Blockchain as a trust tool
blockchain refers to the technical solution of collective maintenance of a reliable database through centralization and distrust in the past, and it is a technical way for the whole people to participate in bookkeeping. Previous bookkeeping methods were all centralized and needed centralized intermediary, whether it was traditional government, financial institutions, notarization institutions or emerging e-commerce platform and online payment platform
in economic hypothesis, information is sufficient. In fact, it is precisely because of insufficient information that there are very large intermediaries. The existence of intermediaries increases the transaction cost and raises the transaction threshold. In essence, blockchain technology is a large-scale collaboration tool. It makes direct value transfer possible by using pure technology for the first time, and continues the trend of Internet decentralization and disintermediation. Disintermediated blockchain technology will greatly subvert the information intermediary instry
blockchain technology is the basic technology for building bitcoin data structure and encrypted transmission of transaction information, which realizes the issue and transaction of bitcoin. The core of blockchain technology is that all the current participating nodes jointly maintain the transaction and database, so that the transaction is based on the principle of cryptography rather than trust, so that any agreed parties can directly carry out payment transactions without the participation of a third party
technically, a block is a data structure for recording transactions, reflecting the capital flow of a transaction. In the system, the transaction blocks are connected to form a main chain, and all the nodes participating in the calculation record the main chain or part of the main chain
a block contains the following three parts: transaction information, hash formed by the previous block and random number. Transaction information is the task data carried by the block, including the private keys of both parties, the number of transactions, the digital signature of electronic currency, etc; The hash hash formed by the previous block is used to connect the blocks and realize the sequence of past transactions; Random number is the core of the transaction. All nodes compete to calculate the answer of the random number. The node that gets the answer the fastest generates a new block and broadcasts it to all nodes for updating, so as to complete a transaction.
Three questions blockchain (economic hot spot)
recently, news about bitcoin is very eye-catching, and blockchain is on fire. In the capital market, the rise and fall of various blockchain concept stocks is like a roller coaster. It can be seen from the sensitive capital market that the blockchain is on the way and is highly concerned by all parties
"blockchain technology is essentially a kind of database technology, specifically a kind of ledger technology. The account book records the asset changes and transactions of one or more accounts. In fact, it is a kind of database with the simplest structure. The daily accounts we usually record in the small account book and the statements sent by the bank are typical account books. " 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 the distributed storage architecture. The more nodes there are, the higher the security of data storage is; The other is the ingenious design of tamper proof and decentralization, which makes it difficult for anyone to modify data without following the rules
take the online shopping transaction as an example, the traditional mode is that the buyer purchases the goods, and then sends the money to the intermediary platform of the third-party payment institution. After the seller delivers the goods and the buyer confirms the receipt, the buyer informs the payment institution to send the money to the seller's account. The transaction mode supported by blockchain technology is different. Buyers and sellers can trade directly without any intermediary platform. After the transaction between the buyer and the seller, the system publishes the transaction information in the form of broadcast, and all hosts receiving the information record the transaction after confirming that the information is correct, which means that all hosts have done data backup for the transaction. Even if a machine has problems in the future, it will not affect the data recording, because there are countless machines as backup
when it comes to blockchain, many people associate it with bitcoin, and many even equate blockchain with bitcoin. He Fei said that bitcoin is a way of presenting blockchain, but blockchain is not the same as 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 ofblockchain
can solve the pain points and difficulties in many fields such as finance, public welfare, supervision, anti-counterfeiting, but there are many applicable conditions
financial service is the first application field of blockchain technology. The application of blockchain technology can solve the pain points in payment, asset management, securities and other fields
taking the payment field as an example, the cost of reconciliation, clearing and settlement among financial institutions, especially cross-border financial institutions, is high, involving many manual processes, which not only leads to high costs for users and financial institutions' back-end business, but also makes it difficult to develop micro payment business. The application of blockchain technology helps to rece the cost of reconciliation and dispute resolution between financial institutions, and significantly improve the processing efficiency of payment business. In addition, the cost and efficiency advantages brought by blockchain technology in the field of payment enable financial institutions to better handle the small cross-border payment which was considered unrealistic e to high cost in the past, and contribute to the realization of Inclusive Finance
for example, in order to solve the problem of high reconciliation cost among financial institutions, in August 2016, Weizhong bank and Shanghai Huarui Bank launched the inter agency reconciliation platform of micro loan, which is also the first application scenario of banking alliance chain running in the proction environment in China. Zhang Kaixiang, chief architect of Weizhong bank's blockchain, believes that the high cost problem that the traditional "batch file reconciliation" model has failed to solve for a long time is exactly where blockchain technology can be used. Subsequently, Bank of Luoyang and Bank of Changsha have also been connected to the inter agency reconciliation platform. Through the blockchain technology, the inter agency reconciliation process in the micro loan business has been optimized, achieving the goals of quasi real-time reconciliation, improving operation efficiency and recing operation cost. Up to now, the platform has been running stably for more than one year, with zero failure, and the number of real transactions recorded has reached tens of millions
in the field of public welfare, blockchain technology is also promising. The first application scenario of ant financial services involving blockchain is public welfare, which helps a group of hearing-impaired children get a donation, and then uses blockchain technology to promote public welfare to be more open and transparent. Hu Danqing, senior proct expert of ant financial services technology laboratory, said: "the blockchain public welfare platform is like a post office dedicated to mailing funds on the Internet. Every sum of money donated by users will be packaged into a package, which will be delivered through the blockchain platform. Every node we pass through will be stamped with a postmark and finally delivered to the recipient. This can ensure that every sum of money donated by users is transparent, traceable and difficult to tamper with. "
blockchain technology can be used to crack down on counterfeit goods. Hu Danqing introced that ant financial services has applied blockchain technology to the traceability of authentic procts. At present, some seafood procts from Australia and New Zealand, such as milk powder, are swept away with Alipay, so they can know if they are genuine procts. Different from previous businesses' self input of commodity information, blockchain allows multiple "bookkeepers" to complete bookkeeping fairly, independently and non repudiately. "
for financial supervision, blockchain technology can also play a role. According to the white paper of FISCO bcos, the underlying platform of financial blockchain, issued by the financial blockchain cooperation alliance (Shenzhen) in 2017, blockchain provides consistent and easy to audit data for financial regulators. Through the data analysis of inter agency blockchain, it can supervise financial business faster and more accurately than the traditional audit 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 be separated from the regulatory line of sight, which will greatly improve the anti money laundering efforts
some people in the instry believe that blockchain 1.0 is mainly aimed at digital currency; Blockchain 2.0 aims at smart contracts and can be applied in financial markets; Blockchain 3.0 will apply to more scenarios, and even create a "blockchain era"
He Fei believes that blockchain can indeed solve the pain points and difficulties in many fields, but blockchain is not omnipotent and has many applicable conditions
for example, the decentralization of blockchain technology is suitable for multi-party participation scenarios, and if it is only unilateral or bilateral participation, the value is not great. Due to the need for each node to check, blockchain technology is not suitable for those high-frequency trading activities
for another example, blockchain emphasizes openness and transparency, which is not suitable for scenarios with high data privacy requirements
will blockchain become a new outlet
technology is not yet mature enough. We must be alert to the concept of speculation. In particular, we should distinguish between technological innovation or fund-raising innovation. We can not block the chain chain concept of
block chain so that we will not become a "Internet plus". p>
in recent years, the development ecology of blockchain has been graally improved and enriched. Instry insiders believe that with national policy support, extensive attention and financial support, blockchain technology can achieve graal and stable progress. Although the prospect of blockchain technology is broad, we should also keep an ordinary mind
"despite the current blockchain craze, we still believe that it is still in a very early stage." Hu Danqing said that at present, there is a virtual heat in the concept of blockchain. Instead of using technology to solve practical problems, it is hot to raise money and speculate on valuation. In particular, most of the so-called ICO (initial token issuance) that are hot are innovation of fund-raising tools, which has nothing to do with technological innovation
blockchain technology can indeed create great value, but some risks can not be ignored
"blockchain technology is not very mature, and its application scenarios are relatively limited, so we should be more alert to the concept of capital market speculation." He Fei said that behind the blockchain boom, there will inevitably be some companies that want to speculate. They do not really carry out business, but just try to make a profit in the capital market. They should be careful to prevent the emergence of "bad money drives out good money", which will lead to the withdrawal of institutions that really want to carry out business from the market and affect the application of blockchain technology
Hu Danqing suggested that for the current blockchain craze, regulatory authorities should be more active in intervening, distinguish between technological innovation and fund-raising innovation, encourage government organizations, credible experts and instry participants to help the public identify, comprehensively curb fund-raising innovation in the name of blockchain, and let the actual controller of ICO bear responsibility for fund-raising behavior“ The basis for judging whether it is technological innovation or fund-raising innovation is actually very clear, that is, whether it starts with trust and whether it creates practical value by solving the trust problem. "
in order to better promote and use blockchain technology in the future, we need 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 of core technologies of blockchain such as consensus algorithm; On the other hand, the processing efficiency of blockchain is difficult to meet the requirements of some high-frequency application environments in reality. At present, the mainstream blockchain technology platforms are originated in foreign countries. Domestic blockchain technology service providers should patiently start from the bottom development, achieve independent and controllable technology, and strive to lead the development of global blockchain technology. Enterprises with blockchain application scenarios should actively embrace new things and scientifically evaluate the demand for blockchain, instead of blockchain for the sake of blockchainHe Fei believes that the government can issue relevant policies to guide the enterprises who are interested in the R & D and application of blockchain technology, and at the same time, clarify some suitable application scenarios of blockchain and areas encouraged by the state
the white paper 2016 on the development of China's blockchain technology and application suggests that government departments at all levels should learn from the advanced practices of developed countries and regions and, in combination with the development of China's blockchain technology and application, timely issue support policies for blockchain technology and instrial development, focusing on supporting key technology tackling, major demonstration projects, the construction of "innovation and entrepreneurship" platform, and the development of China's blockchain technology and application System solution development and public service platform construction. At the same time, it is suggested that domestic key enterprises, scientific research institutions, universities and user units should strengthen cooperation to speed up the research of core key technologies such as consensus mechanism, programmable contract, distributed storage and digital signature
can bring money to the enterprise will become the outlet
blockchain technology is considered to be the next generation of disruptive core technology after steam engine, power and Internet. If the steam engine has released people's proctivity, the power has solved people's basic living needs, and the Internet has completely changed the way of information transmission, then the blockchain, as a machine for building trust, may completely change the way of value transmission of the whole human society
first, the essence of blockchain is a distributed public ledger
take a popular example to explain that Mr. w's family, including Mr. W, Mrs. W, Mr. w's grandfather and Mrs. w's grandmother, all record their expenses in their respective books. Because Mr. w's family doesn't trust each other. Mr. W is diligent in raising his wife every month, but Mrs. w may receive 1000 yuan, but she receives 100 yuan. Isn't that a big loss
how to solve this problem with blockchain
if Mr. w gives Mrs. w $1000 one day, he just shouts at the whole family that Mr. w gives Mrs. w $1000. Please write down "Mr. w gives Mrs. w $1000" on their respective account books
so everyone in Mr. w's family becomes a node, and every transaction of Mr. w's family is recorded by everyone (each node)
every night who washes the dishes (proof of workload) can settle the bill in the public ledger, and there is a reward for washing the dishes. A new transaction must be added to the universally recognized ledger of the previous day, and other people will also participate in verifying the transactions of the day
Second, it seems very simple, but blockchain may bring revolutionary changes to human society
1. Machine trust
machine trust is actually trust without trust. For the first time in human history, a large-scale cooperation network unprecedented on earth can be established at near zero cost, which is bound to be a great mass movement
2. Value transfer
the emergence of the Internet has made the means of information dissemination achieve a leap, and information has realized efficient flow, but the efficiency of Internet value transfer is still very slow. At present, e-money on the Internet is still the traditional paper money in essence, and transnational payment is still a big problem
the birth of blockchain is the beginning of human value transmission network. It will enable people to transfer value as conveniently and cheaply as information on the Internet, which can be expressed as capital, assets or other forms
3. Smart contract
smart contract can replace all paper contracts, and more importantly, blockchain can perfectly connect the physical world and virtual world. The perfect combination of blockchain, Internet of things and artificial intelligence makes the imagination more huge
the blockchain itself is actually a super platform. The commercial characteristics of building machine trust, value transfer and smart contract on the blockchain are: ① close to zero trust cost. ② The marginal cost of constructing and trading assets tends to zero
so Mark Anderson, a web browser pioneer, said: in 20 years' time, we will talk about blockchain as we talk about the Internet today.
A: blockchain is an encrypted database chain, that is, the transaction data in multiple timestamps / events are encrypted and linked together, and the data can not be tampered with or shared
2. Performance and logic:
A. external operation forms: bank deposit and withdrawal, remittance, account in and out, shopping, currency issuance, capital transaction, etc
B. internal logic processing (software program): after human operation, the data will be encrypted first and then stored in the database. After the program, the data will be divided into regions, such as the data in the event and time stamp will be classified and put together into a region. Multiple events and data in timestamps are associated to form a blockchain. The encrypted data can be shared, but not tampered with
C. forms of sharing: querying personal information, auditing, etc. Query permission / sharing permission: different permissions can query different data. For example, the bank can query the information of all people, and the indivial can only query the indivial
3. Most of the examples are different, but the logic processing ideas are the same, but the implementation methods and operations are different
4. Blockchain: it has the characteristics of encrypted data, tamperable data and shared data
5. Blockchain Technology: the technology of encrypting, partitioning and sharing data with editing programs
there are suggestions for guidance
application fields: finance, it, commodity sales, online shopping, etc.
blockchain adopts distributed data storage technology, which enables the whole people to participate in the application system of collection, management and sharing, so as to ensure the diversity and integrity of information and achieve the purpose of decentralization.