Academician Chen Chun's article: The blockchain industry ecology can only be stable if it has strong supervision

Source: China Economic Herald

Author: Chen Chun

Development process of blockchain technology

In 2008, someone published a ground-breaking article "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" with "Satoshi Nakamoto" as a pen name, and proposed the Bitcoin system model. On January 3, 2009, the genesis block was born, and Bitcoin was officially launched. It has the following characteristics: first, no service suspension has occurred in 10 years; second, any transaction can be traced back; third, there is no agency or individual dedicated to operation and maintenance. The underlying technology used by Bitcoin is the blockchain, which is essentially a distributed ledger database.

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From the perspective of the classification of the blockchain, it can be basically divided into the following three categories. The first type is the public chain, which is characterized in that any individual can participate and can be accessed globally. Bitcoin, which we are familiar with, is the application of the public chain. The second type is the private chain. The participants of the private chain are generally the internal entities of large enterprises or the various functional departments of the government. It has a certain centralized coordination mechanism, and the controller can specify participating nodes and verification nodes. The third type is the alliance chain, which refers to a multi-centric blockchain. It is generally initiated by an enterprise alliance or government agency. It has access and permission control mechanisms, and the ledger has privacy protection functions.

The development history of the blockchain can be divided into three stages. The first stage is from 2009 to 2013. This stage can also be called the Bitcoin era. At this stage, the underlying blockchain technology and the upper-layer digital currency applications are inseparable. The second phase is from 2013 to 2015. Ethereum implemented programmable blockchain through the introduction of smart contracts and was able to carry a variety of applications, making blockchain applications no longer limited to the digital currency field. 2015 is the third stage of the development of the blockchain. With the introduction of the underlying platform of the alliance chain, it has promoted the integration of the blockchain and the industry by solving key technical problems of commercial-level applications.

The application of the blockchain industry is gradually deepening and expanding

The application of blockchain technology has gradually expanded from the initial financial field to many fields such as government services, supply chain management, and industrial manufacturing. The core idea is to use the transparent and immutable characteristics of blockchain for data recording and sharing, and to protect assets. The credible development of different businesses such as rights confirmation, data storage, license management, and transaction settlement. From infrastructure to the underlying technology platform, and then to industry applications, it can be said that the blockchain industry ecology has begun to take shape.

In the financial field, blockchain technology can improve transaction settlement efficiency, reduce transaction costs, and effectively solve the problems of lack of trust and low transaction efficiency among parties in financial application scenarios. The introduction of blockchain technology in the industrial field can connect various equipment in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, help enterprises, manufacturers, raw material suppliers and regulatory agencies to establish a trust system and improve the safety of manufacturing. In the field of logistics, by connecting and recording the data of all logistics participants into the blockchain network, the problem of traceability of commodities can be effectively solved. In the field of government affairs, the blockchain provides a distributed, multi-scenario solution for the interconnection and interconnection of government data, making government service rights and responsibilities clearer, cross-region and cross-sector coordination work smoother, and people's affairs easier.

The subject construction of blockchain is developing rapidly. At present, Tsinghua University, Peking University, Zhejiang University and other universities have provided blockchain courses and established a blockchain research center, but since the blockchain is still in its infancy, the quantity and quality of blockchain talent training are far from satisfying. Demand for the development of China's blockchain industry.

Regulatory challenges posed by blockchain

The continuous deepening of blockchain applications has also brought a series of risk challenges. There are three main challenges to risk. The first is the threat to network security; the second is the anonymity of public chains and the difficulty of deleting information, which can easily be used to spread bad information, which poses a challenge to ideological security; the third is the challenge to financial security. "Blockchain" flags frequently carry out illegal financial activities, disrupting the normal financial order.

Regarding the supervision of the blockchain, in January 2019, the Central Network Information Office issued the Regulations on the Management of Blockchain Information Services, and cooperated with relevant departments to carry out the management of the filing of blockchain information services, and actively implemented the implementation of Filing system and real-name system. At present, the supervision of blockchain in China has achieved initial results. This year, two batches of blockchain information service filing numbers have been announced.

At present, the development trend of blockchain supervision technology mainly has the following four aspects. The first is the tracking and visualization of blockchain nodes; the second is the alliance chain penetration supervision technology; the third is the public chain active discovery and detection and disposal technology; the last is Study the architecture and standards of governing the chain by chain.

(This article was edited and organized by Academician Chen Chun on December 26, 2019 at the National Development and Reform Commission on the theme of "The Current Status and Trends of the Development of Blockchain Technology."

About the Author

Chen Chun, Professor of School of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, Director of Department of Informatics of Zhejiang University, and Director of Blockchain Research Center of Zhejiang University. Member of the Discipline Evaluation Group of the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, member of the National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Strategy Advisory Committee, and chief scientist of the National Digital Printing Engineering Technology Research Center. Mainly engaged in cutting-edge research in the field of computer applications. In recent years, major research and development on big data artificial intelligence, blockchain and other directions have been made. Committed to combining high-level research with industrial applications, a series of results have been achieved and national technology 1 second prize for invention, 2 second prize for national science and technology progress award. Academician Chen Chun has a deep research on the theory and practice of blockchain technology. During the eighteenth collective study of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on October 24, he explained the current status and trends of blockchain technology.

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