Babbitt Column | Does Blockchain Native Asset Really Make Sense?

I. What Bitcoin means to real life

There was a time when I worked hard to think about the meaning of Bitcoin for real life, and then I came up with 8 words: cross-border, innovation, illegal, restricted.

What does that mean? In other words, although our current electronic payment is very developed, and our WeChat and Alipay can also achieve second-level account receipt, but the traditional legal currency market still has some natural limitations, which is difficult for most sovereign currencies Did it. And Bitcoin can fill this vacancy, which is the significance of Bitcoin for real life, and also the society's immediate need for Bitcoin.

For example, cross-border payments, large cross-border transfers, global trade, innovative business payment methods, payment access in specific industries and specific fields, etc., cannot be achieved under the current legal currency system, or they cannot be good enough Locally, these aspects happen to be the areas where Bitcoin is best at, which can be regarded as the "basement" of Bitcoin development.

Through these 4 words, basically a brief summary of the meaning of Bitcoin for real life and its future development direction. After thinking about the meaning of bitcoin for real life, I went a step further and thought that in addition to bitcoin, there are many native blockchain assets. What is the significance of these native blockchain assets for real life? ?

• Is your digital asset protected on the exchange? Understanding the gap between exchanges and traditional banks
• The 500 billion yuan evaporated in January, and the production-reduction coins collapsed across the board. The "minsky moment" of the crypto market came?
• Bitcoin mining difficulty has risen sharply, or the price of coins has picked up

Significance of blockchain native assets for real life

We acknowledge the significance of Bitcoin, but have doubts about the significance of many blockchain native assets other than Bitcoin.

Are they really, as they say, all blockchain assets are pure hype and have no value? If they do not have any value now, will they have value in the future? If they make sense in the future, where does that make sense? How is this blockchain asset different from our existing financial world assets?

It took me a long time to think about these questions, but I never came up with a satisfactory answer. But recently, when I inadvertently read my past articles, I saw these 8 words-cross-border, innovation, illegal, and restricted. If you think about it again, suddenly there is a feeling of "looking for thousands of hers in the public, and looking back, but the person is in the dark", because I find that these 8 words are not only suitable for Bitcoin, but also suitable for the future blockchain. Assets, after all, Bitcoin itself is an asset, and Bitcoin is just one of many native assets of the blockchain.

Our traditional capital market has been highly developed after hundreds of years of development. We have stocks, funds, bonds, futures, foreign exchange, options and various derivatives. We have a 24/7 non-stop trading market. These are Assets have huge liquidity. No matter from which point of view, there is no problem in the current capital market.

But is that really the case?

I don't think so! For example, these assets currently have some problems in cross-border circulation.

Take the stock market as an example. Now the international stock market is divided. If you want to buy US stocks, you must have a special US stock account. If you want to speculate on A shares, then you must have a special A stock account. You want to buy European, For stocks in Singapore and other places, you need to have a local stock account. In addition to the stock account, you also need a foreign bank card. You need to have a series of identity authentication. You must also find a way to remit US dollars and so on. Otherwise, you can Can't invest.

Anyone who speculates in US stocks in China knows that it is very troublesome and very complicated, and needs to complete a series of processes. Without special guidance, ordinary people will be difficult to complete this process.

Then the problem actually arises. Assets naturally need to flow. This is the nature of assets, and the higher the liquidity, the better, and the more people who participate in the investment, the better. Moreover, from the perspective of business management, many American companies, such as Coca-Cola, also hope to have more investors worldwide, because these investors are naturally customers and propaganda machines. Similarly, many domestic companies also Requires worldwide investors, as well as worldwide users and resources.

To solve this problem and achieve the free flow of assets around the world, in fact, there is no technical difficulty, what kind of cross-border payments, and the unification of securities codes are not a problem. Most of the problems are in the social system. In fact, it is understandable because it will indeed involve a series of acts such as money laundering, tax avoidance, and capital outflow, which may become a hotbed for criminals. It is precisely because of these problems that cross-border investment is still a very niche The market is a highly restricted market, and the liquidity of assets is basically artificially restricted within a country.

Although we are accustomed to this situation, this is actually not reasonable!

Assets naturally require liquidity, and natural pursuit of higher liquidity is its inherent characteristic, which is difficult to be restricted for a long time. In the long run, the globalization of assets is an inevitable trend, that is, there are many asset targets that will start to be issued and traded to the world, not just limited to a certain country. They share the world's liquidity and have full Investors in the world (investors will also be converted into users) have brands, reputation and resources from all over the world, and profits are shared with investors from all over the world . To achieve this, it is difficult to achieve under the existing system, because it requires a global unified capital market and a global unified currency carrier to support it, which is very difficult to appear now.

On the one hand, assets require free flow, and on the other hand, assets are restricted to be traded within specific national boundaries. This is a contradiction that is difficult to coordinate, and blockchain can just solve this contradiction.

The blockchain market has been a global market from the beginning. For example, assets such as BTC, ETH, and EOS are directly facing the world from the beginning. They can freely flow around the world and share the world's liquidity. It does not It belongs to a certain country and there is no designated trading market for any country. Investors all over the world can participate in investment and share profits. Although the size of the Bitcoin or blockchain trading market is still very small, I boldly speculate that the type of assets, transaction amount and trading depth in the future blockchain market will be at least 1 to 2 higher than the current financial market. Orders of magnitude.

What's more, having global investment targets is even more profound. For example, in the future, if various countries list digital assets such as Bitcoin as a commodity and consider it as a member of traditional investment products, then these native blockchain assets of Bitcoin are actually in the traditional finance of countries around the world. A bridge was erected on the market. Through the connection of these global universal assets of Bitcoin, it is objectively possible to organically connect most of the world's financial assets, which is a very imaginative thing.

The BISS exchange was previously closed because it was involved in investigations of US stocks by regulatory agencies. The method of operation of this matter was indeed problematic, and it was also anxious at this stage. However, the idea behind this is worthy of further consideration. Through the blockchain's native assets (BTC, USDT, etc.), the traditional financial assets of various countries are connected and distributed around the world. Many assets in the real world do have such a demand, and capital also has such a need, but it only needs a suitable channel. It is believed that there will be more and more innovations in this area until there are legal channels to open up these links and truly realize the cross-border circulation of assets. This is the future trend. This is what I mean by "cross-border".

The second word is called "innovation".

Although there are many varieties of our current assets, there are also many specific targets under specific varieties. For example, A shares already have thousands of listed companies. It sounds like a lot, but this is far from enough. There are several million or even tens of millions of large and medium-sized enterprises in China. In this way, the proportion of stocks that have been listed and issued as assets is very low. Moreover, the definition of assets here is also very narrow. It must be listed, issued shares, and securitized to be called assets. It has the corresponding rights and interests in assets , but assets should be a very broad concept. All valuable things Both can be called assets, and everything that generates cash flow should be able to be securitized and assetized.

Our current capital system, on the one hand, limits the financing capabilities of many small and medium-sized enterprises, and on the other hand, it also limits the types and number of assets (of course, this is also a stage that must be experienced in the development of things). However, after the popularity of the blockchain, these restrictions will be effectively broken after the popularization of the token economy. On the one hand, many small and medium-sized enterprises will have very flexible financing capabilities through the token. On the other hand, the type of assets will also be greatly improved. increase.

In addition to the company's stock itself can be called assets, there are many new things, such as points, usage rights, data, identity, influence, time, and even likes, reading and other behaviors can be quantified, and then form returns, so these It became a de facto "asset", and I call this type of asset a "new asset." At the same time, I also think that the token economy will not be able to exert its maximum power under the current financial system for the time being. It must be after the emergence of these new assets in large numbers that it can exert its full power. It will take a long time before the large-scale emergence of these new assets, so it will take time for the token economy to show great power, but as long as the direction is right, time is not a problem, and it can be developed step by step.

I think that the emergence of the token economy will bring a large number of "new assets". The number and category of these "new assets" may increase by one or two orders of magnitude compared with the traditional financial world. The total amount of wealth may also increase by 1 to 2 orders of magnitude, and the emergence of these many "new assets" based on the blockchain also allows the value to be more freely connected and wealth to flow more freely.

Regarding the two issues of "illegal" and "restricted", I will not discuss them. It can only be said that from the perspective of history, there are many important innovations that have appeared on the margins of laws and the fuzzy areas of rules. At that time, the e-commerce also experienced a similar process. After the e-commerce came out, there was no corresponding legal constraint for a long time, so it also caused a lot of chaos in the entire e-commerce industry, until the entire industry developed to a certain extent. With a certain scale, the e-commerce law only emerged, and the entire industry has laws to follow. Therefore, in real life, in many cases, there is innovation first, it becomes reality first, and then there is law. In the context of switching to this article, there are many business innovations that lie in the gaps and vague areas of the current market rules. These aspects are the breakthroughs that blockchains can make, and where blockchain assets may "emerge" on a large scale. These need to be carefully considered by each of our participants.

Third, the conclusion

People often say that the blockchain cannot land, because it is not yet time to land.

I firmly believe that the disruption of the future society by the blockchain is huge, just like the disruption of the Internet to our current lives. In the early days of the development of the Internet, everyone regarded it as an ordinary gadget, thinking that "there is no need for more than 5 computers in the world", and when it really took shape, it showed its great power, and subversion was inevitable It just takes time.

In addition to the characteristics of cross-border and new assets, it may even form a new complete financial system on the blockchain in the future. It is open, transparent, and has no borders. It operates completely based on code. In this financial system, it has higher efficiency, lower costs, more trading varieties, and higher liquidity. Investors all over the world are on it. Through this new financial system, it can also link traditional financial assets, and traditional financial assets will also be put on the new clothing of the blockchain. At that time, we will see a completely new world of financial on the chain. Or financial 2.0.

We will continue to update Blocking; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!