Blockchain Pioneers Column 08
Author丨Chain Bazaar Carbon Chain Value
first level title
Column introduction
In the past 10 years, the field of blockchain and digital currency has experienced a stage from being sought after to a bubble and then to a trough. In this round after round of storms and bubbles, some people are chasing after it, some are avoiding it, and some are forging ahead. Capital drive is the key element of the universal spread of the blockchain in the first half, but blindly relying on capital It will only make the development of the blockchain fall into a false bubble,When the capital fades, an era that truly belongs to the blockchain may really begin to come.
We have seen that the blockchain pioneers who are moving forward in the waves put great enthusiasm and focus on realizing their original vision, actively integrating blockchain technology into the wave of digitalization, and gradually moving from proof of concept to large-scale implementation , and also created more and more rich application scenarios. We realize that the brand-new trust mechanism brought by the blockchain has produced unprecedented efficient collaboration between people, equipment, business, enterprises and society, and the efficiency of business and social operations is being optimized. In the era of digital economy, because of the blockchain technology , is becoming more and more efficient and transparent.
our new columnBlockchain Pioneers, intendedReturn to the essence of business, to explore the current status of the integration of blockchain, entities, and industries, discover more business scenarios where blockchain applications have landed, analyze what empowerment and contributions blockchain has made to the industry, and discover those who have worked hard in the blockchain industry before The forerunners and pioneers who work hard and work hard make the mysterious blockchain technology known and understood by the public. At the same time, we also hope to contribute our own strength to the universal dissemination and development of blockchain.
As a leader in the domestic blockchain track,WeBank continues to cultivate blockchain technology and combine it with the real industry to build a full range of technical capabilities from the bottom layer to middleware to application components, so as to shorten the path of blockchain and industrial applications, and applied in many fields, these technical capabilities are widely used by many developers.
This time, we had the honor to have an in-depth dialogue with Mr. Li Huizhong, the person in charge of the research and development of the blockchain underlying platform of WeBank, as a developer who has participated in the background architecture design of massive Internet businesses at Tencent, he has been rooted in the blockchain industry for many years.Deeply engaged in the research and design of distributed systems, blockchain core architecture and algorithms, and has extensive experience in P2P networks, consensus mechanisms, security and privacy, etc.And has maintained a very high enthusiasm for blockchain technology exploration.
At present, he is committed to the design, development and community promotion of the underlying platform of the FISCO BCOS alliance chain. At the same time, he is also responsible for the research and development of privacy protection, cross-chain and other technologies.
first level title
core interview
1. We know that WeBank has proposed a distributed commerce model, so what do you think of distributed commerce, and what kind of development might it have in the future?
In fact, distributed commerce is a concept put forward by WeBank relatively early. Our core point of view is that the entire business model has developed from the earliest centralized derivatives to the current very popular shared economic models such as Airbnb and shared bicycles. Development, the next stage may be a distributed business model.
(Editors note: Distributed commerce is a new type of production relationship established by multiple commercial interest communities with equal status. It is organized and managed, function division, value exchange, and joint provision of goods and services through preset transparent rules. And a new type of economic activity that shares benefits.)
The so-called distributed business model means that multiple parties will equally participate in a business ecosystem. The relationship between the participants is equal, and certain rules and contracts can be automatically executed, and the interests of multiple parties can be better connected and coordinated. Coordination is a cross-regional, even cross-border business model.
Distributed business models have begun to appear. For example, with the development of the Internet in the past few decades, data is scattered in the hands of different organizations. However, how to mine the value of data and play the synergy effect of data through security and compliance methods , so as to better provide information services, financial services, etc.
Many institutions are currently exploring this area. Therefore, we believe that the future distributed business model may gradually be reflected in various industries.
2. Important representatives of the domestic blockchain alliance include FISCO BCOS of the Golden Chain Alliance. WeBank is both an early initiator and an important participant. So what is the current development?
The Golden Chain Alliance was jointly established by more than 20 financial institutions and technology companies in 2016. It was officially registered as an independent corporate legal person in 2019. It is an alliance organization dedicated to the research of alliance chain technology.
At the beginning, it was mainly for the financial field, but with the development of the Golden Chain Alliance, now in addition to financial industry institutions, there are many cross-industry institutions participating, such as scientific research institutions such as the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and consulting institutions such as Ernst Young. Get involved too.
This makes the Golden Chain Alliance have a pan-industry attribute and become the leading blockchain community organization in China, which also ensures its activity.
As an important member, WeBank has actively participated in the construction of the Golden Chain Alliance, including cooperating with other member units, holding multiple blockchain activities, and leading the development of FISCO BCOS, the underlying open source platform of the blockchain. At present, the open source community built around FISCO BCOS is very active. More than 40,000 individual developers and more than 2,000 companies and institutions from all over the world have gathered in the community. There are many technical exchanges in the community every day.
At the same time, we are also very pragmatic in creating various application components based on the alliance chain ecology. Around FISCO BCOS, we have created multiple tools and solutions such as cross-chain collaboration, middleware, privacy protection, data governance, and blockchain governance. These components It can make the application of blockchain technology better. At present, many users in the community have participated in the construction of the alliance chain ecology.
3. WeCross, as an important blockchain cross-chain technology proposed by WeBank, should have developed to the stage of building a public cross-chain service platform according to the previous plan, so how is the progress now?
WeCross is a very important technical component. After open-sourcing FISCO BCOS at the end of 2017, we have been thinking about the technical development direction of the alliance chain. In 2019, we had a clearer direction for the future development trend of the technology.
We have seen that with the landing of some applications, the market has a great demand for cross-chain. Therefore, at the beginning of 2019, we proposed WeCross. The core concept is to promote cross-blockchain value exchange and business cooperation across industries, institutions, and regions, and to promote the deep integration and development of blockchain application ecology. We believe that it should be a set of common Protocols and specifications to follow.
Under this, everyone can dock their own chains according to the consensus specification. For example, I am the A chain and you are the B chain. We are jointly connected to such a cross-chain protocol according to the specifications, then our two chains AB will be connected.
To use a metaphor, WeCross can be understood as a power strip that is recognized and reached a consensus. All power supply equipment can be connected as long as it meets the power strip specification. Whether it is a three-hole plug or a two-hole plug, as long as it can be connected to the power strip, it can be connected with other power supply equipment.
Each type of chain has a corresponding plug according to the specifications, and the plug may need to be converted, similar to the conversion head used abroad, the European version of the chain may need an adapter, and then plugged into this power strip, so that everyone link together.
At present, the WeCross technology iteration speed is very fast. According to the previous plan, it should be the public cross-chain service stage, but in fact, the goal of this stage has already been achieved. At present, the platform has been open sourced and can be directly accessed.
In addition, we have built platforms across different chains, including some national infrastructure platform facilities that will use WeCross technology, and the overall progress is currently relatively smooth. WeCross has no restrictions on the type of chain, as long as the chain has a similar basic functional interface, it can be connected, which further reduces the threshold for cross-chain implementation.
4. Has WeBank’s blockchain developed to the present and is there any general data about blockchain landing cases?
As an important initiator and promoter of the FISCO BCOS open source community, WeBank actively participates in the joint construction of the blockchain open source ecosystem. At present, the FISCO BCOS open source community has developed hundreds of applications based on FISCO BCOS, of which more than 120 are running stably in the production environment, covering government affairs, finance, public welfare, medical care, education and other fields.
This data is not necessarily complete, because FISCO BCOS itself is an open source underlying platform, and everyone can use this platform to build their own applications, and the actual number must be more.
5. Among the above cases, is there any case that is worth sharing with you, or is particularly helpful to the industry?
We have many implementation cases, and here are two typical ones.
One is the Guangdong-Macao Health Code Mutual Recognition System. This project, WeBank, provides open source blockchain technology support. The application was launched during the epidemic last year. For residents like us in the Greater Bay Area, it solved the different systems of the two places. Next, the mutual recognition of cross-border health codes will make customs clearance more convenient during the epidemic.
The system construction of Guangdong and Macao is very different, and there is no way to directly connect the data services of the two places. Government departments use blockchain as a technical bridge to build a Guangdong-Macau (Yuekang Code and Macau Health Code) health code cross-border mutual recognition platform, which converts health code-related information into encrypted and verifiable digital certificates.
The institutions of the two places can still verify the authenticity and validity of the information even if the background is not connected. When the user needs to verify the health code across borders, there is no need to repeatedly fill in the information on multiple platforms, and the system will automatically transcode for the user after obtaining authorization.
As of the end of February this year, this system has served more than 58 million people to pass customs. This is actually a very good example of using blockchain technology to truly solve real livelihood problems.
In addition, there are some cases in other social governance scenarios, such as the Green Travel Inclusive Platform. This application was released by us together with Beijing Green Exchange and Green Inclusive Company. Provide open source technical support.
This project is very consistent with the carbon neutrality goal proposed by the two sessions a while ago, and it is also an application that is in line with the countrys overall strategy. Green Pratt Whitney uses blockchain, combined with cutting-edge technologies such as the Internet of Things, to quantify rewards for individual emission reduction behaviors, allowing individual users to participate in environmental protection.
The core essence of the operation of Green Pratt Whitney is to establish a dynamic mechanism for the continuous extension of individual green environmental protection value on the basis of multi-party collusion. Through the blockchain, the businesses of issuers, distributors and various intermediate agents can be Collaborate efficiently.
6. As an important participant in the domestic blockchain field, compared with many small and medium-sized blockchain technology companies, what do you think is the biggest advantage of WeBank blockchain?
I think our biggest advantage is that the team is more pragmatic. Since 2015, we have been deploying blockchain technology. On this track, many teams have entered and quit midway, but we have always insisted on pragmatically studying at the technical level.
We have always been based on the FISCO BCOS platform, technology-oriented and deeply cultivated in the field of alliance chains, and promote the combination of technology and industry. Compared with some other institutions, we have always paid attention to the alliance chain, which is also our advantage.
In the end, I think our strength lies in our openness. One is technological openness, and the other is ecological openness.
In terms of technology, we insist on open source, and have built a full-stack technology architecture for finance and new infrastructure, including the blockchain underlying technology platform FISCO BCOS, privacy protection solution WeDPR, cross-chain collaboration platform WeCross, middleware platform WeBASE, etc. .
In terms of ecology, we have built the largest and most active domestic open source alliance chain ecosystem around FISCO BCOS with multiple partners. At present, more than 2,000 companies and institutions, and more than 40,000 developers have participated in the ecological co-construction, and many cooperation Partners create applications based on FISCO BCOS.
For example, the first domestic alliance chain underlying platform introduced and adapted by the national blockchain service network BSN is FISCO BCOS. At the same time, some large and medium-sized partners and blockchain teams also use our platform to do some business exploration and implementation. Weizhong has been promoting its own development in an in-depth cooperation and open way.
7. Last year, WeBank also released the New Data Infrastructure solution that includes artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing and big data, namely ABCD. On the whole, these four technologies are very important. What role does the block chain play in it?
The new data infrastructure proposed last year revolves around the background of data elements. The core is to solve several technical problems. We believe that new data infrastructure is a pyramid, and the essence of its discussion is to release the productivity of data, which is our ultimate goal.
However, releasing data productivity is not an easy task. We are currently facing some difficulties, such as the difficulty of defining data property rights. Data is easily replicated and non-exclusive, making it difficult to identify rights and measure its value. Moreover, the value of different data is also very different for different organizations. How to evaluate and circulate its value are a series of problems faced in the application of data.
Then the core of these problems, from the perspective of technology, is three aspects: the first is secure storage, the second is trusted transmission, and the third is collaborative production. That is to say, you need to ensure the security of data storage and transmission, and in the process of collaboration, you can effectively allow multiple organizations to carry out collaborative production.
These three core issues are actually supported by a series of ABCD technologies we have proposed. For example, cloud computing provides the framework and algorithms for collaborative production of big data, and then AI supports data mining. Then the core role of blockchain here is to determine the property rights of data transfer between multiple institutions, to better measure value, to provide credible guarantees for exchanges, and to increase the trust between individuals and institutions participating in the new data infrastructure. Trust.
If there is no blockchain, this trust depends on the peer-to-peer mutual trust relationship between people. After the blockchain is involved, through the basic characteristics of the blockchain that cannot be tampered with and can be traced, all institutions can trust the entire platform more in the process of data transmission and collaborative production.
At the same time, enhancing trust will help everyone be more willing to contribute valuable data, so that data will not be risky. This is one of the more important values of the blockchain in the entire system.
8. Although the frequency of blockchain being mentioned has greatly increased in 2020, there are still no applications that have entered the mainstream publics vision. So what kind of products do you think will be available in the future so that everyone can truly understand and apply blockchain? ?
Indeed, although everyone is talking about the blockchain and knows the word blockchain, many people do not understand what problems the blockchain can really solve for everyone.
I think this question is based on a cognitive premise. We have a preconceived view that blockchain technology is useful, and this usefulness must be reflected in an app or platform for C-end users to use.
But in fact, many technologies are invisible to users at the beginning, such as cloud computing. Many applications we use have cloud computing behind them, but you dont actually see it. Maybe artificial intelligence will have a more intuitive C-end experience, such as face recognition. But big data is actually not intuitive. We cant see how an application that relies on big data platform computing and collaboration to provide services is done. The same is true for blockchain technology.
Many users in non-technical fields may want to see an APP used by large-scale C-end users, which intuitively uses blockchain technology, and then brings us huge changes.
But in my personal understanding, the successful application of blockchain technology may not be a C-side product, and its value-first scenario is more likely to be on the B-side, for commercial cooperation between institutions, to better improve efficiency and reduce risks and costs.
For example, we provide financial services. Users still see a variety of financial products. However, it is likely that the blockchain technology has been used behind it to improve the efficiency of the organizations capital transactions, clearing and settlement, and reduce the risk of the financial system. It is not intuitive, but this is also a successful application of the blockchain.
This is somewhat similar to the development process of the Internet. As the technology matures, it may be transformed into a more C-end product, but I am not very sure about it.
9. We know that although the blockchain is very important and is developing rapidly, the supply of actual talents is still in short supply. Do you have any unique recruitment methods or methods for cultivating talents in this area?
I dont know how other organizations recruit and develop talent, so I cant say our approach is unique. But because we invested a lot in the development of blockchain technology in the early stage, and there are many open source blockchain components. On the one hand, it can be explained that our technical architecture is relatively rich and complete. On the other hand, blockchain talents have also been cultivated in the process of continuous exploration of technology.
This method may be a little different from other domestic institutions. We are following the route of open source technology. Everyone is encouraged to use all technologies. During the process of open source, people have already experienced them, and the participation of users has in turn stimulated the enthusiasm of our entire team.
In addition, we have cooperated with institutions such as universities and governments, and are exploring the establishment of a blockchain talent cultivation system. We have also participated in the construction of blockchain standards organized by some national ministries and commissions such as the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and participated in the design and compilation of relevant course materials.
I always believe that everyones recognition is the source of a teams sense of accomplishment.
10. What is your personal opinion on the future development of blockchain?
In fact, this question is often asked. I have been in the blockchain industry since 2016, and it has been four or five years now. In this process, I started from the core consensus algorithm at the bottom, and later worked on cross-chain, privacy protection, etc., and I came into contact with new things every day. Just like the virtual machines and new smart contracts that everyone is studying now, they are brand new things.
So I think, on the whole, the development of blockchain technology still has a lot of uncertainty, because there are still many directions, and there is still a lot of room for imagination in the form of future industrial implementation. At present, some new technology forms are launched every year or every six months, so I think at the current stage, the blockchain industry is still in a fairly new stage, and it is far from reaching maturity. This is the overall situation of the blockchain industry .
From a technical point of view, the technology supporting industrial applications is currently sufficient. In other words, at present, whether it is the stability and performance of the platform, or the basic features and functions required by the industry, it is sufficient.
QA
QA
1. How long do you think it will take until the blockchain actually makes a C-end product?
This is not a good guess, I think at least a year or two.
2. What stage of development do you think the blockchain industry is in now?
The technology is relatively mature, but industrial applications are still being explored.
3. What do you like to do in your spare time?
read a book.
4. Is there anyone you admire more? Why worship him/her?
I don’t seem to have it, I really don’t seem to engage in personality cults.
5. Which movie do you like best?
Alive.
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The Chain Market · Blockchain Pioneers column will be dedicated to discovering more outstanding blockchain companies and entrepreneurs, disseminating the specific achievements and application scenarios of these companies in the implementation of blockchain applications, so that more blockchain Pioneers in the blockchain industry can pass on their development thoughts and experiences in the industry, and let more people understand the development status and future of the blockchain, so that blockchain companies can go to the public and the public can enter the real digital world. world.
We hope that friends in the blockchain industry will recommend more excellent blockchain companies to us, and we also welcome relevant business leaders to actively contact us, let us speak together, and empower the spread and development of blockchain!
