区块链将如何重新定义世界,区块链世界状态

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A. What kind of world can be built using cryptocurrency and blockchain?

Ethereum (English: Ethereum) is an open source public area with smart contract functions Blockchain platform. It provides a decentralized virtual machine (called the Ethereum Virtual Machine) through its dedicated cryptocurrency Ether (also known as "Ether") to process peer-to-peer contracts. The concept of Ethereum was first proposed by programmer Vitalik Buterin between 2013 and 2014, inspired by Bitcoin. It roughly means "the next generation of cryptocurrency and decentralized application platform" and began to develop through ICO crowdfunding in 2014. On May 17, 2018, China officially released the first global public chain technology evaluation index and ranking, and Ethereum ranked first on the evaluation list.

Vitalik Buterin is the founder of Ethereum. He founded Ethereum at the age of 19 and had a net worth of hundreds of millions in his 20s. If Satoshi Nakamoto is the creator of the blockchain, then Buterin started the blockchain 2.0. He is known as "V God" and is the spiritual leader of the cryptocurrency circle.

Buterin was born in Russia in 1994 and immigrated to Canada with his father when he was six years old. In the 1990s, when Buterin was born, the Internet began to become popular, and the optimism brought about by technological leaps permeated the world. Many people believe that the Internet will make the world more open, more efficient, and more equal, make it easier to expose information, and make those in power more accountable.

However, while technology has brought great progress, it has also brought serious problems. Personal data is held by large companies and governments. Electronic surveillance is everywhere and at all times. On the surface, social media enhances communication, but on a global scale, it exacerbates ideological conflicts. Bitcoin, and the underlying blockchain technology, represent another possibility for the Internet in many people’s minds: decentralization and anonymity.

At the end of 2013, 19-year-old Buterin published the "Ethereum" white paper. Ethereum not only brings a new cryptocurrency, Ethereum, but is also based on a common coding language that can be used to create a variety of applications. Ethereum is known as the "world computer" that never goes offline. Its vision is to return control of data to its owners and return creative rights to its authors.

Six years after Ethereum’s public launch, Ethereum has become the world’s second-most valuable cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. A very large and rapidly developing ecosystem has formed around Ethereum. It has begun to have practical applications in decentralized finance (De-Fi), social media, publishing, social organizations, etc.

Buterin has a clear world view. The decentralization, censorship-resistant, square voting method (Quadratic Voting), etc. involving democratic practice, Internet structure, business and public welfare organizations. His view of the world allows him to know what community he should be in, what he should be connected to, what he should promote, and what he should avoid. This also makes his influence far beyond the cryptocurrency circle. In Buterin's own words, "My life is to be a bridge to all things." He is of course a leader in the Ethereum community. The Ethereum Foundation provides tens of millions of dollars in external funding every year, and some projects have exceeded the field of cryptocurrency. He has 2.3 million followers on Twitter. He participates in the production of "Radical Markets" theory and often participates in public policy discussions with think tanks and other opinion leaders.

Buterin believes that there are two different forces in the technological field. One technological force will make the strong stronger and concentrate resources more towards the head, while the other technological force may allow us to continue Maintain freedom, freedom of anonymity, freedom of thought and speech. He mentioned the judgment of Peter Thiel (a famous investor and entrepreneur in Silicon Valley), "Artificial intelligence is communism; encryption technology is liberalism." He also mentioned that maybe the future will not be one technology completely defeating another. A technology, but people living digitally should have the freedom of choice.

For an investor, the most important thing is the "right amount", not the "right number of times." It doesn't help to be confident or to hold a small position.

—— Soros

Is it possible to return ownership of data to individuals while ensuring the efficiency of task execution? Is it possible for such a structure to solve some of the major problems in today's Internet? Can Ethereum take on such a task? What will the next generation of Internet look like? What will decentralization bring? What kind of world can be built in the future with cryptocurrencies and blockchain?

B. How to interpret blockchain in the simplest way

Everyone hears the word blockchain every day recently, so what is blockchain? Explanations such as "distributed, difficult to tamper, and consistent storage" are too technical and dry. Let me give you some popular science here: Blockchain is mainly designed to solve the trust problem between individuals who do not trust each other.

To give a popular example: It is said that Lao Li and Lao Wang live in the same village. Lao Li is a little short of money recently and wants to borrow some money from Lao Wang. As for Lao Wang, he was worried about what would happen if he defaulted on the loan after borrowing money from Lao Li, so he called in the "highly respected" village chief. But thinking about it, the village chief couldn't be trusted either. The village chief had even stolen other people's sweet potatoes in the past! what to do?

The blockchain method is: After Lao Wang borrowed 1,000 yuan from Lao Li, he then used a loudspeaker to shout in the village, "I, Lao Wang, borrowed 1,000 yuan from Lao Li today. Everyone Record it quickly." So everyone in the village recorded it in their own account books and kept it carefully. This is great, Lao Li can't rely on him anymore. Even if there are dishonest people in the village, there are still many good people. Lao Li can't find everyone in the village to secretly erase his loan records. In this way, the blockchain solved the trust problem of borrowing money between Lao Wang and Lao Li, who did not trust each other.

Before the emergence of blockchain, how did we solve the problem of trust between individuals who did not trust each other? It's simple, just find a "witness" who is "highly respected" and trusted by both parties, such as the village chief in the story, such as Alipay between the buyer and seller, such as the notary office, etc. However, it is possible that such "witnesses" may not always be honest, so the blockchain simply allows everyone to act as a witness.

Lao Wang is relieved, but Lao Li has a headache! Lao Li has to wait until everyone in the village has recorded the money before he can get the money lent to him. There is no uncle or aunt in the family who is slower. Therefore, there is still a certain distance between blockchain and application, and efficiency issues need to be significantly improved.

Recall how you usually trade with others: you can choose a beautiful dress in a physical store, confirm that the other party’s clothes are of good quality, and the other party confirms that your money is real money. , then we will pay and receive the goods face to face.

What if we are thousands of miles apart and neither know nor trust each other but still want to trade? Then there needs to be a third party that we all trust, which is the so-called consensus mechanism. For example: you can complete the transaction through a third-party witness guarantee on Taobao. The money is first given to Alipay - Alipay collects the payment and lets the seller deliver the goods - the seller delivers the goods - you confirm receipt - Alipay then gives the money to the seller.

However, what if this centralized organization does evil and Dad Ma tears up the account books and refuses to admit that you gave the money, or joins forces with the seller to defraud you of money?

Or maybe the government lends you 1 million, and finally pays you back by issuing extra currency. The 1 million shrinks to 10,000, and you bear the loss of inflation. What should you do? ?

Is there a third party that is not controlled by any government or organization, can complete arbitration in an open and transparent manner, has records that will not be tampered with, and has no risk of running away?

Don’t worry, our protagonist blockchain technology solves this problem - the transactions between you can be witnessed by everyone in this blockchain system, and everyone’s small ledger will be recorded Your deal. If B denies receiving money from A, or if A says that he borrowed 300 yuan, passers-by A, B, B, and D will question him. How exactly is it done?

1) The system issues a small ledger to everyone, so that everyone has the right to keep accounts. We call it distributed accounting.

2) In order to encourage everyone to help others keep accounts, the system code is set to reward tokens such as Bitcoin to bookkeepers, in order to prevent a group of people from being blocked in keeping accounts.Die, and set the number of tokens to a limited number. A, B, C, and D need to be calculated through the mechanism specified by the system. Only the fastest and best calculation can obtain the right to keep accounts. After recording, it will be broadcast to everyone through the system, and everyone will make a copy of the same The ledger, this process of obtaining rewards through calculation is called mining, and the passers-by A, B, C, and D who keep the accounts are the miners.

3) One day, A, who originally recorded the transaction, Game Over, but the ledger still exists in other people's ledgers. Neither A nor B can deny it. We have written in code how to arbitrate and distribute, without the need for banks, governments, enterprises and other centralized organizations to serve as third-party witnesses (decentralization), and the direct point-to-point (P2P) transaction method is called decentralization.

4) The system packages multiple transactions into blocks and links them in chronological order to become the final ledger that everyone has. This is the blockchain technology

In fact, the block chain The simple understanding of blockchain as a ledger is only the simplest interpretation. If each of its characteristics is separated, it can be applied in many fields.

Now the traditional financial industry, securities firms, and investment institutions are rushing to enter the Internet of Things, games, storage, copyright, anti-counterfeiting, credit reporting, payment, prediction markets (gambling, etc.), communities and many other fields. The exploration and application of blockchain has already begun.

The Internet allows everything to be connected. Can blockchain make everything connected trustworthy?

Let me explain the blockchain using the natural stones of heaven and earth:

All science, philosophy, morality... heaven and earth are included. Every thing and every culture is related to the Taoism of heaven and earth.

Blockchain naturally cannot escape the fate of heaven and earth: that is, smooth, random, infinite, and impermanent.

It is this strange stone, and the overall data movement on its surface. First, the whole is intangible. Second, the lines and points adhere to a pattern: the path of impermanence. That is to say, every line and every point they pursue is not a closed goal or a limited purpose. I can understand it better when I say this: when a painter paints a chicken, it has a purpose and an ending, while strange rocks, when created by nature, have no ending. Therefore, the phase is not closed, and the line and point data are not terminated. The technology of block connection is this way of destiny. Impermanence is invisible and has no end. (No centralization means formlessness, no closed form, no closed structure, no closed mind... just like "stone" to do things).

Confucius Lingshi Museum in Qufu, Shandong

Hello everyone, I am Pippi. I will use a few life examples to explain to you what blockchain is?

Decentralized, non-tamperable,A data block link system with distributed storage and using encrypted information as the link address is called blockchain

This thing is originally a lot of high-tech composite products. It cannot be simple, no matter how simple it is, it is still the same. It’s a long paragraph, and it may not be clear

The strict definition of blockchain refers to a consensus mechanism designed based on cryptography technology, in which multiple nodes jointly maintain a Continuously growing, distributed database technology for linked list ledgers constructed from timestamps and ordered record data blocks. This technical solution allows any number of nodes participating in the system to calculate and record all information exchange data in the system over a period of time into a data block (block) through cryptographic algorithms, and generate the fingerprint of the data block for linking ( chain) and check the next data block, all participating nodes in the system jointly determine whether the record is true.

Blockchain is a general term for technical solutions similar to NoSQL (non-relational database). It is not a specific technology. Blockchain technology can be implemented through many programming languages ​​and architectures. . There are also many ways to implement blockchain. Common ones currently include POW (Proof of Work), POS (Proof of Stake), DPOS (Delegate Proof of Stake), etc.

The concept of blockchain was first proposed in the paper "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" by the author who calls himself Satoshi Nakamoto (Satoshi Nakamoto) individual (or group). Therefore, Bitcoin can be regarded as the first application of blockchain in the field of financial payments.

[Popular explanation]

No matter how big the system or how small the website, there is usually a database behind it. So who will maintain this database? Under normal circumstances, whoever is responsible for operating the network or system will maintain it. If it is a WeChat database, it must be maintained by Tencent's team, and Taobao's database must be maintained by Alibaba's team. Everyone must think that this approach is natural, but this is not the case with blockchain technology.

If we imagine the database as a ledger: Alipay, for example, is a typical ledger, and any change in data is an accounting type. We can think of database maintenance as a very simple accounting method. The same is true in the world of blockchain. Everyone in the blockchain system has the opportunity to participate in accounting. The system will select within a period of time, maybe within ten seconds, or maybe ten minutes, the person who records the accounts the fastest and best during this period, and this person will record the accounts.Account, he will record the changes in the database and the ledger during this period in a block. We can imagine this block as a page. After the system confirms that the record is correct, it will record the data in the past ledger. The fingerprint links (chain) this paper, and then sends this paper to everyone else in the entire system. Then the cycle starts over and the system looks for the next person who can do the accounting quickly and well, and everyone else in the system gets a copy of the entire ledger. This means that everyone in this system has exactly the same ledger. This technology is called blockchain technology, also known as distributed ledger technology.

Since everyone (computer) has exactly the same ledger, and everyone (computer) has exactly the same rights, there will be no problem due to a single person (computer) losing contact or going down. The entire system collapses. Since there are exactly the same ledgers, it means that all data is open and transparent, and everyone can see the digital changes in each account. Its very interesting feature is that the data in it cannot be tampered with. Because the system will automatically compare, it will consider the account books with the largest number of the same number as the real account books, and the small number of account books with different numbers as others are false account books. In this case, it makes no sense for anyone to tamper with their own ledger, because unless you can tamper with most of the nodes in the entire system. If the entire system has only five or ten nodes, it may be easy to do, but if there are tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of nodes, and they are distributed in any corner of the Internet, unless someone can control most of the computers in the world , otherwise it would be unlikely to tamper with such a large blockchain.

[Elements]

Combined with the definition of blockchain, we believe that it must have the following four elements to be called a public blockchain technology. If it only has the first three points elements, which we will consider as private blockchain technology (private chain).

1. Point-to-point peer-to-peer network (peer-to-peer power, physical point-to-point connection)

2. Verifiable data structure (verifiable PKC system, non-tamperable database)

3. Distributed consensus mechanism (solve the Byzantine generals problem and double payment)

4. Nash equilibrium game design (cooperation is an evolutionarily stable strategy)
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[Characteristics]

Combined with the definition of blockchain, blockchain will realize four main characteristics: decentralized, trustless, Collectively maintained (Collectively maintained), reliable database (Reliable Database). And the four characteristics will lead to two other characteristics: openSource (Open Source), privacy protection (Anonymity). If a system does not possess these characteristics, it will not be considered an application based on blockchain technology.

Decentralized: The entire network has no centralized hardware or management organization. The rights and obligations between any nodes are equal, and the damage or loss of any node will not affect it. operation of the entire system. Therefore, the blockchain system can also be considered to have excellent robustness.

Trustless: Each node participating in the entire system does not need to trust each other for data exchange. The operating rules of the entire system are open and transparent, and all data contents are also public. , therefore within the rule range and time range specified by the system, nodes cannot and cannot deceive other nodes.

Collectively maintain: The data blocks in the system are jointly maintained by all nodes with maintenance functions in the entire system, and these nodes with maintenance functions can be participated by anyone.

Reliable Database: The entire system will be divided into databases so that each participating node can obtain a copy of the complete database. Unless more than 51% of the nodes in the entire system can be controlled at the same time, modifications to the database on a single node are invalid and cannot affect the data content on other nodes. Therefore, the more nodes and stronger computing power participating in the system, the higher the data security in the system.

Open Source: Since the operating rules of the entire system must be open and transparent, for the program, the entire system must be open source.

Privacy protection (Anonymity): Since nodes do not need to trust each other, there is no need to disclose their identities between nodes. The privacy of each participating node in the system is protected. protected.

[One of the meanings of blockchain: Solving the Byzantine Generals Problem]

The core problem solved by blockchain is not “digital currency”, but information asymmetry and inconsistency. Under a certain environment, how to establish a "trust" ecological system that satisfies the occurrence and development of economic activities. This problem is called the "Byzantine Generals Problem", also known as "Byzantine Fault Tolerance" or the "Two Armies Problem". This is a difficult problem faced when information machines interact in a distributed system, that is, any point in the entire network When nodes cannot trust the other party they are communicating with, how can they create a consensus basis for secure information exchange without worrying about data being tampered with. Blockchain uses an algorithmic proof mechanism to ensure the security of the entire network. With it, all nodes in the entire system canAutomatically and securely exchange data in a trusted environment. For more introduction, please see "Bitcoin and the Byzantine Generals Problem".

[The second meaning of blockchain: realizing cross-border value transfer]

At the beginning of the birth of the Internet, the earliest core problem to be solved was information production and transmission. We can transfer information through the Internet It can be quickly generated and copied to every corner of the world with a network, but it still cannot solve the value transfer and credit transfer. The so-called value transfer here refers to a method that everyone in the network can recognize and confirm, accurately transferring a certain part of the value from a certain address to another address, and it must be ensured that when the value is transferred, the original address is reduced The transferred portion, while the new address increases the value transferred. The value mentioned here can be a monetary asset, or some kind of physical asset or virtual asset (including securities, financial derivatives, etc.). The results of this operation must be recognized by all participating parties, and the results cannot be manipulated by any one party.

There are also various financial systems in the current Internet, and there are also many payment systems provided by government banks or third parties, but they still rely on centralized solutions. The so-called centralized solution is to put all value transfer calculations on a central server (cluster) through the endorsement of a certain company or government credit. Although all calculations are automatically completed by programs, this centralization must be trusted. person or institution. In fact, through centralized credit endorsement, credit can only be limited to certain institutions, regions or countries. It can be seen from this that the fundamental problem that must be solved is credit. Therefore, the core issue of value transfer is transnational credit consensus.

In such a complicated global system, it is difficult to establish a global credit consensus system out of thin air. Due to the different political, economic and cultural conditions of each country, it is difficult for two countries to It is almost impossible for enterprises and governments to completely trust each other. This means that whether it is endorsed by the credit of individuals or corporate governments, even if the value exchange between countries can be completed, there will be huge time and economic costs. But in the long history of mankind, no matter how different the religion, politics and culture of each country are, the only thing that can reach consensus is mathematics (basic science). Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that mathematics (algorithms) is the greatest common denominator of global civilization and the basis for the greatest consensus among human beings around the world. If we use mathematical algorithms (programs) as endorsement, all rules are based on an open and transparent mathematical algorithm (program), which can allow all people with different political and cultural backgrounds to gain consensus.

[Future Development]

The Internet will make global interactions closer and closer, accompanied by a huge trust gap. Currently existing mainstream databasesThe technical architecture is private and centralized, and the problems of value transfer and mutual trust can never be solved on this architecture. Therefore, blockchain technology may become the next generation database architecture. Through decentralized technology, it will be possible to complete the huge progress of mathematical (algorithm) endorsement and global mutual trust on the basis of big data.

As a specific distributed access data technology, blockchain technology uses multiple nodes participating in calculations in the network to jointly participate in the calculation and recording of data, and mutually verify the validity of their information. (anti-counterfeiting). From this point of view, blockchain technology is also a specific database technology. The Internet has just entered the era of big data, but from the current point of view, big data is still in a very basic stage. But when it enters the blockchain database stage, it will enter the big data era of real strong trust endorsement. All data here has acquired indestructible quality, and no one has the ability or need to question it.

Perhaps we are now at a major turning point - the early stages of a major transition that is almost as profound as the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution. Not only are new technologies exponential, digital and combined, progress and changes, but more surprises may be ahead of us. In the next 24 months, the planet will grow more computing power and record more data than it has in all of history combined. In the past 24 months, this value increase may have exceeded 1,000 times. This digital data information is growing faster than Moore's Law. Blockchain technology will not only be used in the field of financial payments, but will expand to all current applications, such as decentralized Weibo, WeChat, search, renting, and even taxi-hailing software may appear. Because blockchain will allow humans to collaborate on a large scale in a trustless manner without geographical restrictions.

Blockchain is a technology based on which many applications have been produced, including all industry businesses related to data and information. Bitcoin is one of the most well-known applications. The popular explanation of blockchain is that if you buy a lipstick online, you first find the product you like and place an order with the seller. You first give the money to the intermediary platform. After the seller ships the goods and the buyer confirms receipt, the intermediary platform then transfers the money. Transfer it to the seller, because of the trust issue, both buyers and sellers rely on the intermediate platform, and the blockchain, as a decentralized distributed ledger database, focuses on removing this intermediate platform while solving the trust issue at the same time. In the blockchain, everyone has their own ledger to record everything that happens. If a seller takes money but does not deliver the goods during the transaction, this record will exist permanently and cannot be modified, and there is no need to interact with each other. To exchange information, the blockchain world will select the person's ledger that records the fastest and best quality at the same time node to copy, send and connect in series, and finally stack it up to form a block.

When everyone talks about virtual currencies, they often cannot do without the concept of blockchain. So blockchainWhat the heck is this?

Blockchain is an underlying technology, essentially a decentralized distributed ledger database. It sounds very high-end and out of reach, but it is actually very easy to understand.

For example, if you want to buy something on Taobao, the first thing you usually have to do is to open Taobao, find the product you want, place an order and pay the money to Taobao, which is the transaction intermediary. Taobao will pay the seller after receiving the goods and confirming receipt. This was originally just a transaction between me and the seller, but it has an additional "center", namely Taobao.

During the transaction process, this "center" has unlimited power and can even modify the bill at will. Therefore, the “center” often needs a strong backend to endorse it.

So, a man named Satoshi Nakamoto wanted to get rid of this center with infinite power. He wanted to create a decentralized system in which everyone is the center and everyone is the center. Have the authority to keep accounts. So, he created Bitcoin.

In the Bitcoin system, everyone has a small ledger to record every transaction that occurs. A transaction is only valid after being confirmed by a majority of people. If the seller doesn't deliver the goods, everyone's little ledger will record it, leaving him nowhere to escape.

At this time, you may have questions. Since it is just a public ledger, why is it called a blockchain? This involves the issue of consensus. The blockchain system is a system composed of many "centers". The entire blockchain belongs to all individuals participating in accounting. At this time, new problems arise. A system must be in order to survive in the long term. If the bookkeeper can act recklessly regardless of the cost, it may happen that he originally just bought a mobile phone, but received a Tesla instead.

So, Satoshi Nakamoto invented a consensus method called PoW. This method increases the cost of bookkeeping for bookkeepers and prevents them from doing evil easily. PoW uses cryptography to require bookkeepers to compete for computing power to obtain accounting rights. The first bookkeeper to calculate the result can obtain the accounting rights of a block packaged from several transactions. At the same time, you will receive certain tokens as rewards. This is what we commonly call "mining".

Now that the bookkeeper has recorded a block containing several transactions, the system needs to be organized and sorted. It is impossible to have countless blocks distributed in the system in an orderly manner. So it is necessary to link all blocks end to end in chronological order. At this time, the blockchain was born. The core of blockchain is technology.

C. How to define blockchain and what are the application scenarios of blockchain?

Many people now think that blockchain is a universal technology that can do anything.Click on the myth of blockchain technology!
Regarding the definition of blockchain technology, American scholar Melanie Swann defined blockchain technology as an open, transparent and decentralized technology in her book "Blockchain: A New Economic Blueprint and Introduction" database.

Definition of Blockchain: Narrow VS Broad

As for the application scenarios of blockchain technology, it is natural to combine the differences between blockchain and other technologies. In terms of system characteristics.

Blockchain technology features include:

Blockchain is a global A database storage system that can be operated collaboratively in various places is different from traditional database operations where read and write permissions are in the hands of a company or a centralized authority (a characteristic of centralization). Blockchain believes that anyone with the ability to set up a server can participate. Nuggets from all over the world have deployed their own servers locally and connected to the blockchain network to become a node in this distributed database storage system; once joined, the node enjoys exactly the same rights as all other nodes and obligations (decentralized, distributed characteristics).

At the same time, people who provide services on the blockchain can perform read and write operations on any node in the system. In the end, all nodes around the world will complete the process again and again according to a certain mechanism. Synchronize in sequence to achieve complete consistency of data in all nodes in the blockchain network.

At the beginning of this year, the term blockchain began to enter everyone’s lives. From national leaders to aunts who dance square dances, everyone knows this term. This term is widely known by Bit Brought by coins.

As we all know, the first few dozen bitcoins could only be exchanged for one pizza. At its peak, it was more than 20,000 US dollars each, which has skyrocketed by more than a thousand times, which has also benefited a large number of wealthy people. Currently, there are blockchain The virtual currency generated by technology is gradually entering into everyone's life, and many people have joined the ranks of currency speculation. I often hear people say that if you buy the right currency a hundred times, a bicycle will become a sports car, and one coin will turn a young model. You can imagine how many of them are involved. Attractive.

Since 2008, various games applying blockchain technology have also become popular, such as development games (Network Letts Dog, 360 Block Cat), mining games (NetEase Planet, Virtual Earth, Gongxinbao), these are attracting everyone to join in the name of blockchain, and of course there are some that are really reliable, which requires everyone to identify them carefully.

Blockchain is a distributed ledger (database) that connects data blocks in an orderly manner and cryptographically ensures that it cannot be tampered with or forged. technology. In layman's terms, blockchain technology can make all data information in the system open and transparent, non-tamperable, non-forgery, and non-forgeable without the need for third-party endorsement.Traceable. As an underlying protocol or technical solution, blockchain can effectively solve the problem of trust and realize the free transfer of value. It has broad prospects in the fields of digital currency, financial asset transaction settlement, digital government affairs, and certificate deposit and anti-counterfeiting data services.

Digital currency

After experiencing physical objects, precious metals, banknotes and other forms, digital currency has become the development direction of the digital economy era. Compared with physical currency, digital currency has the characteristics of easy portability and storage, low circulation cost, convenient use, easy anti-counterfeiting and management, breaking geographical restrictions, and better integration.

Bitcoin technically implements an electronic cash system in which both parties to the transaction can directly transfer funds to each other without the need for third-party transfer or arbitration. In June 2019, the Internet giant Facebook also released a white paper on its cryptocurrency Libra. Whether it is Bitcoin or Libra, the underlying technology they rely on is blockchain technology.

my country began the development of central bank digital currency as early as 2014. my country's digital currency DC/EP adopts a two-tier operating system: the central bank does not directly issue digital currency to the public. Instead, the central bank redeems the digital currency to various commercial banks or other legal operating institutions, and then these institutions exchange it for public supply. its use. In early August 2019, the central bank held a video conference on work for the second half of the year. The meeting called for accelerating the pace of research and development of the national legal digital currency.

Financial asset transaction settlement

Blockchain technology naturally has financial attributes, and it is causing disruptive changes in the financial industry. In terms of payment and settlement, under the blockchain distributed ledger system, multiple market participants jointly maintain and synchronize a "general ledger" in real time. Payment, clearing, and settlement that currently take two or three days can be completed in just a few minutes. tasks, reducing the complexity and cost of cross-bank and cross-border transactions. At the same time, the underlying encryption technology of the blockchain ensures that participants cannot tamper with the ledger, ensuring that transaction records are transparent and safe. Regulators can easily track transactions on the chain and quickly locate high-risk capital flows. In terms of securities issuance transactions, traditional stock issuance has long procedures, high costs, and complex links. Blockchain technology can weaken the role of underwriting institutions and help all parties establish fast and accurate information exchange and sharing channels. Issuers handle issuance on their own through smart contracts, and regulatory authorities With unified review and verification, investors can also bypass intermediaries and conduct direct operations. In terms of digital bills and supply chain finance, blockchain technology can effectively solve the financing difficulties of small and medium-sized enterprises. It is difficult for current supply chain finance to benefit small and medium-sized enterprises in the upper reaches of the industrial chain, because they often do not have direct trade relations with core enterprises, and it is difficult for financial institutions to evaluate their credit qualifications. Based on blockchain technology, we can establish a consortium chain network covering core enterprises, upstream and downstream suppliers, financial institutions, etc. The core enterprises issue accounts receivable vouchers to their suppliers. After the bills are digitized and uploaded to the chain, they can be uploaded to the supplier For transfers between suppliers, each level of supplier can realize the corresponding quota with the digital receipt certificate.financing.

Digital Government Affairs

Blockchain can make data run and greatly streamline the service process. The distributed technology of blockchain can allow government departments to be centralized on one chain, and all service processes are delivered to smart contracts. As long as the service personnel pass the identity authentication and electronic signature in one department, the smart contracts can be automatically processed and transferred, and the subsequent steps can be completed in sequence. All approvals and signatures. Blockchain invoice is the earliest application of domestic blockchain technology. The tax department launched the "Tax Chain" platform for blockchain electronic invoices. The tax department, the issuer, and the payee join the "Tax Chain" network through unique digital identities, truly realizing "instant invoicing for transactions" and "instant reimbursement after invoicing" - in seconds Level invoicing and minute-level reimbursement accounting significantly reduce tax collection and management costs, and effectively solve problems such as data tampering, over-reporting of one ticket, and tax evasion. Poverty alleviation is another practical application of blockchain technology. Utilize the characteristics of openness, transparency, traceability, and non-tampering of blockchain technology to achieve transparent use, precise investment, and efficient management of poverty alleviation funds.

Evidence-based anti-counterfeiting

Blockchain can prove the existence of a file or digital content at a specific time through hash timestamps, and it is open, non-tamperable, and traceable. It provides perfect solutions for judicial forensics, identity certification, property rights protection, anti-counterfeiting and traceability, etc. In the field of intellectual property, the digital signature of blockchain technology and on-chain certificates can confirm the rights of text, pictures, audio and video, etc., and create and execute transactions through smart contracts, allowing creators to regain pricing power and preserve data formation in real time. The evidence chain covers the three major scenarios of rights confirmation, transaction and rights protection. In the field of anti-counterfeiting and traceability, blockchain technology can be widely used in various fields such as food and medicine, agricultural products, alcohol, and luxury goods through supply chain tracking.

Data services

Blockchain technology will greatly optimize existing big data applications and play a huge role in data circulation and sharing. In the future, the Internet, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things will generate massive amounts of data. The existing centralized data storage (computing model) will face huge challenges. Edge storage (computing) based on blockchain technology is expected to become a future solution. Furthermore, the non-tampering and traceability mechanism of blockchain ensures the authenticity and high quality of data, which becomes the basis for all data applications such as big data, deep learning, and artificial intelligence. Finally, blockchain can realize multi-party collaborative data calculations while protecting data privacy, and is expected to solve the problems of "data monopoly" and "data islands" and realize the value of data circulation. In response to the current blockchain development stage, in order to meet the blockchain development and application needs of general business users, many traditional cloud service providers have begun to deploy their own BaaS ("Blockchain as a Service") solutions. The combination of blockchain and cloud computing will effectively reduce enterprise blockchain deployment costs and promote the implementation of blockchain application scenarios. In the future, blockchain technology will also play an important role in many fields such as charity, insurance, energy, logistics, and the Internet of Things.

The three words "blockchain" were completely ignited during the Spring Festival that just passed, and the limelight overshadowed everything. Some people said that this is the arrival of a new era, and the past has become classical. , and some people say that everything is hype and is ultimately a bubble.

In fact, blockchain technology is not a new concept. It has been applied to many industries, such as electronic signatures, as early as the past two years. Recently, the third-party electronic signature platform eShanbao revealed the latest progress of blockchain applications to NewSeed.

Currently, blockchain technology is mainly used in e-signing products for certificate deposit and certificate issuance. The application scenarios include copyright protection and online signing. , web page forensics, phone recording, email storage of evidence, etc.

Take the rights protection of online works as an example. Since online rights protection generally adopts the method of collecting evidence after the fact, real-time confirmation of rights is not carried out in the process of evidence generation, so the entire confirmation process is difficult. The copyright process is time-consuming, difficult and costly to obtain evidence, and extremely difficult to prove and trace the source. It cannot meet the characteristics of rapid dissemination and large quantity of online works.

eShanbao's new intellectual property protection solution based on timestamp + blockchain starts from the user's real-name authentication and solidifies the information generated in the process in real time. Electronic data, and through the time source service synchronized with the National Time Service Center, online works are stamped with legally valid timestamps to prove that electronic files have not been tampered with in a certain period of time. Blockchain technology can establish point-to-point trust in the network, ensuring that all blockchain nodes can record complete copyright confirmation and transaction records, and can trace their origins, truly realizing anti-repudiation and anti-tampering, and realizing a kind of distribution. trust infrastructure.

Founder and CEO Jin Hongzhou believes that the application of decentralized blockchain technology has greatly improved the efficiency of data storage and certification, and The credibility of the identity of the parties reduces the cost of trust, but it cannot replace the original centralized public key encryption technology. The two should complement each other. Through the combination of the two, it can provide users with real-time and reliable Confirmation plan.

Next, e-Shanbao will also focus on building a smart contract platform based on blockchain technology. Jin Hongzhou said that data storage, Issuing certificates is only a relatively superficial application based on blockchain technology. It is the first step to implement blockchain technology, and the realization of real smart contracts is the second step. "Smart contracts cannot simply be understood as electronic contracts. They refer to a process, from the conclusion of the contract to the confirmation to the final execution." Jin Hongzhou explained.

From a technical perspective, blockchain is not a brand-new technology;New application models of computer technologies such as distributed data storage, point-to-point transmission, consensus mechanisms, encryption algorithms, and smart contracts. Specifically, blockchain technology is a technical solution that collectively maintains a reliable database in a decentralized, high-trust manner.

Due to its advantages such as "decentralization", "distributed data storage", "traceability", "anti-tampering", and "openness and transparency", blockchain technology can effectively solve data problems. By establishing a trustworthy data management environment, we can prevent and avoid various data management problems such as data fraud, tampering, and loss, and promote the efficient sharing and application of data. In the process of practice and exploration, the application scope of blockchain technology continues to expand, especially in the field of public resource transactions, and continues to empower public resource transaction management services.

Facilitate transaction data sharing and transaction witnessing

Facilitate transaction data Share

Currently, the data of different trading centers are not interoperable, and the subject information of different trading centers needs to be entered repeatedly. It is difficult to verify the off-site performance provided by the bidders during the bid evaluation process. It is difficult to troubleshoot the same person repeatedly serving as project manager. Issues such as low cost of breach of trust. Establishing a cross-regional subject database based on blockchain can well alleviate the above problems.

The distributed ledger feature based on the blockchain can effectively ensure the real-time or quasi-real-time sharing of data, and can reduce the repeated entry of subject information; the use of blockchain information that cannot be tampered with can ensure the data circulation process on the chain. The authenticity of the bidders in the regional alliance is directly obtained from the on-chain data, making it impossible to hide the fake performance. At the same time, the sharing of bidding behavior data through the blockchain provides a data basis for the development of "joint punishment of dishonest enterprises".

Blockchain-based transaction witness

"Guiding Opinions on Deepening the Integration and Sharing of Public Resource Trading Platforms" ( The State Office Letter [2019] No. 41) pointed out the need to optimize services such as witnessing, venues, information, files, and expert extraction. However, at present, public resource transaction process witnessing is mainly based on manual on-site witnessing, which has limited witnessing intensity, high occupation of human resources, and limited witnessing effect. Due to its centralized characteristics, the traditional digital witness system is prone to data tampering, and the data is easily damaged or lost during the storage and migration process, which has certain flaws in terms of security and usability.

Utilize the distributed, difficult to tamper, and traceable characteristics of the blockchain to solidify and store the data generated in each transaction link, and accurately record the data generated through time stamp technology, summary algorithm, and electronic signature technology. Time, content, data source. According to the technical characteristics of the blockchain, simple structured data can be stored directly on the blockchain. For unstructured data, the data can be stored directly on the blockchain.The summary information of large files such as layout files, videos, and audios is saved through the blockchain, and the original files are saved through the distributed file storage service. When there are disputes or problems in a transaction, the blockchain can provide a set of credible transaction process data and clarify the responsibilities of all parties involved in the transaction. Achieve the goals of risk prevention and control in all aspects, traceability of the entire process, and improvement of all-round services.

Promote the rationalization of electronic guarantee rates

Promote financial services and corporate financing for bidding companies

Promote the rationalization of electronic guarantee rates

At present, electronic bidding deposit guarantee letters have certain applications in the field of bidding, solving the problem of bidding deposit funds for bidding companies. Occupancy issues. However, because financial institutions currently do not have reliable historical bidding behavior data of bidders, they are unable to judge the default risks of different bidders. As a result, the guarantee services charged to bidders adopt fixed rates, which makes a small number of bids with high default risks The cost of personal guarantee is allocated to most bidders with low default risk, which increases the guarantee rates for most bidders to a certain extent.

At present, it is up to the bidder to choose whether to use an electronic letter of guarantee, and the rate is the main choice basis for the bidder. If the bidder performance records are shared through the blockchain and the performance risks of different bidders are analyzed, it will be Different bidders provide different guarantee rates, which not only reduces the risks of financial institutions, but also reduces the use costs of most bidders and promotes the use of bid guarantees. To a certain extent, it can also encourage bidders to abide by their promises and maintain the order of the bidding market. .

Promote financial services for bidding companies

The bidding behavior of bidders is scattered in various trading centers, and the data is simply aggregated In a centralized information system, there is a risk of data tampering (untrustworthy), and valuable bidder transaction behavior data cannot be gathered and shared safely and reliably. Through blockchain technology, bidders from multiple trading centers are gathered, and historical bidding, winning bids, defaults, violations and other behavioral records provide data support for financial institutions to evaluate the bidders' credit in the bidding sub-sector.

Solving the financing problems of successful bidders

Traditional corporate loans mainly evaluate the company's solvency: collateral, audit There are requirements for accurate financial statements and sustained profitability, but most small and medium-sized enterprises cannot provide these "proofs" at all. Difficulty and expensive financing have become problems faced by many small and medium-sized enterprises in bidding activities. Using the methods of the past will no longer work. To solve the financing difficulties of small and medium-sized enterprises, we can only rely on new technologies and new tools. With the help of the non-tamperable characteristics of blockchain, the primary business of multiple trading centers can be gatheredData, combined with big data analysis technology to build a portrait of credible bidders. On the one hand, it improves the risk control level of financial institutions and taps high-quality bidding companies. On the other hand, it lowers the loan threshold for bidding companies and optimizes the service experience.

Drawing on the supply chain finance model, the bidder is a core enterprise with good credit in government departments, national enterprises and institutions, and the winning contract obtained by the winning bidder as a supplier is considered by financial institutions to be a high-quality asset. Apply for a loan from a financial institution. Under the traditional paper-based model, there is a risk of order and contract fraud and the process is cumbersome. Centralized information systems require operators to have strong authority. The distributed ledger and difficult-to-tamper characteristics of the blockchain will help solve the above problems. The contract signing between the tenderer and the bidder and the subsequent financial service links will be realized on the blockchain, which not only solves the problem of data trustworthiness but also reduces the risk of corruption. The entire system relies on a centralized authority.

Through further analysis, we found that credit sales are currently prevalent among domestic enterprises, and the upstream suppliers of the winning bidder have a large funding gap. The credit of the bidder can only be passed to the winning bidder (the winning contract cannot be split or transferred), and the upstream suppliers Business owners are unable to obtain high-quality loans from financial institutions. If the winning contract is converted into a "pass" on the chain, the "pass" can be split, and the winning bidder holding the "pass" can pay part or all of the voucher to the upstream supplier, making it discountable and financing. The "tokens" on the chain can be split and transferred from first-level suppliers to second-level (and multi-level) suppliers, thereby allowing core enterprise credit to be transferred to multi-level suppliers. The shortage of funds from suppliers due to credit sales has been solved, improving the business environment; through value transfer through the blockchain, the financing cycle has been greatly shortened; the cost of supplier loans has been reduced, which will help reduce the production costs of raw materials or intermediate products, and ultimately Increase bidders' profit margins and indirectly reduce bidders' costs.

Regarding blockchain, we can imagine a decentralized management model and technical processing method.

Let me give you an example. There are five people in your family, and they have never been able to figure out how to arrange work and handle family relationships.

So, you and your family discuss it together and simply use voting to solve the problem.

Then this way of voting to solve problems can be called the most elementary blockchain.

Decentralization solves problems.

What application scenarios can blockchain have?

In fact, many of our families and many organizations use blockchain management forms every day

However, this kind of blockchain application for organizational relationships cannot produce Economic Value.

What are the economic applications of blockchain?

The first type is used for tax deposit certificates, bank transfers, etc.

Make full use of the traceability function of the blockchain so that all records can be investigated at any time.Inquiry

The second type is applied to enterprise operation and management

Enterprises can better solve the problem of enterprise development by using blockchain management form. problems so that companies can develop faster and make more money.

Summary: The application scenarios of blockchain include taxation, bank transfers, etc., and can also be applied to business operations.

The characteristics of blockchain are distributed accounting and decentralization, but the ultimate goal is to make people get along more equally. Technology is meaningful only when it serves human values, and technology that meets human value needs will develop. Therefore, blockchain is in line with human pursuit of freedom and equality, so its trend to become mainstream is unstoppable.

Currently, there are many blockchain gimmicks, which are basically used to issue coins. The newly launched ono is a decentralized, free and global social platform. Due to decentralization, your chat communication information is peer-to-peer and cannot be viewed by others. In other words, your every word and deed will no longer be recorded and reviewed at any time like it is now on WeChat, QQ, and Facebook, freeing you from the trouble of surveillance.

In fact, blockchain technology can be used in any field. Information that previously required third-party confirmation can be completed online and confirmed at multiple nodes, making it difficult (almost impossible) to delete.

At present, blockchain is still in its infancy, and the technology is not mature enough, but it is also a better time to enter.

Blockchain is a decentralized technology. Blockchain can be applied to all products currently covered by the Internet.

The most popular application industry at present is the financial industry.

An application that has been implemented is product traceability. Alibaba and JD.com are already using blockchain technology to fully trace the origin of some of the products they sell. Consumers can trace the origin of the purchased products. There are also many blockchain applications in the digital advertising industry. Since traffic fraud in digital advertising causes losses of tens of billions of dollars every year, there are already blockchain application projects based on digital advertising, such as DCAD, which is based on blockchain. The digital advertising application of blockchain technology mainly solves the problem of traffic fraud

In the future, as the application of blockchain technology becomes more mature, it will be applied in many industries, creating a new ecosystem based on technological trust. Mode

What is blockchain

If you explain blockchain in non-technical terms, blockchain is a place where data is stored. However, the data stored in the blockchain is safe and reliable and does not need to be managed by anyone. Therefore, in the Internet, a place where data and information are exploding, having such a place will be like a magical treasure land.

What can the blockchain do?

If you ask what the blockchain can do, it is better to say what applications need to use it.Blockchain. As mentioned earlier, blockchain is a safe place, so wherever data needs to be protected securely on the Internet, blockchain technology needs to be used. For example:

Because the use of blockchain technology can better protect the data of policyholders, in today’s Internet, data is value and wealth, so value protection and value transmission are the future development directions of the Internet. And blockchain technology can really do just that.

If there are any deficiencies, you are welcome to comment and correct me.

In a narrow sense, blockchain is a chained data structure that combines data blocks in a sequential manner in chronological order, and is cryptographically guaranteed to be non-tamperable and non-tamperable. Fake distributed ledger.

The two parties involved in the transaction do not need to know who the other party is, nor do they need a third party for trust endorsement. They only need to trust a common algorithm to establish mutual trust and conduct direct transactions.

Its characteristics are trustlessness and decentralization. The destruction of each node's ledger has no impact on the entire blockchain. The blockchain runs point-to-point payments without a center that may cheat, and the security is greatly improved. Improved, the entire transaction network has changed from a star structure to a point-to-point P2P structure.

In the future, blockchain will be used in many fields and will have a great impact on human life. . It can be widely used in fields ranging from digital currency to securities and financial contracts, medical care, games, artificial intelligence, smart contracts, Internet of Things, e-commerce, file storage and other fields.

1. Cloud storage

This is the statistics of current cloud storage on the Internet. In terms of volume, Google has the largest volume, which is 8,000PB. So what if we share the idle data on the Internet?

Starlight Cloud builds a blockchain data computing and storage lake through Starlight Chain, with a total storage capacity of 15,000P (approximately 15.72864 billion G) in the future. This will be more than 10 times that of Alibaba Cloud's 1500PB! It is also more than four times the size of the Taizhou Storage Center, the largest storage lake in the world after expansion.

2. Medical aspects

Using blockchain technology to save personal medical records also retains personal medical historical data, which can be used when seeing a doctor or planning for your own health in the future. Historical data can be called directly. These data are highly private, and the use of blockchain technology also helps protect patient privacy.

D. "How will blockchain redefine the world and what blockchain can be used for" pdf download to read the full text online, please ask for Baidu Netdisk cloud resources

"How Blockchain Will Redefine the World" (Tang Wenjian) e-book network disk download for free online reading

Link:

Extraction code:x9vw

Book title: How blockchain will redefine the world

Author: Tang Wenjian

Douban score: 5.7

Publisher: Machinery Industry Press

Publication year: 2016-6

Number of pages: 252

Content introduction:

This book is the first in China The published original blockchain enlightenment book draws on the best of others and brings together the authoritative views of many experts and scholars on the blockchain. Combined with a large number of examples, it introduces the origin, development, and differences of the blockchain to readers in an easy-to-understand manner. The economic ideas behind the blockchain, the technical principles and characteristics of the blockchain, the application prospects of the blockchain, and the prospects and imagination of the blockchain will lead everyone to understand and understand the world of the blockchain.

About the author:

Tang Wenjian holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology and a master's degree in finance from Central University of Finance and Economics. Mr. Tang is keen on the research and exploration of new technology economy. He is one of the pioneers in blockchain research and application practice in China. He has more than 15 years of experience in financial technology professional consulting services and has long provided services to large domestic and foreign financial institutions.

Lv Wen holds a PhD in Economics from Xiamen University, a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan, and a senior researcher in the field of blockchain. Currently working at Nanhu Internet Finance College. Mainly engaged in financial product research and development and design, Internet financial research and investment.

Lin Songxiang holds a master’s degree from Renmin University of China and is a senior manager at Ernst & Young. Mr. Lin has long provided financial technology audit and consulting services to enterprises, and is committed to the tracking, promotion and application of new technologies such as cloud computing, mobile Internet, and blockchain.

Huang Hao has a master's degree from Beijing Technology and Business University. He has worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young. He has many years of rich experience in auditing, internal control and management consulting in the financial industry. He has a deep understanding of the Internet of traditional financial institutions. has conducted in-depth research.

E. How will blockchain define the era we are currently living in?

There will be no lengthy technical science popularization today.
In one sentence, if Internet technology solves communication problems, blockchain technology solves trust problems.
This trust mechanism allows everything to run automatically through preset procedures. In the process without intermediary participation, the efficient and transparent transaction method reduces security costs and improves data security. This strict The algorithm further ensures the authenticity, accuracy, transparency, traceability and non-tamperability of the data.
The core significance of blockchain for today's era is that for the first time, humans have built trust relationships on the basis of technology. The advantages of speed, efficiency, low cost, transparency, and relative fairness have also been applied to various industries. field, amplifying its advantages.
Tencent, Alibaba, Internet, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and other well-known companies have joined the blockchain. Google’s blockchain investment roadmap is mainly aimed at banks and financial institutions. I hope they willWe can use our own solutions to optimize large-scale commercial projects; on January 5, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that his 2018 personal annual challenge plan is to use "encryption technology and encrypted digital currency" to transform the platform and will decentralize technology applied to Facebook services.
In the past two years, Microsoft has cooperated with well-known blockchain projects (such as Ethereum, R3, Xiaoyi, etc.) to vigorously develop its blockchain business; IBM is one of the first large companies to adopt blockchain . A report from WinterGreen Research pointed out that IBM has occupied 32% of the blockchain products and services market with a total scale of more than 700 million US dollars; including MOVA, which is fully imported and controlled by Greenland Group, and applies blockchain technology to price control. These all reflect the revolutionary changes that blockchain has brought to today's era, and there are endless possibilities.

F. What is the concept of blockchain

Blockchain is a term in the field of information technology.

Essentially, it is a shared database. The data or information stored in it has the characteristics of "unforgeable", "full traces left", "traceable", "open and transparent" and "collectively maintained". . Based on these characteristics, blockchain technology has laid a solid foundation of "trust" and created a reliable "cooperation" mechanism, which has broad application prospects.

On December 2, 2019, the word was selected into the top ten buzzwords of 2019 by "Biwenqiezi".

Related to blockchain financial applications:

Since 2016, major financial giants have also taken notice and launched blockchain innovation projects to explore the application of blockchain in various financial scenarios. Possibility of applying blockchain technology. In particular, Puyin Group took the lead in pioneering the “blockchain”-based digital currency.

The standard digital currency is an asset that has been identified, evaluated, confirmed, insured, etc. by a third-party organization and written into the blockchain through a rigorous digital algorithm to form a link between the asset and the digital currency. The standard correspondence relationship is called a standard digital currency.

In order to realize the great leap forward development of blockchain finance, in order to promote the new development of China's economy, accelerate the circulation of global assets, and realize the dream of rejuvenation that generations have been striving for, Puyin Group will On December 9, the Puyin Blockchain Finance Guiyang Strategy Release Ceremony was held in Guizhou.

The meeting will discuss the digital circulation of assets through blockchain, the blockchain financial transaction model, and the application of blockchain services and social public industries. This conference will mark the beginning of the application of blockchain finance and the transformation and development of a new financial ecosystem.

G. Blockchain can be defined

On March 12, 2018, the Hangzhou Municipal Science and Technology Commission, Hangzhou Financial Affairs Office, Xiaoshan District People’s Government, The first event was co-sponsored by Hangzhou Daily Newspaper Group and organized by Hangzhou Venture Capital Association and Hangzhou Bank.The Second Growth of All Things Conference was held in the press conference hall of Hangzhou International Expo Center. Babbitt and Bytom founder Chang Chai gave a keynote speech on "The future can be predicted, and the blockchain can be defined."
The following is the content of the speech:
Good morning everyone, I am very happy to be invited to do such a sharing. The theme I shared is "The future can be predicted and blockchain can be defined."
I used to be a science fiction writer and wrote some science fiction novels in college. At that time, science fiction was still a very niche group and very few people read science fiction novels. Later, I had a post that is now very popular. In 2011, a college student asked on Zhihu: If you have 6,000 yuan for investment and financial management, what advice do you have? The advice I gave him at that time was to buy Bitcoin. . Now it seems that this is a piece of advice worth 20 million. Of course, it is a sad story because the subject did not buy Bitcoin in the end. It is also a sad story for me, because many people in the novel I wrote I haven’t read it, but this advice is often mentioned. In recent years, people have been sending me private messages asking me which coins to buy. However, I am not an expert in investment and financial management. Our company is engaged in blockchain.
Babit established the website in 2011 and established the company in 2014, so we may be the first batch of blockchain companies in China. On what basis do we judge that blockchain technology may be popularized or survive in the future?
This would like to mention a science fiction novel I once wrote in college called "The Art of Slaying Dragons". This computer-themed novel was written in 2007. It tells the story of hackers who can use huge amounts of computing resources on the Internet in the cloud era to complete some very grand scientific computing projects. After this novel was published at the time, it was criticized by many readers. They think this novel seems unreal and doubt that hackers' abilities are beyond ordinary people's imagination.
But now it seems that this novel is not an exaggeration at all. Why? Because in the cloud era, the abilities between people will be disproportionately amplified. In reality, the abilities between people may be a kind of The normal distribution is just like a person's height and weight, but on the Internet, people's ability and influence will be disproportionately amplified. It is a combination of the Matthew effect + the long tail effect.
The core ideas of this novel are two points. The first point is that cloud computing will amplify people's abilities, and the improvement of computing power will amplify people's abilities. The second point is that computing is power. So when a new thing like Bitcoin comes out, it seems that the world written in my novel is becoming a reality. When Bitcoin was introduced to China from 2008 to 2010, many people had already heard of Bitcoin, but did not pay attention to it. In fact, to understand a thing like blockchain, some knowledge background is needed.
In addition, I would like to introduce a book, which is "Out of Control" written by Kevin Kelly. This book was written in the 1990s, but this book is very forward-looking and has a chapter that introduces the development of cryptocurrency. pioneers, but these pioneers later becameSir, what was the reason for their failure? In fact, blockchain needs to be based on three core technologies, and these three technologies are gradually maturing. The first technology is asymmetric encryption. In 1985, elliptic curve function encryption was already very mature, but unfortunately it was implemented in a centralized way. What are the risks of centralization? That is, when issuance If the currency company collapses or the founder is arrested, or the central server is attacked, it will cause the system to collapse, so it failed later. In 2000, someone began to introduce peer-to-peer technology into cryptocurrency for the first time, taking the lead in realizing distributed cryptocurrency. However, it also failed later. The reason is very simple, that is, there is no way to find a way to solve double payment (the same money is used). twice). It was not until 1997 that Adam Baker proposed proof of work. In 2004, Halfini expanded this technology into a reusable proof of work, so the 2008 Bitcoin white paper was successfully published.
And the carefully designed technical solutions in Bitcoin later seemed to be very advanced. For example, in 2014, Snowden revealed that elliptic curve function encryption is unsafe because the US National Security Agency has set up a backdoor in this encryption standard, giving the NSA an unknown method to weaken this curve. , at that time many people exclaimed that Bitcoin was dead and that the system might collapse, but later Satoshi Nakamoto did not use the encryption standard promulgated by the National Security Agency, but used a very rare curve.
To give another example, after hashing twice, a quantum computer cannot threaten the Bitcoin address and cannot decipher the Bitcoin private key from the address. What’s more interesting is that Satoshi Nakamoto also adopted a weird transaction method called a change mechanism. The change mechanism is that the remaining balance of each transaction is transferred to a new address. Now it seems that this is actually for the purpose of Prevent quantum computers, because the public key of a Bitcoin transaction will only be exposed on the blockchain during the transaction. You only need to transfer the remaining money to a new address during each transaction. In fact, you The public key will not be exposed on the blockchain.
So judging from so many details, it can be said that Satoshi Nakamoto is a bit like a person who is extremely careful, so many people think that he is not a person, but an organization.
I just mentioned why the proof-of-work mechanism was introduced to the blockchain and Bitcoin, and this cryptocurrency was successful? Because the proof-of-work mechanism is actually hash calculation. Why is calculation so important to the blockchain? ?I can give a very easy-to-understand proof through such a table.
This table shows that the real world and the digital world are actually in a mirror relationship. The real world can also be called the atomic world. In the real world, things are randomly distributed and random. In the digital world, everything is generally Pseudo-random. In the real world, there are no two identical leaves. Everything on the Internet can be copied. In the real world, it is a normal distribution. In the digital world, it is a power law distribution. It is the Matthew effect + long tail effect.. In the real world, things are competitive resources, which are exclusive resources. For example, if I own a microphone or a glass of water, others cannot own it. All resources in the digital world are non-competitive resources. For example, I transfer a document to another person, but in fact, this document cannot be transferred like a book in reality, because this document may be saved infinitely in my computer or other storage media. A copy, so based on such a mirror relationship, we can ask the question, why is it so difficult to copy exactly the same thing in the real world? This question can be turned into whether you can create a perfect crystal in reality, you can create A perfect crystal can actually copy exactly the same thing, but the third law of thermodynamics tells us that if you want to create a perfect crystal, you need absolute zero, and you have to invest a huge amount of energy. In turn, through this symmetrical thinking, we can This raises the question that in the digital world, that is, on the Internet, it is very difficult to prevent something from being copied and to achieve such competitive resources. To achieve such a competitive resource, a huge amount of personnel consumption is required, which is computing. The more computing power invested, the higher the barrier against double spending, which is why computing matters.
So since the real world and the digital world have such a mirroring relationship, the blockchain can actually be understood as the reverse machine of the printing press. I like to use such a very vivid metaphor to define the blockchain as the printing press. Reverse process.
Why is the printing press so great? In fact, before the birth of the printing press, human knowledge and information were competitive resources. Whether it was the Bible or martial arts secrets, they were all competitive resources. But after the birth of the printing press, this knowledge and Information has become a non-competitive resource that can be copied on a large scale, or the marginal cost of copying is almost equal to 0, so there is the subsequent information revolution. With the Internet, the Internet is actually an enhanced version of the printing press. But the problem with the Internet is that it is difficult to transfer competitive resources in the digital world. This is also the reason why some cryptocurrency pioneers failed in the 1990s. Blockchain solves this problem. It is the first to realize competitive resources on the Internet. The first competitive resource is of course Bitcoin, which is the first domino to be erected. After the first card falls, we can imagine that the second and third cards will fall as long as they have value attributes. They are all very suitable for using blockchain for registration and circulation, because the Internet is suitable for things with information attributes, so we say that the Internet is an information transmission protocol, and blockchain is a value transmission protocol. In fact, all resources with value attributes are It is very suitable to be combined with the blockchain.
So I don’t think the blockchain will replace the Internet. The blockchain itself is a parallel world of the Internet. It is to do some things that the Internet cannot do, so it may propose many business models. In my opinion, it is not It’s unrealistic. For example, it combines information attributes and business scenarios with blockchain. In fact, I don’t think that’s the case.So appropriate, because scenarios with information attributes are suitable for the Internet, and only scenarios with value attributes are suitable for "blockchain+".
Let’s further deepen the mirroring relationship between the Internet and blockchain. The carrier of the Internet is often software, and the carrier of blockchain is generally protocols. Software needs to apply for patents to establish its own patent barriers. On the contrary, with blockchain, most blockchain projects are open source, and you are very welcome to copy it. The code does not need to establish such patent barriers or moats. The main body of software development is usually a company, and the main body of blockchain development is often a community or foundation, which is a very loose organizational form. Software requires constant iterative upgrades, but iterative upgrades of protocols are very difficult, so they are generally very stable, because protocol upgrades require the approval of the entire network consensus, which is of course very, very difficult. That’s why there are so many Bitcoins. The software can be maintained and updated, and the protocol is that it cannot be shut down after it is started, and it runs 24 hours a day. Based on this kind of thinking, we can solve many doubts in our hearts. For example, in 10 years ago, many experts or big names in the investment community believed that although Bitcoin was a pioneer, it did not necessarily have the last laugh. How to prevent being defeated by latecomers? This is a typical Internet thinking. Internet thinking regards Bitcoin as a software. Through technological upgrades, latecomers may catch up, just like the browsers in the 1990s. Later, the early browsers were defeated by the newcomers. But in fact, Bitcoin cannot be regarded as a kind of software, but a protocol. The method of implementing this kind of blockchain is already a minimum feasible solution, and there is not much room for optimization.
Many people understand blockchain as the fifth paradigm revolution, because it is based on the summary of technological updates in the past few decades, which means that such a paradigm revolution, a leap-forward revolution, will be completed approximately every two years. The 1970s were mainframes, the 1980s were PCs, the 1990s were the Internet, the 2000s were the mobile Internet, and the blockchain was born in the 10s. The trend behind this is actually a trend of decentralization. Mainframes are in scientific research institutes or military institutions. PCs have entered families. The Internet has entered tens of millions of people. Mobile Internet has pervaded the world. In all aspects of life, blockchain has become more decentralized, and there is no longer even a central server. There is another detail here, that is, the time of the blockchain was calculated from January 1, 1970. Why does it have such a feature? In fact, it is because many programming languages ​​are derived from Linux systems, and Linux is derived from mainframes. , so it has the imprint of such an era invisibly.
In fact, there is a deeper evolutionary law behind it, such as the three stages of asset evolution. The evolution of assets can be divided into three stages. The first stage is the confirmation of asset rights, which is the equityization of assets and the confirmation of asset rights. It can then be transferred as a whole, so it's kind of like the solid stage of the asset. The second stage is asset securitization. After securitization, the assets can be divided and transferred, and their liquidity is obviously stronger. It is a bit like the liquid stage of assets.Sorry, the liquid state also has its limitations. For example, the business needs a container. This container is the platform for the assets. Assets still cannot flow across platforms. Only after the assets are blockchainized, that is, after the assets are put on the chain, can they truly enter a In the gaseous stage, because everyone can manage assets through their own private keys, whether it is equity, income rights, creditor's rights, intellectual property rights, etc., any asset with this value attribute is suitable for registration and circulation using the blockchain, so It is no longer limited by the platform, because everyone can complete the asset transfer process through their own wallet, so there is no need for a centralized authority or a centralized trading place. More broadly, many people have summarized a The first stage of blockchain evolution is the stage of cryptocurrency represented by Bitcoin in 2009 to solve the problem of value transfer, which can be understood as blockchain 1.0. In 2017, the era of issuing virtual assets through smart contracts emerged, represented by Ethereum, which can be understood as the 2.0 of blockchain. We believe that we will enter the third stage in 2020, using smart contracts to issue physical assets or help real assets to be put on the chain. The blockchain will eventually move away from the virtual to the real and serve the real economy. So Babbitt is doing the third stage, which is our prediction of the future development trend of the blockchain.

H. Why blockchain will redefine the world

The technology behind Bitcoin has established a reliable ledger, thus changing the lives of many people. The implications extend far beyond cryptocurrency.
1. When the Honduran police burst into Mariana Catalina Izaguirre’s home one day in 2009 and wanted to evict her, she had lived in this dilapidated house for more than thirty years. Unlike her neighbors, Mariana Catalina Izaguirre even has a housing certificate from the government, but unfortunately, information from the local government housing authority shows that the housing authority and another person, the "homeowner", applied to the court for an eviction order, Eventually Ms Lzaguirre was forced to leave.
This type of nonsense is common around the world due to unclear registration or lost records. The lack of security of home ownership is also a source of injustice. It also makes it difficult to use homes or land as collateral for financing, etc.
Bitcoin can make such problems disappear. Bitcoin is a "smart" currency based on encryption algorithms. What we should pay more attention to is the technology behind Bitcoin: blockchain. It means much more than money or cash. It creates a way of accounting that resolves mutual distrust.
That’s why politicians are consulting Factom, an American startup that provides a prototype for blockchain-based land registration, to clean up the Honduran property agency. There is also interest in Greece, which does not have a proper land registration policy,Only 7% of the land was mapped correctly.
2. Other applications of blockchain and similar "distributed ledgers" can be extended to prevent diamond theft and supermarket assembly lines. The NASDAQ exchange will soon use a blockchain system to record private company transactions. The Bank of England does not like technological civilization, but it seems to be stimulated: it wrote in a research report last year that distributed ledgers are a great innovation and will have a profound impact on the financial industry.
Politicians are thinking further: As partners and the left gathered at this year's OuiShare Fest in Paris to discuss how grassroots companies are shaking up big data companies like Facebook, blockchain was in every speech. . In the liberal dream of a world where more government regulations are replaced by private contracts between individuals—encrypted algorithms reinforce themselves.
Blockchain was envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto, the remarkable and so far only identified founder of Bitcoin—“a fully peer-to-peer electronic currency,” he wrote in an article published in 2008. In order for it to behave like a currency, Bitcoin must be transferred from the account being claimed and can be spent twice by the same person. In order to realize Nakamoto's dream of a decentralized system, Bitcoin must avoid any dependence on third parties, such as banks hidden behind ordinary payment systems.
The blockchain can replace third parties. It can hold the transaction history of every Bitcoin, providing evidence of any person at any time. The distribution system can be replicated on thousands of computers—Bitcoin’s “nodes”—everywhere in the world, and made public. But even with such openness, it is still credible and safe. This is ensured by the complexity of the mathematical algorithms and computational brute force built into its "consensus mechanism" - the process by which nodes agree to upgrade the blockchain based on the circulation of Bitcoins.
For example, Alice wants to pay Bob for rental services. They all have Bitcoin wallets – software that leads directly to the blockchain, rather than a browser leading to a web page without identifying the user within the system. Transactions begin when Alice's wallet starts making requests, and the blockchain starts changing to show that Alice's wallet has less and Bob's has more.

The network needs to go through several stages in this process to complete the change. As the request passes through multiple nodes in the network, the ledger is checked to see if Alice has the Bitcoin she wants to spend. If everything looks okay, specific nodes instruct miners to bundle Alice's request with other similar reputable transactions, creating a new module in the blockchain.
This involves breaking the module into a series of data of a specified length by giving the encryption a hash function (see diagram). Like many encryptions, this hashing is a one-way street. Data can be dispersed, but conversely it is impossible to aggregate the dispersed data into data.But even though the hash does not contain the data, it is still unique. By changing the entry module either way - by simply changing the transaction by a single number - the hashes will be different.
3. Along with other data, the hash will be placed at the beginning (header) of the specified module. The first bit then becomes the basis of a real mathematical puzzle, again involving hash functions. Puzzles can only be solved by trial and error. Through the Internet, miners have to experiment with hundreds of millions of possibilities to find answers. When a miner finally figures out the answer, other nodes quickly check it out (again via a one-way street: solving is hard, checking is easy), and each node confirms the solution and updates it to the blockchain. The first hash becomes the confirmation line for the new module, which is now part of the ledger. Alice pays Bob, and all other transactions contained in the module are confirmed.
The decryption phase introduces three things that greatly enhance the security of Bitcoin. One is chance. You can't predict which miner will solve the puzzle, and therefore who will upgrade the blockchain at a given time, except that it will be the most diligent miner and not some random saboteur. This makes cheating difficult.
The second point is history. Each new first bit contains the hash function of the previous module's first bit, which contains the hash function of the previous module, and so on until the starting point. This connection makes the module a circular chain. Starting with all the data in the ledger, regenerating the top of the latest module is a trivial matter. Although making a change anywhere - even going back to one of the earliest modules - the changed module's position will look different. This means the same goes for the next module, and all subsequent modules. The ledger will not pass the latest module identifier and will be rejected.
Is there any solution? Imagine Alice changes her mind about paying Bob and tries to rewrite history so that the Bitcoins are still in her wallet. If she is a competent miner, she can solve the burning puzzle and produce a new version of the blockchain. But in the time it takes her to do so, the rest of the network will have extended the original blockchain. Nodes will always work on the longest version of the blockchain. This rule prevents the situation where two miners find a solution at the same time and leads to consequences worse than a temporary fork in the chain. It will also deter cheating. In order for the system to accept her new version, Alice needs to extend it faster than others. Not being able to control more than half of the computers - known in technical terms as a "51% attack" - should be impossible.
4. Not to mention the possibility of subverting the above-mentioned network, another deep-seated question is: Why should we become a member of this network? This answer is the third "decryption" step, and there is a reward. Each new block has new Bitcoins. The person who solves the puzzle will be rewarded with 25 Bitcoins, which is about $7,500.
All the above-mentioned ingenious designs are not the real attraction of Bitcoinreason. Its value lies in instability and unpredictability, as shown in the figure below, but the total amount of Bitcoin is certain. The mechanics of blockchain also work well. According to a website called blockchain.info, on average, more than 120,000 transaction records are added to the blockchain every day, which means approximately $75 million in transactions. There are currently 380,000 blocks, and the size of this ledger is nearly 45GB.

Most of the data located in the blockchain is Bitcoin, but this is not required. Mr Nakamoto also creates a distributed system and writes about it. Tech geeks call it: an open platform. This platform is modeled after the Internet, including operating systems such as Android or Windows. Developers can develop applications based on basic functions on the blockchain without getting anyone's permission. Chris Dixon of Andreessen Horowitz, which invests in several Bitcoin startups, said: This kind of network will eventually become a public database. It is understood that Andreessen Horowitz has invested in the Bitcoin wallet company Coinbase and the Bitcoin hardware device company for the public 21.
There are currently three major areas of blockchain-based applications. The first is to complete all suggestions through the blockchain. The startup Colu is betting on this model. They have developed an algorithm to "polished" some small Bitcoin transactions, so that these transactions can represent transactions such as securities and precious metals.
Protecting the validity of land or house signatures has become a typical application of the second category. Bitcoin transactions add signatures to the blockchain ledger. A startup called Everledger protects luxury goods in this way. For example, they record the texture attributes of a gemstone in blockchain data, which can provide the most intuitive proof if the gemstone is lost. Onename uses a similar method to store personal information; note that since this application is not a pure Bitcoin transaction, you need to give more trust first, for example, you need to tell the application developer some accurate information about yourself.
The third application has greater ambitions. "Smart contracts" can automatically detect whether various environments are valid. This is because Bitcoin can be programmed to be usable or unusable in specific situations.
Lighthouse, founded by Mike Hearn, a well-known Bitcoin engineer, is a decentralized crowdsourcing project. If enough money comes into the project, then everything starts, if the goal is not achieved, it stops. Heran believes that his project can be cheaper and more independent than its competitors based on the Bitcoin protocol.
5. According to New York venture capital firm Albert Wenger of USV, the emergence of distributed ledgers has opened up a new era ofIt is almost a new quadrant of possibilities, and the company has invested in a number of decentralized companies, such as OpenBazaar, which provides P2P transactions. In addition to the cheers for blockchain, some people also question its security and scalability. Blockchain works well for Bitcoin, but for some niche applications it is not yet able to support millions of users.
Although Nakamoto’s design of the blockchain has proven to be indestructible so far, academic research also believes that without controlling 51% of the entire blockchain, it is almost impossible to do bad things on the blockchain. possible. In the past, Bitcoin players were limited to a small circle. Today, Bitcoin mining is controlled by various large Bitcoin pools. In this "pool", small miners share their efforts and receive rewards.
Another concern is the environment. In order to obtain more Bitcoins, miners have high requirements for computing power, which means that the power consumption of computers must continue to increase. According to data from blockchain.info, miners have to perform 450,000 calculation attempts per second, which will cause huge energy consumption.
Because miners are tight-lipped about the hardware, it is difficult for the outside world to know the specific power consumption of these computers. A rough calculation shows that if everyone uses the most efficient hardware, power consumption per bit is 2 megawatts, which is about the electricity consumption of California's 15,000 residents a year.
But these squanderings surrounding Bitcoin have their limits. Nakamoto’s design for Bitcoin at the time was as follows: there were approximately 1,400 transactions per megabyte of data, which meant 7 transactions per second. Compared with the current 1,736 Visa card transactions per second in the United States, Bitcoin blocks can be larger, but larger blocks will take longer to generate, which will also increase certain risks.
Some previous experiences may be useful for reference. When the web browser was invented in the 1990s and millions of people started living online, many prophets predicted that the Internet would stagnate. But in fact, the Internet has been developing, and by the same token, the development of Bitcoin will not stagnate. More computing equipment that can be used for mining will be more energy-efficient, developers will be more enthusiastic about developing applications on Bitcoin-based platforms and using Bitcoin transactions, and faster network connections will also accelerate the expansion of Bitcoin blocks. speed.
Many problems about Bitcoin are not due to a lack of solutions. Any changes to the Bitcoin mechanism require permission from the Bitcoin community, and reaching an opinion is not easy. One party advocates expanding the size of the Bitcoin block as quickly as possible so that it can become a disruptor of traditional payments, but the other party believes that if adjustments are not made, the existing system may collapse next year.
6. Mr. Hearn and Gavin Andresen are two Bitcoin tycoons and the leaders of large Bitcoin transactions. They called on mining companies to install new versions of Bitcoin that support larger transaction sizes. Some miners did sufferUnder cyber attack, and with widespread evidence of its need and danger, this upgrade and system is being pushed to its limits by a sea of ​​tiny transactions.
This all lays the foundation for the creation of an alternative to the Bitcoin blockchain that can be optimized for storing distributed ledgers rather than running cryptographically. Multichain, a customized blockchain platform provided by Coin Science, demonstrates the possible direction. It also provides the resources needed to build a blockchain like Bitcoin and can be used to create private chains, open only to specific users. If all users come to trust the needs of miners and proof of work is reduced or eliminated, then existing connections to the ledger become redundant.
The first business to adopt such a descendant of blockchain may be exactly one of the companies that failed in the first place and inspired Nakamoto: finance. In recent months, enthusiasm has grown for private blockchains to prevent disruptions in bank financing. More ironic than ironic, one reason is that anti-government liberals have developed technology that would allow banks to better comply with government demands by knowing their customers and anti-money laundering rules. But there's a deeper attraction here.
Industrial historians point out that new energy sources existed long before the most efficient processing methods were developed. When electric motors were first developed, they were like the giant steam engine machines that had come before them. It took manufacturers decades to see that decentralized electric motors could reorganize every aspect of what they did. The Bank of England writes in its digital currency report that it sees something similar moving forward in the financial industry. That's thanks to cheap computational finance companies that have digitized their internal work, but they haven't changed their organizations enough to match. The payment system is still centralized: currency transfers go through the central bank. When financial firms do business with each other, synchronizing their internal books is a tedious task that takes days, tying up capital and creating risks.
Distributed ledgers, which allow transactions to be completed in minutes or even seconds, could go a long way toward solving these problems and realizing the promise of digital banking. The books can also help banks save a lot of money: Santander says they could reduce the industry's bookkeeping by up to $20 billion a year by 2022. Vendors still need to prove they can handle the exorbitant Bitcoin transaction prices; but big banks have begun pushing to standardize the nascent technology. Among them, UBS United Bank has proposed the establishment of a standard "settlement currency". The first priority of R3 CEV is the launch of the blockchain. The Swiss Investment Bank has jointly invested with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and 22 other banks to develop a standardized architecture for private accounts.
7. Banks are not the only problem. Many companies and public institutions struggle to maintain them, along with often incompatible databases and high costs of communicating with each other. This is the problem Ethereum wants to solve, arguably the most ambitious distributed ledger project yetHead. The creation of 21-year-old Canadian programming genius Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s distributed ledger can handle more data than Bitcoin. It has a programming language that allows users to write more complex smart contracts that automatically pay and print invoices when goods arrive, or automatically send dividends to owners if profits reach a certain level. Mr. Buterin hopes that such a smart "decentralized autonomous organization" will be formed - basically, the virtual enterprise just sets some operating rules for the "Ethereum blockchain".
One area where such ideas could have a radical impact is in the "Internet of Things" - billions of previously silenced everyday items like refrigerators, door latches and lawn sprinklers. A recent IBM report titled "Device Democracy" concluded that it would be impossible and unwise to centrally track and manage these billions of dollars of devices; such an attempt would leave them vulnerable to hackers and Government supervision. Distributed registers seem like a good choice.
The programmability provided by Ethereum goes beyond just allowing people’s property to be tracked and registered. It has some new uses. Under various method rules, car keys embedded in the Ethereum blockchain can be sold or rented, creating a new P2P for renting or sharing cars. Going further, some people talk about applying this technology to make self-driving cars a public resource for society. According to preset program rules, such vehicles can themselves store some digital money to pay for their rental fuel, maintenance and parking spaces.
8. Unsurprisingly, some people think these plans are too radical. Ethereum1 ("Genesis") was only developed in August and is currently only a small startup ecosystem cluster. While Mr. Buterin admitted in a recent blog post that it's a bit cash-strapped, the specific details of blockchain's eventual boom are far less real than the excitement for widespread distributed ledgers that drives startups and existing large enterprises alike. Check out their respective potential. Although society always ridicules the abilities of accountants, accounts do matter.
Today’s world relies heavily on double-entry bookkeeping. Its standardized system of recording debits and credits is a must for understanding a company's core financial position. In the early 20th century, the German sociologist Werner Sombart claimed that whether modern capitalism absolutely requires such bookkeeping in order to develop deserves more in-depth discussion. Although the double-entry accounting system began with Italian merchants during the Renaissance, it happened to be a coincidence of timing; at that time, double-entry accounting spread more slowly around the world than capitalism did, and did not become widely used until the late 19th century. But there is no doubt that the fundamental importance of technology is not just to record what a company does, but to define its future.
Accounts, which no longer need to be maintained by companies or governments, can promptly stimulate new companies and governments about the way things work.Change, expectations for the future and what can be done now. Systems without centralized records can be just as trustworthy as they can bring about radical change.
These ideas, while still a novelty, are only applicable in a few areas, and their ability to spread and the possibility of being expanded are limited. They also face some unknown resistance. Some critics of Bitcoin have long viewed it as the latest attempt at "California ideology." (California ideology refers to the sense of mission to save the world through technology). This is just a coded trust mechanism, not democracy, legitimacy and accountability, and it is difficult to attract or empower people.
At the same time, the entire world will be recorded digitally, which will also have many benefits. If blockchain has a fundamental contradiction, it is this: even if it provides the same past and present, the future of blockchain will be very different.
This article is selected from "The Economist", compiled and produced by the Heart of the Machine, participating members: Huang Zhizhen, Chen, Zhao Saipo
Digital cryptocurrencies such as Ritaicoin, Litecoin, and Dogecoin are also used Blockchain technology.

I. The rise and significance of the new world - the virtual world defined by blockchain

We are fortunate to be in a historic moment when two parallel worlds are about to intersect. One is the one we are familiar with. The physical world will not die or shrink; the other is the virtual world where chaos begins, it is coming towards us, but it is still vague. If you want, you can refuse to enter the virtual world, but your life will have many inconveniences; people born after 2025 will feel that everything in the virtual world is so natural and familiar.

The significance of blockchain

Ren Zeping in "Hearing Thunder in Silence - Looking at China's Future from the 2018 Statistical Bulletin" ( March 3, 2019) mentioned in an article, "According to IMF estimates, the total global GDP in 2018 reached 84.8 trillion US dollars, of which China and the United States accounted for 16.1% and 24.2% of global GDP respectively." China's GDP in 2018 was equivalent to 90 trillion yuan.

According to Feixiaohao statistics as of 19:33 on March 3, 2019, the total market value of digital currencies is approximately US$136.4 billion, of which Bitcoin is approximately 67.427 billion US dollars, Ethereum 14.138 billion US dollars. In other words, the total market value of digital currencies only accounts for 1.6‰ of global GDP ($84.8 trillion).

I believe that assets in the physical world will gradually be mapped to the virtual world. In August 2018, I felt that there might be as much as 50% to 60% mapping in the future, so that digital currencies would still grow by more than two to three hundred times.

In fact, meeting the physiological needs of food, clothing, housing and transportation is relatively easy to achieve in modern society, and consumption is relatively low. When physiological needs such as food and clothing are met, people will naturally have psychological and spiritual needs such as safety, emotion, respect, and self-realization, and their consumption will gradually increase.

The statistical data in "Hearing Thunder in Silence - Looking at China's Future from the 2018 Statistical Bulletin" reflect this change. The article mentioned that "the service industry "Contribution to GDP growth reaches a new high, and consumption leads economic growth": "The economic structure continues to be optimized, the contribution rate of the tertiary industry to the economy has reached a record high, and the contribution of consumption has increased significantly. From an industry perspective, the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries account for 50% of GDP The proportions were 7.2%, 40.7% and 52.2% respectively, and the contribution rates to GDP growth were 4.0%, 35.8% and 60.1% respectively, changes of -0.9, -0.5 and 1.3 percentage points from the previous year, of which the contribution rate of the tertiary industry A record high."

Although the service industry cannot completely correspond to the new world of the generalized virtual economy, the degree of overlap is very high. During the Spring Festival of 2019, the film "The Wandering Earth" was very popular, with box office sales exceeding 4.5 billion yuan so far. From the perspective of wealth created by labor, the wealth created by the film crew is increasing day by day compared to the labor they put in.

In Lin Zuoming's "Generalized Virtual Economics", he also proposed that life creates wealth and wealth is the carrier of culture. I also agree with it very much. The scope of life is far greater than labor; when the basic problem of food and clothing is solved, the expenditure people are willing to spend on meeting their psychological and spiritual needs will be far greater than the expenditure on food and clothing. High-quality digital content such as movies, books, music, education, and games can be easily copied and utilized without increasing the cost by hundreds or thousands.

Therefore, I changed my point of view (my original point of view was: assets in the physical world will gradually be mapped to the virtual world, but it will not be 100% , maybe up to 50% 60%), I believe that the assets of the virtual world in the future (such as the bit assets proposed by Mr. Newton, the virtual economy proposed by Lin Zuoming) will be far greater than the assets of the real world (such as the atomic assets of Mr. Newton, the entities of Lin Zuoming) economy).

Digitalization is an unstoppable trend. Although the rate of digitization of everyone's physiological information, behavioral data, and psychological information is still very low, as the software-defined world gradually deepens, we will actively embrace it because of the need for convenient life and low-cost and efficient use of information. Or passively accept it, causing each individual's digitalization rate to increase year by year. big on the internetPeople who were born before the popularity of scale may not feel it, but for the new generation who were born when the Internet, mobile Internet, and blockchain value networks were already popular, digital life has become a norm. In order to interact with them, older people people will also increase their digital life ratio to a greater or lesser extent.

In the digital journey, the privacy protection of individual information and the security and transfer of digital assets will become more and more important. Trust infrastructure (trusted computing, trusted storage) will become a must. Because every bit in the blockchain world is stored and recorded on each node at the same time, it cannot be added, deleted or modified at will, which greatly enhances certainty.

Wang Jiaping said in "What's So Great About Blockchain": "Blockchain further expands the computer architecture of the von Neumann architecture. Separating it from specific physical computing devices can fundamentally prevent the computing process from being controlled by a single controller, so that everyone can trust this computing system." This reminds me of the "Software-Defined Storage" proposal written by my organization. The software-defined data center (Software Defined Data Center) initiated by VMware is divided into three stages:

1. Abstraction (decoupling or standardization)

2. Pool (Virtualization)

3. Automation (Strategy Driven)

Previously I wrote in "Change is Mining - Trading from FCoin" "Thoughts Triggered by McDonald's Issuance of MacCoin Tokens" mentioned: "Blockchain is a distributed log set or record set that is synchronized across the entire network." Take blockchain 1.0, also known as Bitcoin, as an example. It includes instructions such as accounting or logging, as well as data such as ledgers or logs. Instructions and data form a logical computing system. In early computers, its software system and data were tightly coupled in the physical computer. This computer was easily damaged, and instructions and data were easily tampered with. Later, high-availability clusters appeared, and physical security was improved. Guarantee; after the emergence of virtualization and cloud computing, software systems and physical hardware are decoupled. However, no matter which physical hardware the software system drifts to, the ownership of the physical hardware belongs to the same individual or organization. Therefore, it is possible that instructions or data may be tampered with due to loose protection from the outside world (such as hacker attacks), or internal misoperations, or even malicious operations.

However, the use of blockchain allows software systems to run on thousands of nodes, and everyone is doing the same thing: accounting or Keep a journal. Ownership of the physical hardware for these thousands of nodes rests withDifferent individuals or organizations, and they do not know each other. Therefore, this software system not only achieves decoupling from the physical location (decentralization of the architecture), but also decouples usage rights and ownership (decentralization of the organization). centralization). In fact, each node of the entire public chain is based on consensus (public rules) and is constructed in a self-organized manner by many individuals or organizations that do not know each other. Essentially, no individual or organization has ownership. , so there is no single controller that can control or tamper with the instructions or data above. This is a very complete decoupling.

It should be noted that in the Bitcoin system, shared calculations are not implemented, but only shared ledgers are completed, and everyone is doing the same calculations. However, it is this shared ledger processing that opens a new chapter in IT history. Because this processing process is recognized by all node participants and is the cornerstone of trusted infrastructure.

#BTC[超话]# #欧Easy OKEx# #digital currency#

J. What is blockchain

[Definition]

Blockchain refers to the process of decentralization A technical solution to collectively maintain a reliable database in a centralized and trustless manner. This technical solution allows any number of nodes participating in the system to calculate and record all information exchange data in the system over a period of time into a data block (block) through cryptographic algorithms, and generate the fingerprint of the data block for linking ( chain) and check the next data block, all participating nodes in the system jointly determine whether the record is true.

Blockchain is a general term for technical solutions similar to NoSQL (non-relational database). It is not a specific technology. Blockchain technology can be implemented through many programming languages ​​and architectures. . There are also many ways to implement blockchain. Common ones currently include POW (Proof of Work), POS (Proof of Stake), DPOS (Delegate Proof of Stake), etc.

The concept of blockchain was first proposed in the paper "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" by the author who calls himself Satoshi Nakamoto (Satoshi Nakamoto) individual (or group). Therefore, Bitcoin can be regarded as the first application of blockchain in the field of financial payments.

[Popular explanation]

No matter how big the system or how small the website, there is usually a database behind it. So who will maintain this database? Under normal circumstances, whoever is responsible for operating the network or system will maintain it. If it is a WeChat database, it must be maintained by Tencent's team, and Taobao's database must be maintained by Alibaba's team. Everyone must think that this approach is natural, but this is not the case with blockchain technology.

If we imagine the database as a ledger: Alipay, for example, is a typical ledger, and any change in data is an accounting type. We can think of database maintenance as a very simple accounting method. The same is true in the world of blockchain. Everyone in the blockchain system has the opportunity to participate in accounting. The system will select within a period of time, maybe within ten seconds, or maybe ten minutes, to select the person with the fastest and best accounting during this period. This person will do the accounting, and he will combine the changes in the database during this period with Changes in the ledger are recorded in a block. We can imagine this block as a page of paper. After confirming that the record is correct, the system will link (chain) the data fingerprint of the past ledger to this paper, and then This piece of paper is sent to everyone else in the entire system. Then the cycle starts over and the system looks for the next person who can do the accounting quickly and well, and everyone else in the system gets a copy of the entire ledger. This means that everyone in this system has exactly the same ledger. This technology is called blockchain technology, also known as distributed ledger technology.

Since everyone (computer) has exactly the same ledger, and everyone (computer) has exactly the same rights, there will be no problem due to a single person (computer) losing contact or going down. The entire system collapses. Since there are exactly the same ledgers, it means that all data is open and transparent, and everyone can see the digital changes in each account. Its very interesting feature is that the data in it cannot be tampered with. Because the system will automatically compare, it will consider the account books with the largest number of the same number as the real account books, and the small number of account books with different numbers as others are false account books. In this case, it makes no sense for anyone to tamper with their own ledger, because unless you can tamper with most of the nodes in the entire system. If the entire system has only five or ten nodes, it may be easy to do, but if there are tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of nodes, and they are distributed in any corner of the Internet, unless someone can control most of the computers in the world , otherwise it would be unlikely to tamper with such a large blockchain.

[Elements]

Combined with the definition of blockchain, we believe that it must have the following four elements to be called a public blockchain technology. If it only has the first three points elements, which we will considerFor private blockchain technology (private chain).

1. Point-to-point peer-to-peer network (peer-to-peer power, physical point-to-point connection)

2. Verifiable data structure (verifiable PKC system, non-tamperable database)

3. Distributed consensus mechanism (solve the Byzantine generals problem and double payment)

4. Nash equilibrium game design (cooperation is an evolutionarily stable strategy)
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[Characteristics]

Combined with the definition of blockchain, blockchain will realize four main characteristics: decentralized, trustless, Collectively maintained (Collectively maintained), reliable database (Reliable Database). And the four characteristics will lead to two other characteristics: open source (Open Source) and privacy protection (Anonymity). If a system does not possess these characteristics, it will not be considered an application based on blockchain technology.

Decentralized: The entire network has no centralized hardware or management organization. The rights and obligations between any nodes are equal, and the damage or loss of any node will not affect it. operation of the entire system. Therefore, the blockchain system can also be considered to have excellent robustness.

Trustless: Each node participating in the entire system does not need to trust each other for data exchange. The operating rules of the entire system are open and transparent, and all data contents are also public. , therefore within the rule range and time range specified by the system, nodes cannot and cannot deceive other nodes.

Collectively maintain: The data blocks in the system are jointly maintained by all nodes with maintenance functions in the entire system, and these nodes with maintenance functions can be participated by anyone.

Reliable Database: The entire system will be divided into databases so that each participating node can obtain a copy of the complete database. Unless more than 51% of the nodes in the entire system can be controlled at the same time, modifications to the database on a single node are invalid and cannot affect the data content on other nodes. Therefore, the more nodes and stronger computing power participating in the system, the higher the data security in the system.

Open Source: Since the operating rules of the entire system must be open and transparentObviously, so for the program, the entire system must be open source.

Privacy protection (Anonymity): Since nodes do not need to trust each other, there is no need to disclose their identities between nodes. The privacy of each participating node in the system is protected. protected.