Blockchain： Pushing Open the New Door of Trust World
editorial comment/note
During the 18th collective study in the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, General Secretary of the Supreme Leader emphasized that the blockchain should be regarded as an important breakthrough for independent innovation of core technologies, the main direction should be defined, the investment should be increased, a number of key core technologies should be conquered, and the development of blockchain technology and industrial innovation should be accelerated.
Blockchain is considered as "the next generation of disruptive innovation technology", and its core advantage is to build a brand-new trust mechanism and efficient collaboration mechanism through decentralization, data encryption, timestamp, distributed consensus and other means, thus giving birth to many brand-new application scenarios. From now on, this newspaper will launch a series of reports on "Big Talk Blockchain", from "top design" to "scene landing", from technical foundation to future vision … … In-depth discussion on the "past lives" of blockchain.
As a new technology that is considered to lead a new round of technological and industrial changes around the world, blockchain has become the focus of public opinion. "A few years ago, I opened the blockchain course. At that time, everyone didn’t care, but now every four students apply for courses, and only one person can choose." The personal experience of Song Xiaodong, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, is a proof of the blockchain fever. In the first half of this year alone, there were 216 financing incidents in the global blockchain industry, with a total financing amount of 16.537 billion yuan.
In China, blockchain technology is also running at full speed. In 2010, there were only 379 domestic enterprises whose business scope included blockchain, but by the end of October this year, there were 27,513 domestic blockchain companies. According to Ren Zeping, chief economist of Evergrande Group, this new technology can "empower" the real economy and financial system: "‘ Honesty ’ With ‘ Transparency ’ The advantages of the blockchain can be summarized as wide range, cross-subject, efficiency improvement and cost reduction. "
What exactly is a blockchain? Why is it considered as the infrastructure of the future Internet … … Before answering a series of questions, let’s face the most basic question: how does the value Internet brought by blockchain push open the new door to trust the world?
A "big account book" that cannot be tampered with
The official defines the blockchain as "an innovative application mode of computer technologies such as distributed data storage, peer-to-peer transmission, consensus mechanism and encryption algorithm in the Internet age". What kind of technology is behind these obscure terms?
"Simply put, blockchain technology is a big account book that has been specially encrypted, follows the principle of minority obeying the majority, and records the same transaction at the same time." Long Fan, the founder of the block chain in the tree diagram area, explained, "The information production department is responsible for recording and storing information, that is, ‘ Block ’ , and information users communicate with each other through ‘ Chain ’ It is transmitted in an encrypted way, and anyone can keep an account, but it is almost impossible to modify some information recorded in the account book. "
A metaphor may be more concise. For example, when a buyer buys a commodity from a seller, both the buyer and the seller "shout" to the whole network at the same time: we have completed a transaction. Then every node in the blockchain synchronously records the transaction, and each small account book constitutes a super-large account book. The same transaction is consistent in different small account books, open and transparent, and cannot be tampered with.
Solving the trust problem has therefore become the core competitiveness of blockchain technology. Its energy lies in establishing a decentralized, open and transparent trust system with technical guarantee, thus making the digital world as real as the physical world. "In the final analysis, blockchain is a paradigm of credit establishment without trust accumulation. Any individual who doesn’t know each other can reach a credit consensus through a certain contract mechanism without an intermediary." Li Guanggan, a researcher at the State Council Development Research Center, said in an exclusive interview with Economic Daily.
According to the degree of openness to nodes, blockchain is mainly divided into three types, public chain, private chain and alliance chain. They are equivalent to public account books open to all, private account books within enterprises and public account books used internally by multiple companies, but trust always exists. Based on trust, new application methods came into being.
Jiang Guofei, vice president of Ant Financial Services Group, said quite frankly: "In order to solve the problems of information asymmetry and untrustworthy transactions, information Internet business models such as e-commerce, social networking and content have been formed, so that information can be effectively shared. Blockchain directly builds a value network based on the information Internet, which can connect assets representing value in a credible digital way, and record the complete process of their flow and rights distribution among all parties, greatly simplifying the collaborative friction between all parties in the traditional circulation of assets."
Xiao Xue, senior vice president of Inspur Group Co., Ltd. also thinks: "Under the far-reaching influence of blockchain, the Internet is moving from the information Internet era to the value Internet era. Blockchain enables people to deliver value on the Internet as conveniently, quickly and at low cost as information. Cloud computing and artificial intelligence are new productive forces, big data is the means of production, and blockchain is the production relationship, which runs through the entire technical system. "
The true value after getting to the bottom.
"In 2008, a self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto published an article entitled" Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System ",and in 2009, the early implementation code was published, and Bitcoin was born." Li Guang Gan said that Bitcoin is the first application of blockchain technology.
For this reason, ordinary people often associate blockchain with virtual cryptocurrency, but a series of projects called "so-and-so" that followed were severely hit. The reason is precisely because the risks of these virtual cryptocurrencies under the banner of blockchain are uncontrollable, and they also contain a lot of speculation, speculation and fraud risks.
From the Notice on Preventing Bitcoin Risks in 2013 to the Notice on Preventing the Financing Risks of Token Issuance in 2017, the Notice on Cooperating with the Clean-up and Rectification of Virtual Currency Trading Platforms, and then to the Risk Warning on Preventing Illegal Fund Raising in the Name of Virtual Currency and Blockchain in 2018, in order to protect the interests of investors, a series of regulatory measures have been introduced one after another.
Jiang Guofei said: "Blockchain technology is not equal to hype cryptocurrency. Cryptographic currency without actual value anchor should not be the development direction of blockchain industry. We should be alert to all kinds of scams in the name of blockchain, so that this technology that should have generated greater value itself becomes a victim. Blockchain is not a tool for getting rich overnight, but the infrastructure of the future digital economy. "
Si Xiao, dean of Tencent Research Institute, also believes: "The blockchain has gone through the stage of being sought after from the bubble to the trough, but it is also a process of scouring the sand to get rid of the false. All parties in the blockchain industry still need to rethink the blockchain value in the process of trying to land, rather than blindly manufacturing ‘ False demand ’ 。”
When the bubble dispersed, the real value of the blockchain was still affirmed by the "top design". In October 2016, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the White Paper on the Development of Blockchain Technology and Application in China, which put forward the roadmap of China’s blockchain standardization for the first time. In December of the same year, the "blockchain" was written as a strategic frontier technology for the first time in the Notice of the State Council on Printing and Distributing the "Thirteenth Five-Year National Informatization Plan". Since then, the state and local governments have successively issued a number of programmatic documents to encourage the study of blockchain, carry out its pilot application, and support its innovative integration and cutting-edge layout. In the first half of this year alone, 106 blockchain support policies were issued in various places.
Therefore, the research, standardization and industrialization of domestic blockchain have been actively promoted. "Industrial collaboration has created many opportunities for the blockchain. Where data and value need to flow, where efficiency is relatively low and the process is particularly long, the development speed is particularly fast." Jiang Guofei said.
A series of blockchain applications that support the real economy and solve the pain points of people’s livelihood are widely testing water. In the financial industry, blockchain helps to authenticate and protect cross-border remittances and transaction settlement assets; In the logistics industry, the digitalization of goods greatly improves the visibility and predictability of the logistics network; Blockchain electronic bills, blockchain electronic invoices and blockchain electronic prescriptions … … Blockchain is accelerating innovative integration with all walks of life, giving new momentum to the new round of development of various industries.
New prospect of coexistence of opportunities and challenges
The future of blockchain has come, are you ready?
From the perspective of industry consensus, the development of blockchain technology is still in the starting stage. Ren Zeping said: "Despite the rapid influx of capital and talents, from the perspective of the industry, with the accelerated landing of application scenarios, it will develop faster in three to five years. At present, there are still challenges in how to solve the mapping of real assets in the chain, the interoperability of cross-chain information and assets, and the scalability of blockchain. "
Xiao Xue also said: "In addition to network performance, it is also necessary to solve the security and privacy issues of blockchain data, calculation costs and cross-chain connections."
However, from the perspective of technical reserves and capital support, China still has a good foundation in the blockchain field. The improvement of China’s independent innovation capability provides a guarantee for the accelerated commercialization of blockchain. In 2017 and 2018, the number of open blockchain patents in China ranked first in the world for two consecutive years. In the first half of this year, the number of blockchain patents published in China was 3,547, which exceeded the total number of patents published in 2018 by 2,435.
In terms of capital market, from a global perspective, more than 95% of blockchain financing events are currently in the seed round, angel round and A round, and only 3% are in the B round and beyond, which shows that the industry is still in the early stage. In China, as of the first half of this year, the proportion of project financing rounds in the initial stage of blockchain is still as high as 88.06%. At the same time, the domestic capital market is showing rationality. Since 2015, the proportion of strategic investment in blockchain in China has gradually increased, from less than 10% to 24.38% in 2018.
However, from the perspective of talent reserve, the construction of blockchain talent team needs to be further strengthened. Huang Zhen, president of China Internet Finance Innovation Research Institute, said that the talent training system in this field is still in the early stage, and the overall talent scale and quality are currently difficult to meet the fast-paced development needs of the industry. "However, with the continuous implementation of blockchain policies, the maturity of industry development and the continuous increase of educational resources, China’s blockchain talent training system will become more and more perfect, gradually alleviating the imbalance between supply and demand."
Jiang Guofei believes that "China’s blockchain industry will enter the commercial era ahead of schedule. Firstly, it benefits from the progress of technical ability and the further maturity of system performance and data protection. Secondly, open technology leads to accelerated group innovation; The third is to cooperate with industry benchmarks to stimulate the snowball effect. "
Economic Daily China Economic Net reporter Chen Jing