Blockchain: a revolution, or a game?

From the end of 2017, the digital currency "roller coaster" trend, to the beginning of 2018, many parties again siege, virtual currency and "screen" circle of friends. At the same time, the blockchain as the bottom of the bitcoin used to decentralized ledger technology, but also be flocked to the headlines, and not for a long time. In fact, it is not the first time that digital currencies have been in the headlines, just like the undefeatable "little strong", from time to time out of the "active" a bit of people's eyeballs. Recently, following the ICO, blockchain has become the "new money" in everyone's mouth, is it a self-bringing "light" of the illumination, or the "magic" of the blindfold? Futures Daily reporter investigated this.

Crazy blockchain in the fog

According to the futures daily reporter, the concept of blockchain can be traced back to the end of 2008, when a pseudonym "Satoshi Nakamoto" of the mysterious person in the forum published "Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system" article, for the first time. Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" was published by a mysterious person under the name "Satoshi Nakamoto" in the forum, the concept of blockchain was first proposed. 2009 January 3, the first block of the blockchain was born, and this block was called the "founding block".

By definition, blockchain is not new, but it has only been widely spread in recent times, and people have only heard about it, not everyone is familiar with it. If you ask a two or three, I'm afraid that not many people can explain the term "blockchain" clearly. However, this unfamiliar blockchain, but the old and new, very hot.

According to netizens, on January 9, Xu Xiaoping, the helmsman of the Zhenge Fund, sent a "do not spread out" message to the group in the WeChat group, Xu Xiaoping wrote: "CEOs, the blockchain revolution has arrived, this is a smooth, contrary to the death of the great technological revolution. great technological revolution. Its subversion of tradition will be more rapid and thorough than the Internet and mobile Internet. I hope everyone will take action immediately to understand blockchain and ICO and enter the blockchain era while basing on their own business and doing well in the existing model?"

Traditional investors are optimistic about the blockchain is not empty wind, in the past period of time, the blockchain concept has become a global capital market *** with the "favorite", whether it is the U.S. stock market, Hong Kong stocks, or the A-share market, the funds have to pour in. According to the reporter's understanding, last year, Eastman Kodak Company's share price fell all the way down, down more than 70%, but after it declared that it would release Kodak Coin, its share price rose 77%. The release of Kodak Coin, or make a century-old Kodak Company to return to glory.

In addition, according to the Wind Information Blockchain Index, the index rose rapidly and continuously after New Year's Day, and even rose more than 5 percent in a single day on three trading days. In the A-share market, there are as many as 50 stocks with the concept of blockchain, including Sifang Jingchuang, Govinda, Flying Integrity and dozens of other listed companies involved in the blockchain business, the entire stock soared.

GrandViewResearch, a San Francisco-based market research and forecasting firm, envisioned in its report that "blockchain technology is one of the most promising technology trends in information technology." The report predicts that the U.S. and Canadian markets will continue to grow. Meanwhile, China and India will grow at a CAGR of 37.6 percent over the next eight years as the financial sector adopts blockchain technology.

Before you even understood what blockchain was all about, it just came, so fast. That's how most people react to blockchain today, hearing about it and being confused when exposed to it.

Blockchain important application of regulatory blocking

Blockchain is an important concept of Bitcoin, Tsinghua University Wudaokou School of Finance, Internet Finance Laboratory in the "2014-2016 Global Bitcoin Development Research Report," elaborated that the blockchain is the underlying technology of Bitcoin and the infrastructure, which is essentially a decentralized database, while as the underlying technology of Bitcoin, the blockchain is a string of data blocks generated using cryptographic methods of correlation, each of which contains information about a single Bitcoin network transaction, used to validate the validity of its information (anti-counterfeiting) and to generate the next block.

"In short, blockchain technology refers to a way for all people to participate in bookkeeping. All systems have a database behind them, which you can think of as a big ledger. Currently it's each keeping their own books." A friend beside me popularized it to the Futures Journal reporter.

After hearing the above concepts, understand blockchain? Obviously not so easy. But the mention of digital currency, think no stranger. At the moment, the most well-known application of blockchain technology is not digital currency. The reporter learned that, almost along with the birth of blockchain technology, Bitcoin became the first thing it played a role, and along with Bitcoin gradually popular around the world.

However, although bitcoin is the most famous among the many applications of blockchain at the moment, its days are not easy. The reporter learned that since December 17, 2017, bitcoin hit an all-time high of 21,189 U.S. dollars per unit, in just one month, it opened a wave of plummeting frenzy, the downward trend has continued into the new year, can be described as the bitter end.

Not only Bitcoin, virtual currencies are not comfortable days. A source close to the central bank told reporters that recently, the central bank business management department issued "on the implementation of illegal virtual currency transactions to provide payment services self-check and rectification work notice" (hereinafter referred to as "notice"), requiring the jurisdiction of the legal person payment institutions since the date of release of the document in the unit and the branch to carry out self-check and rectification work, is strictly prohibited for the provision of services for the transaction of virtual currencies, and to take effective measures to prevent the payment channel for virtual currency transactions, and take effective measures to prevent payment channels from being used for virtual currency transactions. The Circular also requires that all units within the central bank should strengthen daily transaction monitoring, and for the virtual currency transactions found, should promptly close the payment channel of the relevant transaction subject, and properly handle the funds to be settled, so as to avoid the emergence of mass incidents.

January 17, held in Beijing, the national public security organs, industry and commerce departments network marketing illegal and criminal activities of the joint rectification work deployment meeting, virtual currency is the focus of the fight against the object. The reporter was also informed that at the beginning of this month, the leading group of the Internet Financial Risk Special Rectification Office issued a notice for Bitcoin, requesting that enterprises under its jurisdiction be actively guided to withdraw from the "mining" business in an orderly manner, and requesting that it actively coordinate with the relevant departments under its jurisdiction to take various measures to comprehensively adopt measures such as electricity prices, land, taxation and environmental protection, and to guide the relevant enterprises to withdraw from the business in an orderly manner. The company is also requested to actively coordinate with the relevant departments under its jurisdiction to take various measures and adopt comprehensive measures on electricity price, land, taxation and environmental protection to guide the relevant enterprises to exit in an orderly manner.

In addition to China, South Korea, another global center for virtual currencies, has also issued negative news on virtual currencies, including the implementation of a real-name system for cryptocurrency transactions, a ban on anonymous cryptocurrency accounts, and the closure of virtual currency exchanges at the request of South Korea's Ministry of Justice.

As the two global centers of virtual currencies, the attitudes of China and South Korea have undoubtedly made virtual currencies in the cold winter worse.

Blockchain development product of life and death

Relative to the virtual currency trend of "floating and sinking", as the blockchain industry development stage product ICO, its experience is also very tortuous. About ICO, before the futures daily published "ICO in the curtain waiting for a chance of life" article has reported that the ICO was severely cracked down after the silence, looking forward to rebirth.

January 12, China Internet Finance Association issued "on the prevention of disguised ICO activities risk tips" (hereinafter referred to as "Risk Tips") once again let the ICO back to people's horizons, "Risk Tips" wrote, to the issuance of Xunlei "Chain Ke" (formerly known as "Playkids") as a representative, a kind of Xunlei "Chain Ke" (formerly known as "Playkids").

In the "Risk Alert", it is written that the issuance of Xunlei's "chain grams" (formerly known as "playboy coins") as a representative of a mode of issuing virtual digital assets (IMOs) with a mining machine as the core is worthy of vigilance, and the issuing enterprise actually replaces the fiat currency payment obligation of the services contributed by the participants with the "chain grams", which is essentially a kind of financing, and is an ICO in disguise.

As you can see from the above news, China's attitude towards the fight against ICOs has always been firm. However, this has not prevented the ICO glowing "second spring". Futures Daily reporter learned that in September last year, domestic ICO platforms have closed, the ICO industry chain will move offshore, China's two largest exchanges, Fire Coin and OKCoin, Fire Coin moved to Singapore, Hong Kong has also set up a subsidiary, but also on-line version of the South Korean version; OKCoin, it is rumored that through investment, cooperation and other ways, to get the world's multi-country digital asset trading license! It is also rumored that OKCoin, through investment and cooperation, has obtained licenses for digital asset trading in many countries around the world. Zhao Changpeng and He Yi, who used to work in OKCoin's marketing department, offered "Coin Security", which landed in Japan and ranked at the top of the global trading volume chart.

The carnival is a group of people alone, in the face of ICO risk warning, ICO fervent followers do not pay attention. The reporter found from some ICO chat groups, this group of "people chasing the sun" are still involved in coin speculation. "In the past in the domestic operation, there are too many restrictions, transfer to the outside world is much more convenient. No need to VPN this kind of wall software can be traded, they (ICO project company) registered servers outside the country, but we can buy online directly." Participants in ICOs are still having fun, and the wild party has no end for them.

In addition to the presence of the speculative army, the reporter also found an interesting phenomenon: two months ago, Gibraltar also introduced a draft regulation, trading cryptocurrency is expected to be legalized. Estonia proposed to issue its own cryptocurrency, trying to become a global ICO center. And at the end of last year, Belarus recognized Bitcoin as a legal currency and legalized ICOs.

In the face of the ICO ice and fire situation, the cryptocurrency industry veterans believe that "small countries embrace and tolerate this new thing, or because it believes that blockchain technology is really a windfall and a place where wealth is gathered, and that if regulation is liberalized, it will stimulate the country's economy ".

Today, ICOs are best known as a stage product of blockchain technology. Its awkward situation, however, may take time to ease.

Blockchain technology energy should not be underestimated

Both Bitcoin and ICO, although linked to the blockchain, but not the same as the blockchain, which is the tip of the iceberg of the blockchain application. Sun Guofeng, director of the People's Bank of China's Institute of Finance, previously said in a media interview that blockchain technology can be used in many fields and scenarios, including some of the social management field scenarios, the need to further broaden the vision of research and development of blockchain technology.

Futures Daily reporter learned from a report released by Santander, Spain's largest bank, that around 2020 if the world's banks are using blockchain technology internally, it will save roughly $20 billion in annual costs. Some industry insiders believe that in the future blockchain will change the financial industry, the Internet industry, the e-commerce industry, the medical industry, personal identification and many other industries. The bullishness about blockchain technology is entirely due to its ability to not only greatly reduce costs but also increase efficiency due to the absence of a centralized intermediary that allows everything to run automatically through a pre-set program. At the same time, the fact that everyone has the same ledger ensures that the ledger recording process is open and transparent.

The reporter found that in the "13th Five-Year" National Informatization Plan released at the end of 2016, the construction of blockchain technology was included in the national informatization plan, and the country began to explore the use of blockchain technology in various fields. From the national policy level, the importance of blockchain technology is obvious. At the same time, the reporter learned that at present, in addition to the practice of blockchain in the financial field, a number of enterprises have begun to try to solve the problems of their respective industries by using the technical advantages of blockchain "decentralization", such as Tencent's TrustSQL blockchain platform has been applied in a number of real-life scenarios, such as supply chain finance, logistics and finance, and forensic evidence deposit.

However, in the face of the recent wave of blockchain boom, the reporter's circle of friends said: "Be alert to the wrong use of blockchain technology, not to use the technology to solve the problem of trust, but under the guise of fund-raising, speculation and valuation. The vast majority of the so-called ICO is a disguise for capital-raising tools, and has nothing to do with technological innovation, it is some 'pseudo-innovation'."

So what areas are applicable to blockchain technology? Wang Jun, chief researcher of Tencent Financial Technology Think Tank, threw out four self-questions: first, are the requirements for data security high? Second, is it sure that there is not an organization that is fully trusted by all parties involved? Third, are the requirements for data processing efficiency high? Fourth, are the requirements for data privacy high? If the answers to all the above questions are yes, then the scenario is a suitable one for blockchain.

For blockchain technology, the bigwigs are unstintingly bullish. According to Klaus Schwab, founder of the Davos Forum, blockchain is an important outcome of the fourth industrial revolution, and it is expected that 10 percent of total global GDP will be stored using blockchain technology by 2025. And an analyst at Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) believes that cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology and decentralization are likely to become a $10 trillion ecosystem.

Reasonable use of technical characteristics avoid decontextualization

While the blockchain technology speculation is hot, the situation is good, but bearish voices are also popping up from time to time. Futures Daily reporter noted that a netizen said: "The great transfer of social wealth is often accompanied by a technological revolution, which is more dependent on material properties than virtual properties. Synthesizing information from various aspects, 'blockchain' is a concept 'from concept to concept', without a technological revolution, just an algorithm, without material attributes. Against such a background, one cannot lightly talk about the great transfer of social wealth."

More radical netizens bluntly exclaimed, "People shouting about the blockchain revolution, or some of those who are engaged in technology, masturbating in their heads, doing sand trading, projecting this new data protocol, how to how to get rid of the banks and whatnot, and then save a huge amount of cost, perfect!" "Blockchain is a Ponzi scheme."

"The pipsqueak is a ponzi scheme." A friend who studied blockchain technology told reporters, "These negative voices just see virtual currencies and blockchain as the same, the understanding is too one-sided, you can't generalize."

Su Peike, chief researcher of the Institute for Public **** Policy Research at the University of International Business and Economics, also wrote: "The birth of any new thing will inevitably be accompanied by many disagreements and contradictions, and if you can recognize the main line and dig deep, the 'casino' and how to render eye-catching can't take away the technological The fruits of the revolution, and this has just begun."

The above friend then said, "The field of utilizing blockchain should be to use its technical characteristics to solve the problems it exists, which is the right way to go, instead of stealing concepts and playing with empty things such as virtual currencies."

Stanford University lifelong professor Zhang Shousheng said in the article "Blockchain technology is the Internet world's new turning point of division and integration," "Our greatest wish is to make our society better through the technology of blockchain, so that people can create value through the sharing of data, so that the society is more fair, so that there are more new opportunities for everyone. We are facing this new revolution that blockchain and decentralized technology is bringing to this era."

January 22, Ma Huateng in the circle of friends forwarded this article by Zhang Shousheng, and said: "At present, many public *** blockchain consumes a lot of energy computing power to produce virtual digital currency in the end is considered to have equivalence backing? If according to the theory of life, should many living systems will continue to evolve out."

The implication is that the big waves will see the gold, the progress of life, the empty big fantasy virtual currency will always be dispersed with the wind.

About blockchain, what do you think? Still consuming brain cells like a reporter for the blockchain concept? Then may as well learn from a blockchain segment with the reporter -

A few old comrades, such a long-winded to the 80, 90 years later:

Don't play those blockchain ah, bitcoin and what virtual stuff

Life, ah, should do something practical

such as down-to-earth

Then buy a house in Beijing and get married!

One of the 90-year-olds replied:

You old comrades

just know how to fool us

All these years, you've worked tirelessly

and finally turned a few thousand dollars of reinforced concrete

into a 100,000-square-meter house

If we don't look for a new way to make a living