Deep observation | blockchain is not a flood of beasts, but be wary of the money in the name of the blockchain

The blockchain is the hottest computer technology of the moment. Bitcoin and ICO (the first token release) are not only the hot words of the venture capital industry, but also become the land of the Nuggets in the eyes of the general public.

During the Spring Festival, investor Chen Weixing confronted Zhu Xiaohu to raise the topic of blockchain again. On February 26th, People's Daily Economic Weekly issued two articles, "Three Questions Blockchain" and "Capturing the Opportunity of Blockchain", which attracted more attention from the industry. How to treat the blockchain?

Blockchain technology is a subversive existence

A blockchain is a chained data structure in which data blocks are sequentially connected in a chronological order, and cryptographically guaranteed non-tamperable and unforgeable distributed ledgers. The decentralization, distributed ledger, de-intermediation, information transparency, and unforgeability of blockchain technology have greatly improved the trust between individuals in economic activities and reduced transaction costs.

Transaction cost refers to the total cost of achieving an exchange including communication, advertising, transportation, negotiation, negotiation, contract signing, contract execution, and supervision. Humanity and environmental factors such as information asymmetry, speculation, and mistrust have caused transaction costs to rise, which in turn has led to transaction difficulties.

Transaction costs have always been a problem that plagues human economic activities and even all activities. In order to solve this problem, human beings have designed many systems, such as the banking system, the letter of credit system in international trade, and the insurance system. The essence of these systems is that there is a center that provides credit guarantees to both parties to the transaction and solves the problem of trust. In fact, when trading in securities, gambling, patents, carbon allowances, etc., there is a huge central organization for centering services. Blockchain technology can replace these institutions to a certain extent.

Taking the most common credit card and WeChat payment as an example, in essence, this payment process is that the consumer first issues an order to the bank or a third-party payment platform, and the bank transfers the money to the merchant. Payments by consumers and merchants require bank intermediation. This is a typical centralized payment process. This process will increase transaction costs and slow down the transaction. The application of blockchain technology allows consumers and businesses to make secure payments directly. In this process, the bank as a transaction cost was saved. This is a subversive challenge for the entire financial industry, which is the potential for blockchain technology to change the world.

Blockchain does not change the basic economic laws of centralization

However, it should also be noted that the blockchain still has limitations. For example, there is still room for optimization in the consensus algorithm, and the processing efficiency caused by the distribution is difficult to achieve high-frequency applications. More importantly, although the blockchain can replace the intermediary to provide trust and reduce transaction costs, human economic activities are not only a basic law of transaction costs.

Therefore, although the bank is an intermediary of cash, the stock market is the intermediary of stocks, Didi is the intermediary of the network car, Taobao is the intermediary of e-commerce, hungry is the intermediary of the restaurant, AIRBNB is the intermediary of renting... These platforms Not only intermediary services, but also a variety of substantive services. At least, the hungry delivery of the little brother, and even management of them, are real. Therefore, in addition to the decentralized, non-sovereign currency of Bitcoin, the blockchain is more effective in improving efficiency in most business models. After all, in addition to providing the function of reducing transaction costs, centralization also has other basic rules of scale, professional division of labor, and equivalent learning curve. Therefore, centralization is still an economic law, and blockchain technology cannot completely subvert this point.

Another significance of the blockchain to promote trust between nodes is that it challenges the government's regulatory functions. The blockchain is essentially different from the traditional centralization method. It is a distributed, decentralized data model, which means conflict with regulation and even the failure of supervision.

However, blockchain technology is not a castle in the air, it still can not be separated from the real life, economy, network, people, enterprises. Just as Bitcoin is the most famous and typical example of the application of blockchain technology, but Bitcoin is not completely out of government regulation, the US FBI has seized the famous Silk Road website engaged in illegal transactions and seized its bits. currency. Of course, this physical regulation does not mean that the decentralization of blockchain technology is useless. To a certain extent, this also means that as long as there is power to influence and control the people who use blockchain technology, business models, and enterprises, there is still a lot of room for regulatory power. For example, in the blockchain technology, the supervisory function is embedded. At this time, the transparency and tamper resistance of the blockchain technology can greatly improve the efficiency of supervision.

We must resolutely curb the fund-raising innovation under the name of blockchain

In summary, the government departments can only achieve better monitoring by actively welcoming the blockchain technology. If they are evaded and banned, they may eventually be pulled down by technology. At the moment, the domestic industry should be encouraged to start from the bottom development, and the technology can be controlled independently. The government can introduce relevant policies, encourage independent technologies, introduce relevant support policies, and actively meet the efficiency improvement and business changes brought by the blockchain.

At the same time, it should also be noted that the concept of tokens in the blockchain is currently in a state of heat. Various startups, venture capital funds, and financial institutions, as long as they are on the side of the “blockchain”, will immediately “glow”. , has been sought after by countless. In the meantime, many people and many organizations do not use technology to solve real problems, but use blockchains as a scorpion.

As a public chain application of blockchain, it requires a number of nodes in the network, and all work together to maintain the blockchain, which makes the token become the basis for many characteristics such as incentive nodes and distribution. Tokens have become the most prominent feature of the blockchain economy. Therefore, under the hot blockchain boom, some people and institutions have raised funds through the issuance of tokens, but they have not really started their business, trying to take a fortune. Insiders said that most of the so-called ICO is focused on the money.

Therefore, we must resolutely curb the fund-raising innovation under the name of the blockchain, help the public to identify and protect the masses from the deception of Ponzi schemes in high-tech outerwear. The Inter-Ministerial Joint Meeting on Disposal of Illegal Crowd, held on February 24, pointed out that the situation of illegal fund-raising is still grim, and will promote the "Regulations on Disposal of Illegal Funds Raising" as soon as possible. Some of them are under the banner of "Gao Da" and have no sustainable profits. The mode of the Ponzi scheme, all localities must be decisively dealt with and resolutely cracked down.