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Recently, the news about Bitcoin has been very eye-catching, and the blockchain has also become popular. In the capital market, the rise and fall of stock prices of various blockchain concept stocks is as thrilling as a roller coaster. It can be seen from the responsive capital market that the blockchain is gaining momentum and has received great attention from all parties.
What is blockchain?
A decentralized distributed ledger database, without a center, each node of the data storage will copy the entire ledger synchronously, and the information is transparent and difficult to tamper with
In recent years, more and more institutions have begun to attach importance to and participate in the research and development of blockchain technology. From the initial Bitcoin and Ethereum, to various types of blockchain startups, venture capital funds, and financial institutions, if you put the label of "blockchain" on it, it will immediately become "golden". Not only that, many people's WeChat Moments have also been screened by various articles that interpret blockchain.
So, what exactly is blockchain?
The "China Blockchain Technology and Application Development White Paper 2016" issued under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology explains: Broadly speaking, blockchain technology uses a blockchain data structure to verify and store data, and uses a distributed node consensus algorithm to generate and update data. Data, a new distributed infrastructure and computing paradigm that uses cryptography to ensure the security of data transmission and access, and uses smart contracts composed of automated script codes to program and manipulate data.
He Fei, a senior researcher at the Bank of Communications Financial Research Center, gave a popular explanation: "Simply put, blockchain is a decentralized distributed ledger database." Decentralization means that it is different from traditional centralization. Here is There is no center, or everyone is the center; the distributed ledger database means that the recording method is not only to store the ledger data in each node, but also each node will synchronously share and copy the data of the entire ledger. At the same time, the blockchain also has the characteristics of disintermediation and information transparency.
"Blockchain technology is essentially a database technology, specifically a ledger technology. The ledger records the asset changes and transactions of one or more accounts. It is actually a database with the simplest structure. We usually use small books to The journals kept and the statements sent by the bank are typical ledgers.” Wang Jun, chief researcher of Tencent Financial Technology Think Tank, said that security is a major feature of blockchain technology, which is mainly reflected in two aspects: one is distributed Storage architecture, the more nodes there are, the higher the security of data storage; the second is its ingenious design of anti-tampering and decentralization, it is difficult for anyone to modify the data not according to the rules.
Taking online shopping transactions as an example, the traditional model is that the buyer purchases the product, and then transfers the money to the intermediary platform of a third-party payment institution. After the seller delivers the goods and the buyer confirms receipt, the buyer notifies the payment institution to transfer the money to the seller's account. . The transaction model supported by blockchain technology is different. Buyers and sellers can trade directly without going through any intermediary platform. After the transaction between the buyer and the seller, the system broadcasts the transaction information, and all hosts that receive the information record the transaction after confirming that the information is correct, which means that all hosts have made data backups for this transaction. Even if there is a problem with a certain machine in the future, it will not affect the data recording, because there are countless machines as backups.
When it comes to blockchain, many people associate it with Bitcoin, and many people even equate blockchain with Bitcoin. He Fei said that Bitcoin is a way of presenting the blockchain, but the blockchain is not equivalent to Bitcoin. Blockchain is the underlying technology and infrastructure of Bitcoin, and Bitcoin is a successful application of blockchain, but it does not mean that blockchain can only be applied to Bitcoin.
What is the use of blockchain?
It can solve pain points and difficulties in many fields such as finance, public welfare, supervision, and anti-counterfeiting, but there are many applicable conditions
Financial services is the first application area of blockchain technology. The use of blockchain technology can solve pain points in payment, asset management, securities and other fields.
Taking the payment field as an example, the cost of reconciliation, clearing, and settlement between financial institutions, especially cross-border financial institutions, is high and involves many manual processes, which not only leads to high costs for the user end and the back-end business end of the financial institution, but also makes the Micropayment business is difficult to carry out. The application of blockchain technology helps to reduce the cost of reconciliation between financial institutions and the cost of dispute resolution, and significantly improves the processing efficiency of payment business. In addition, the cost and efficiency advantages that blockchain technology brings to the payment field enable financial institutions to better handle small cross-border payments that were considered unrealistic due to high costs in the past, and contribute to the realization of inclusive finance.
For example, in order to solve the problem of high cost of reconciliation among financial institutions, in August 2016, WeBank and Shanghai Huarui Bank launched the inter-institution reconciliation platform of Weiweidai, which is also the first domestic banking alliance operating in a production environment Chain application scenarios. Zhang Kaixiang, chief blockchain architect of WeBank believes that the high cost problem that the traditional "batch file reconciliation" model has not solved for a long time is exactly where blockchain technology comes in handy. Subsequently, Bank of Luoyang and Bank of Changsha also connected to the inter-agency reconciliation platform one after another. Through blockchain technology, the inter-agency reconciliation process in the micro-loan business was optimized to achieve quasi-real-time reconciliation, improve operational efficiency, and reduce operating costs. Target. Up to now, the platform has been running stably for more than a year, maintaining zero failures, and the number of real transactions recorded has reached tens of millions.
Ant Financial's first application scenario involving blockchain is public welfare, helping a group of hearing-impaired children get a sum of money, and then using blockchain technology to promote public welfare to be more open and transparent. Every money donated by users will be packaged into a Parcel, this parcel is delivered through the blockchain platform, and we will stamp a postmark every time it passes through a node, and finally send it to the recipient. This can ensure that every amount of money donated by users is transparent, traceable, and difficult to tamper with of."
In the fight against counterfeit goods, blockchain technology can show its talents. Hu Danqing introduced that Ant Financial uses blockchain technology in the traceability of authentic products. At present, there are already some overseas shopping products from Australia and New Zealand, such as milk powder, and you can use Alipay to scan it to know whether it is genuine or not. "Different from the previous merchants who entered product information by themselves, the blockchain allows multiple 'bookkeepers' to complete bookkeeping in a fair, independent and undeniable way."
For financial supervision, blockchain technology can also play a special role. In 2017, the Financial Blockchain Cooperation Alliance (Shenzhen) issued the "Financial Blockchain Underlying Platform FISCO BCOS White Paper" that the blockchain provides financial regulators with consistent and easy-to-audit data. Data analysis can supervise financial business faster and more accurately than traditional auditing process. For example, in the anti-money laundering scenario, the balance and transaction records of each account are traceable, and any link of any transaction will not escape the supervision, which will greatly improve the strength of anti-money laundering.
Some people in the industry believe that blockchain 1.0 is mainly aimed at digital currency; blockchain 2.0 is aimed at smart contracts and can be applied in the financial market; blockchain 3.0 will be applicable to more scenarios, and will even create a "blockchain era". ".
He Fei believes that the blockchain can indeed solve pain points and difficulties in many fields, but the blockchain is not a panacea, and there are many applicable conditions.
For example, the decentralization of blockchain technology is suitable for multi-party participation scenarios. If it is only unilateral or bilateral participation, it is of little value. Due to the need for each node to check, blockchain technology is not suitable for those high-frequency trading activities.
For another example, the blockchain emphasizes openness and transparency, which is not suitable for scenarios with particularly high data privacy requirements.
Will the blockchain become a new outlet?
The technology is not yet mature, so we must be wary of concept hype, especially distinguish between technological innovation and fund-raising innovation, and we cannot use blockchain for the sake of blockchain.
The concept of blockchain is so popular, will it become another "Internet +" in the future?
In recent years, the development ecology of blockchain has been gradually improved and enriched. Industry insiders believe that with national policy support, extensive attention and financial support, blockchain technology can achieve gradual and stable progress. Although the prospect of blockchain technology is broad, it is necessary to maintain a normal mind.
not because it uses technology to solve practical problems, but because it is hot. Fund-raising and valuation hype, especially the so-called ICO (Initial Coin Offering) are mostly innovations in fund-raising tools and have nothing to do with technological innovation.
Blockchain technology can indeed create great value, but some risks cannot be ignored.
We should be more vigilant against the concept of hype in the capital market." He Fei said that behind the upsurge of blockchain, there will inevitably be some companies that make gimmicks and want to speculate. To start a business is just an attempt to make a fortune in the capital market and leave. We must beware of the occurrence of "bad money driving out good money", which will cause institutions that really want to do business to withdraw from the market and affect the application of blockchain technology.
Hu Danqing suggested that for the current block chain craze, regulatory authorities should intervene more proactively, distinguish between technological innovation and fund-raising innovation, and encourage government organizations, credible experts, and industry participants to help the public identify and comprehensively curb the block chain. The innovation of fund-raising under the name makes the actual controller of ICO have to take responsibility for the fund-raising behavior. "The basis for judging whether it is technological innovation or fundraising innovation is actually very clear, that is, whether it starts with trust and whether it creates actual value by solving trust problems."
To better promote and use blockchain technology in the future, it is necessary to continue to improve the infrastructure and strengthen the formulation of relevant laws and policies.
Wang Jun believes that there is still room for optimization and improvement in the core technologies of the blockchain such as consensus algorithms; on the other hand, the processing efficiency of the blockchain is still difficult to meet the requirements of some high-frequency application environments in reality. At present, the mainstream blockchain technology platforms all originate from abroad. Domestic blockchain technology service providers must patiently start from the bottom layer of development, achieve independent and controllable technology, and strive to lead the development of global blockchain technology. Enterprises with blockchain application scenarios must actively embrace new things, and at the same time scientifically assess the needs of the chain, and cannot rely on the blockchain for the sake of the blockchain.
He Fei believes that the government can issue relevant policies to guide enterprises interested in the R&D and application of blockchain technology, and at the same time clarify some scenarios where blockchain is suitable for application and areas encouraged by the state.
the development of my country's blockchain technology and applications to promptly introduce blockchain technology and industrial development support policies. Focus on supporting key technology breakthroughs, major demonstration projects, "double creation" platform construction, system solution research and development, and public service platform construction. At the same time, it is recommended that key domestic enterprises, scientific research, universities, and user units strengthen alliances and accelerate the breakthrough of core key technologies such as consensus mechanisms, programmable contracts, distributed storage, and digital signatures.