According to CCTV’s October 25 report, on the afternoon of October 24, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee conducted the 18th collective study on the status quo and trends of blockchain technology development. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, emphasized that the integration and application of blockchain technology plays an important role in new technological innovation and industrial transformation. It is necessary to use blockchain as an important breakthrough for independent innovation of core technologies and accelerate the promotion of blocks. Chain technology and industrial innovation development.
Since the creation of Bitcoin by Nakamoto in 2008, the blockchain has gradually become known as the underlying technology. In recent years, many technology companies and financial companies have also deployed in this field, but there are no large-scale scenarios. What is the blockchain? What are the current applications? What is the current status in China? What are the trends in the future?
What is the blockchain? Can be regarded as a book, with decentralization, non-tampering, transparent and open features?
According to the report of Evergrande Research Institute, in a narrow sense, blockchain is a distributed database (or distributed) that combines data blocks in a chronological manner and cryptographically guarantees that they cannot be tampered and unforgeable. Account book technology).
The blockchain can be regarded as a ledger, and each block can be regarded as a one-page account, which is linked by the order of recording time to form a “book”. In terms of accounting, the blockchain does not need to rely on a central institution to be responsible for accounting, and the nodes compete for accounting rights fairly through power or equity. This kind of competition mechanism is actually the biggest main blockchain and traditional database. One of the differences. Through the “Wholesale Witness”, all transaction information will be “recorded truthfully” and this account will be unique.
In terms of storage, since each node in the network has a complete copy of the blockchain, even if some nodes are attacked or made in error, it will not affect the normal operation of the entire network.
The blockchain is characterized by decentralization, non-tampering, and transparency. “It is basically impossible to forge and tamper with accounts in the blockchain. Non-tampering also means a high degree of consistency and security of the data,” the report said. Due to the nature of “distributed” and “not tamperable”, the “honesty” and “transparency” of the blockchain are guaranteed, which is the basis for the blockchain to create trust.
Zi Zhao Finance analyst Jiang Zhaosheng said that the blockchain is called “trust machine”. Although the blockchain technology itself has not left the technical scope of the Internet, it uses distributed account books, peer-to-peer transmission, encryption algorithms, and consensus mechanisms. It can solve the problems of fairness, trust and value transfer in the traditional Internet, and gradually complete the transition from the “information Internet” to the “value Internet” at this stage.
What are the current applications? Financial, public welfare, commodity traceability and other fields take the lead in testing water?
In recent years, many Internet companies and financial companies have released their own blockchain platforms in the test strips of blockchains, and have continuously strengthened the application of blockchains in the fields of finance, public welfare, and commodity traceability.
According to CITIC Jiantou, for example, ICBC launched the first self-controllable blockchain platform, which has helped Guizhou’s poverty alleviation and ICBC projects to be successfully put into production. The Agricultural Bank of China applied blockchain technology to electricity for the first time in the domestic banking industry. In the supply chain finance sector, CCB launched a blockchain bank insurance platform and successfully handled the industry’s first blockchain international factoring business. The stock and local banks are also actively conducting research on blockchain.
According to the report of Evergrande Research Institute, taking the three most famous alliances in China, ChinaLedger, CBRA, and the Golden Chain Alliance in the Golden Chain Alliance, in March this year, the Guangzhou Arbitration Commission issued the first in the industry based on the “Arbitration Chain” of the Golden Chain Alliance. The rulings mark the real application of the blockchain in the judicial application of financial loans.
In Internet companies, such as Alibaba involving commodity traceability, public welfare, financial and other scenarios, Alipay launched the world’s first blockchain-based e-wallet cross-border remittance service in Hong Kong in June 2018; Tencent involves games, supply chain finance, electronics Deposit, BaaS, etc.; Baidu involves payment, asset securitization, BaaS, credit, etc.
In the international arena, taking IBM as an example, the layout of the Open Blockchain framework was started as early as 2014, and it was also the early code source of Hyperledger. At present, IBM has an application platform in the whole process of food safety traceability and supply chain logistics management.
What is the current status in China? The application level is leading in Europe and America, but it has not yet reached a large scale.
Although the blockchain system that solves the actual demand in reality has been “splended with flowers”, it is still a small-scale exploration and attempt. According to a survey of 600 company executives in 15 countries by PricewaterhouseCoopers in August 2018, 84% of companies are interested in blockchain, but 52% of the company’s blockchain projects are in development. In status, 10% of companies have blockchain pilot projects, and only 15% have running blockchain projects.
A working paper published by the central bank in November 2018 pointed out that an important reason why blockchains have not been applied on a large scale is that physical performance is not high (especially for public chains). For example, Bitcoin supports up to 6 transactions per second, while Paypal can support 193 transactions per second on average. Visa can support 1667 transactions per second on average.
From the perspective of domestic application, Xiao Lei, a senior researcher in the industry, pointed out that China’s development and utilization of “blockchain” technology is still based on the real economy, in order to solve real-world problems.
From the domestic and international comparison, Jiang Zhaosheng said that in terms of application level, China is still at the same starting line compared with Europe and the United States, and even leads half a position. However, in terms of basic technology research, the domestic blockchain field has shown a trend of industrial innovation-driven development. Academic research is relatively lagging behind and needs to be followed up.
This Politburo meeting is clear, and strives to make China take the leading edge of the theory, occupy the commanding heights of innovation, and gain new industrial advantages in the emerging field of blockchain. Improve the right to speak internationally and rule.
What are the trends in the future? Has broad application prospects in the fields of government affairs, finance, and people’s livelihood?
The Politburo meeting proposed that the current application areas of the blockchain need to be deepened include digital finance, Internet of Things, intelligent manufacturing, supply chain management, and digital asset trading. At the same time, we should explore the application of “blockchain+” in the field of people’s livelihood, and actively promote the application of blockchain technology in the fields of education, employment, pension, precision poverty alleviation, medical health, commodity anti-counterfeiting, food safety, public welfare, and social assistance.
From the perspective of the future application of the financial sector, CITIC Jiantou said that commercial banks are currently focusing on application development in electronic transactions, commercial paper, payment transfer, digital currency, information storage, and internal management. Future blockchains will also be more widely used in peer-to-peer trading, registration, and intelligent management. For example, based on P2P mode for cross-border payment and remittance, trade settlement, and trading of securities, futures, and financial derivatives contracts, the application of blockchain technology can improve the efficiency and security of commercial banking transactions; intelligent management uses “smart contracts”. “Automatically detect whether there are various environments in effect. Once the preset procedures are met, the contract will be automatically processed, such as automatic interest payment, dividends, and so on.
Another industry insider suggested that blockchain technology has broad application prospects in China’s government affairs field. For example, blockchain technology can realize distributed sharing of government data.
However, the central bank’s working paper also mentioned that we should not exaggerate or superstitiously block the function of the blockchain. So far, no technological innovation has had a subversive impact on the financial system, and the blockchain is no exception. The application of blockchain should be based on actual conditions, and not constrained by some overly idealized purposes. For example, it is very difficult to replace institutions and trust with technology. In many scenarios, it is even utopia.
The article also said that the current bubble in the blockchain investment and financing sector is obvious, speculation, market manipulation and even violations of laws and regulations are common, especially the Token involving public offering transactions. (Note: Token is a digital value carrier, a proof of equity, For projects such as Q coins, relevant government departments should strengthen supervision and prevent financial risks.