Comment: How will the epidemic affect the blockchain industry?

Original: "Uncle Kai's Quick Review: What Impact Does the Epidemic Have on the Blockchain Industry?"

The outbreak in Wuhan has seriously affected every aspect of everyone's life. With the expansion of the situation, the World Health Organization has declared this an international public health emergency, and many countries, especially the United States, have adopted a policy of closing China's exit corridors. All these measures have intensified the negative impact of the epidemic on China's economy and even the world economy.

At present, the overall impact of the epidemic on the economy is not optimistic. There are many opinions on the specific impact. Most people predict that the impact will be no less than the impact of SARS, and that GDP will be reduced by 1-2 points. The short and medium term must be extremely negative. And what everyone cares most about is how much influence they have on their industry. Uncle Kai throws bricks and stones to analyze the impact on the global blockchain industry.

• Twitter launches bitcoin emoji, sparks cryptocurrency community binge
• New research: blockchain smart contracts will increase company data quality by 50%
• Viewpoint | The Route Choice of Digital Currency from the "Internet Standards Controversy"

First of all, we must clearly position: What industry does blockchain belong to? Strictly speaking, the blockchain belongs to the financial technology industry. If you want to subdivide it into chain circles and currency circles, the chain circles in the blockchain belong to the technology industry, and the currency circle belongs to the financial industry . More precisely, the currency circle belongs to the financial One of the categories of alternative finance in the big category, along with gold, collectibles and commodity futures, PE / VC investments.

We focus the impact of the epidemic on the blockchain in the currency circle. Because the chain is directly affected by the epidemic, it is more about employees' work. Blockchain takes decentralization as its main feature. Blockchain technology practitioners are more comfortable with remote work and coordination than those in other industries, so they have little impact. On the contrary, the currency circle has a long-term impact on the chain circle. The rise and fall of the market determines the survival of the project. Therefore, we focus on analyzing the impact of the epidemic on the currency circle.

Can the currency circle stand alone?

The global economy is mingling with each other, and various industries are intertwined. The most affected tourism, restaurants, hotels, aquaculture, culture and entertainment will be transmitted to the financial industry. Stocks, housing prices, exchange rates, and oil prices of all major financial assets will be negatively affected. This can never be closed. The US and Hong Kong markets are seen.

Since the currency circle is an alternative product in the financial industry, the negative impact of the financial environment will inevitably be transmitted to the currency circle. Mainly because various markets are composed of capital connections, funds will flow in different markets according to the situation. The prosperity of a market requires a steady stream of new capital inflows and transactions into the market.

In this situation of severe negative sentiment in the financial market, investors who have not been slumped by this wave will usually "Fly to Safety Heaven" to avoid risks, reduce leverage, and throw away risky assets including digital currencies. Holding safe assets, that is, "cash is king", generally holds cash (especially hard currency such as the US dollar), gold, and government bonds. The People's Bank of China has been waiting for the enemy to release a lot of money to maintain market liquidity. And if some of the most seriously affected small and medium-sized business owners in the country end up being overwhelmed, they will need to sell all assets, including digital currencies.

Therefore, from the perspective of funding, digital currencies have not been sufficiently motivated to rise sharply in the short term, but they are under great pressure.

Explain a few common issues:

First, some people will say that Bitcoin is not known as digital gold. When panic, everyone should buy Bitcoin, right? If 3 years ago, there was no stablecoin, then Bitcoin would have the function of digital gold. With the emergence of stablecoins, Bitcoin has no obvious risk-avoidance function, but rather a volatile venture capital. This also explains why the outbreak of USDT over-the-counter prices soared this week. In addition, the current epidemic situation is still generally under control. Before the panic among the people, if you are serious enough, you may see that Bitcoin has been robbed because of panic. It is estimated that the probability of this situation is very small.

Second, digital currencies have no borders, so China ’s epidemic will not affect global currency prices? That's right, the currency circle is the most global industry, and it is inherently borderless. Therefore, compared with the traditional financial industry, the brand of regions and countries will be smaller. However, as we all know, China occupies a dominant position among individual users and projects in the currency circle. This can be calculated from transaction activity, number of people, amount of transaction funds, number of projects and the size and number of exchanges. Funding is the key to currency prices. Therefore, the capital and other negative effects of the currency circle caused by the epidemic will be enlarged rather than reduced by China's influence in the currency circle.

Third, why are bitcoin and other coins rising these days? Shu Kai could not explain this phenomenon. However, it is observed that during the Spring Festival, the transaction volume is only about 1 / 3-1 / 2, and the transaction volume is small, so the credibility of the price trend is weak. There are also many friends in the currency circle who have said that there is nothing to do at home, and speculation in coins should kill time. This may be one of the reasons for the rise in currency prices in the past week or two. The confirmation of the true short-term impact direction will not become clearer until the transaction volume returns to normal levels.

The epidemic also has some "positive" effects on the currency circle. For example, the tightening and suppression of regulatory policies that everyone was worried about a year ago is hardly mentioned now. However, offline activities such as meetup exchanges are also unavailable, and technological development and innovation will also be affected. The focus of public opinion on digital currencies has also fallen to a low point, and everyone's attention has been attracted by the epidemic, so these effects are negative. More positive less.

The overall currency circle is more negative than positive, and it is not a good thing for the chain. Everyone must be mentally prepared and take measures.

How does it affect the transaction?

After the epidemic, the three major exchanges of Binance, Huobi, and OK (called Okezhen Awkward) were quickly made public, and the establishment of a charity fund to donate 10 million yuan in equivalent materials was considered to have given the blockchain industry a face and brought industry A good start, it is worthy of recognition and publicity.

The exchange will next face severe operational difficulties (employees cannot return to work, absenteeism due to health reasons, etc.), decline in transaction volume, capital loss, and weakened liquidity.

However, under the same conditions, Binance is least affected.

As we all know, Binance's customer sources, internationalization, office and staff distribution, and funding sources are mostly overseas, while Huobi and OK are completely the opposite, mainly in China. Especially during the Spring Festival, most of the employees returned home to celebrate the New Year. Now all countries are blocking China's exit, and it is difficult for people to move domestically, and it is impossible to go abroad to return to work. Therefore, the overseas operations of the two domestic exchanges will be affected to some extent. Binance ’s plan to enter China in the fourth quarter of last year was stifled by regulation in the cradle. Unexpectedly, Binance was blessed by misfortune, but instead was in a comparative advantage. Unexpected things happen, blessings and misfortunes.

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