFi protocols to help avoid future crises in the community. The alliance’s inaugural members are MakerDAO (MKR), Compound (COM), Nest (NEST), and dYdX (dYdX).

In an interview with Cointelegraph, Huobi’s chief investment officer Sharlyn Wu said, “We have to partner with the entire ecosystem. But we want to work with the best of projects out there and make sure our users have access to them.”

Wu says the alliance also hopes to bring together the fragmented crypto space and close the cultural divide between the East and the West:

“We deeply feel there is an isolation between the centralised exchanges, financial institutions from the global community, and that we want to close that gap. And also, the huge cultural difference between the East and the West, and we feel that's part of our responsibility as well to bring the East and the West, the community together.”

Wu, who previously oversaw blockchain strategy and investment at China Merchant Bank International, or CMBI, believes that the future of finance is decentralized. She expects that traditional financial institutions will transition to DeFi over the next 10 to 20 years:

“There's no reason they shouldn't go to DeFi because when you go to that system, you don't need to take any credit risk. And you run in an automated manner without human intervention.”

Wu believes that in the short-term, Blockchain technology is unlikely to have an impact on U.S. and China relations, as it is currently too small to be noticed by the mainstream. However, she believes that the future is borderless and unified:

“With Crypto and DeFi, we're building a new economy and society that's on the cloud. This society, this economy,  we can't really think about things in terms of countries. And I know the physical world is broken. Things get more and more isolated. But from my work in crypto space, I can feel that the crypto world is more integrated than ever. And I think that it will become stronger and stronger.”