Blockchain applications accelerate ice-breaking

China Energy Storage Network: The concept of "blockchain" has become increasingly popular around the world this year, but it is still difficult to see a blockchain technology being frequently used and widely sought after in people's daily lives. For many netizens, blockchain is still "like fog, rain and wind", which is hard to see through and touch, and sounds very popular but is rarely used.

In fact, blockchain technology has great potential in daily C-end applications. For example, transferring money between WeChat and Alipay, sending red envelopes, etc., such usage scenarios are difficult to achieve under the existing payment system. However, according to industry insiders, with the help of blockchain technology, the above application scenarios can become a reality.

How to better apply blockchain technology in people's lives has become a major focus of the industry's efforts. Experts say that blockchain will be closely related to everyone's life in the future, and the integration of blockchain technology into people's lives will be an inevitable trend. However, it is worth noting that blockchain is still in its early stages of "wild growth" and its application scenarios are still to be explored. At the same time, it must comply with regulatory and legal requirements, and network security cannot be ignored.

The market is still waiting for "killer applications" to activate

The concept of blockchain is now widely used, but it is still unclear to many people because the industry is still in its early stages of development and its practical applications are very limited. It is not as well-known and indispensable as some mature Internet and mobile Internet applications.

The application of blockchain in daily life is also quietly underway, and some projects have been continuously explored and practiced. Recently, at the "2018 CES ASIA·Shanghai-and Blockchain Demo Day·ACES Special" event held in Shanghai, Li Zhongqiang, managing partner of Deding Innovation Fund, revealed that Deding Innovation Fund invested in a blockchain application project in Barcelona as early as 2015, which used blockchain technology for mobile payments. "In fact, we have invested in many similar projects that integrate blockchain technology into daily life scenarios, which are closely integrated with application scenarios and there are many of them." Li Zhongqiang said.

Wang Wei, founder of Zhiding Technology Tokenpos, is also engaged in blockchain payment related businesses. In his opinion, the blockchain industry is still an early industry and should pay more attention to its development prospects. For example, the current return of CDR unicorns requires independent design by multiple parties to achieve. In the future, on the blockchain, users can achieve this through simple operations on their mobile phones. "In the future, blockchain will have an impact on everyone, especially in finance, property and other aspects."

At the earlier "Linking the Future - CNR TMT Salon", Yu Jianing, director of the Industrial Economics Research Institute of the Information Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the core of blockchain is to solve the problem of collaborative informatization. "Using a mechanism that is mutually recognized and cannot be tampered with to solve the problem of collaboration and reconciliation, and to solve the problem of informatization in a new environment, this is the most core scenario, and data resource sharing and other things are derived from this scenario." He believes that the effect of blockchain on the real economy is relatively obvious, mainly reflected in reducing costs, improving efficiency, optimizing the collaborative environment, and guiding funds from virtual to real.

In the real economy, the rapid development of the blockchain industry is bringing a broad space for imagination. The "2018 China Blockchain Industry Development White Paper" released by the Information Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that by the end of March 2018, the number of companies in my country whose main business is blockchain business reached 456, covering upstream hardware manufacturing, platform services, security services and downstream industrial technology application services, as well as various fields such as industry investment and financing, media, and talent services to ensure industrial development. In the next three years, blockchain will be widely implemented in the real economy and become an important support for the construction of Digital China.

In some vertical fields, blockchain also has immeasurable application prospects, such as the credit reporting field. Yao Ming, vice president and CTO of China Credit Information Service, said: "Blockchain can achieve data autonomy, privacy protection, transparent assessment, transparent transactions, asset traceability, asset digitization, etc." China Credit Information Service has conducted some explorations in the entire blockchain application, including blacklist sharing, asset securitization and credit information management. Yao Ming believes that in order to achieve a qualitative change in trust, the transparency of intermediary services is also needed. The emergence of blockchain is expected to solve this problem.

Yao Jingyi, partner of Distributed Capital, believes that the changes that blockchain technology brings to people's lives are not as intuitive as other technologies. "The greatest value of blockchain is its reshaping of traditional industry formats. Although current technical bottlenecks are still restricting the application and growth of blockchain, blockchain can bring about tremendous changes in people's business models and ways of thinking."

At present, the potential of blockchain is gaining more and more recognition. In the financial, manufacturing, retail, Internet and other industries, many blockchain application cases have emerged. The International Data Corporation (IDC) recently released a report predicting that this trend will continue in the next three years, and by 2021, the scale of China's blockchain market will exceed 1 billion US dollars. But at the same time, most blockchain applications are still in the trial stage, and problems such as inefficient transactions, non-rigid scenarios, and single business models are common. It is expected that it will be difficult for blockchain "killer applications" to appear in the next three to five years, and technology platforms and development services will be the main model to support the growth of the blockchain market.

Industry growth requires “tolerance”

Blockchain applications are accelerating. The 2018 Blockchain Development Report released by Chuangyebang shows that blockchain applications will be first implemented in the financial field. With the maturity of blockchain technology, the popularization of applications and the improvement of social awareness, blockchain will gradually penetrate into social credit, medical care, education, logistics, culture and entertainment and other fields.

As a brand new technology, blockchain applications also face many challenges and problems. According to Wang Wei, there have been attempts to use blockchain technology in stocks a long time ago, such as Nasdaq. As for whether the CDR model can be realized through blockchain, it is certain that the technology has been realized, and it mainly depends on the recognition of regulatory agencies, exchanges and securities companies in various countries.

It is a consensus and trend to strengthen the supervision of the blockchain industry. Yao Qian, director of the Digital Currency Research Institute of the Central Bank, once pointed out that in the face of the evolving blockchain technology, it is necessary to consider the corresponding laws, regulations and technical standards simultaneously to strengthen supervision and prevent risks. At the "10th Lujiazui Forum" held recently, Li Yang, chairman of the National Financial and Development Laboratory, pointed out that "things like blockchain cannot be allowed to go astray, and cannot be used only to create coins and then create millionaires. Instead, we must use it to transform our infrastructure, our authentication system, trust system, property rights identification system, and the cost of our financial transactions."

"The essence of blockchain social networking is that people all over the world can connect and communicate. Social platforms have become the largest communities and traffic portals, and will also serve as a tool for the circulation of digital assets in the future." Li Zhongqiang believes that the biggest difficulty in supervision is the social and communication aspects of blockchain.

"Smart contracts and tokens are the soul of blockchain." Yao Jingyi said that she firmly believes in the future of smart contracts, but now she has also seen many problems and incidents with smart contracts. Distributed Capital's investment strategy is "fault tolerance." Without sufficient fault tolerance, sufficient diversity cannot grow in the blockchain ecosystem.

Safety supervision is imminent

Blockchain applications are still in the exploratory stage, and the frequent cybersecurity incidents have further highlighted the shortcomings and deficiencies of the industry. Recently, 360 claimed to have discovered an "epic vulnerability" in the blockchain, which taught the nascent blockchain industry a profound security lesson.

In response to the current phenomenon of many security vulnerabilities in smart contracts, Li Zhongqiang said that when the public chain is developing rapidly, security issues are often not considered in time. Now some teams consider security issues only after the public chain is built. In order to enhance security precautions, Deding Innovation Fund has also invested in a team to do some underlying security research.