Economic Daily Review Blockchain: Embracing the real economy

Author: Economic Daily · China Economic Net reporter Huang Xin

Source: Economic Daily

Original title: "Blockchain: Embracing the most promising real economy"

The blockchain has the technical features of anti-counterfeiting, tamper-proof and traceability, which is beneficial to solve the problems of equipment management, data sharing, multi-party trust cooperation and security protection in the manufacturing industry, improving industrial production efficiency, reducing costs and upgrading the supply chain. Collaborative levels and efficiencies, as well as promoting management innovation and business innovation, play an important role –

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"Single point initiation, full network broadcast, cross-validation, and common accounting." From the definition of blockchain, it is not difficult to see that one of its characteristics is trustworthiness. In the view of Chen Chun, director of the Blockchain Research Center of Zhejiang University, director of the Department of Informatics, and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the most important application space for blockchain technology in China is actually industrial manufacturing.

Why is the broader stage for manufacturing the blockchain technology that is the first to be applied in the financial sector? The relevant person in charge of the Information and Software Service Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in an exclusive interview with the Economic Daily reporter, replied that the blockchain has anti-counterfeit, tamper-proof and traceable technical features, which is conducive to solving equipment management and data sharing in the manufacturing industry. Multi-party trust and cooperation, security and other issues play an important role in improving industrial production efficiency, reducing costs, improving supply chain coordination level and efficiency, and promoting management innovation and business innovation.

Integration promotes intelligent manufacturing

What can the blockchain do in manufacturing?

For example, manufacturing an aircraft requires tens of thousands of parts from around the world, and blockchain technology can help manufacturers quickly and accurately understand the vast amount of information behind these tens of thousands of parts. According to international authoritative reports, European aircraft manufacturer Airbus has begun to use blockchain technology to analyze suppliers and component sources, thus effectively reducing the time and cost of repairing Airbus parts.

Major developed countries and economies are also paying attention to the application of blockchain in manufacturing. The German Federal Government Blockchain Strategy encourages the application of blockchain and Industry 4.0. The EU's "Block Chain Now and Future" also focuses on the application of blockchain in manufacturing. Some international giants have begun to lay out the application of blockchain and manufacturing.

The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and Software Services also said that “some domestic enterprises have begun to explore the application of blockchain in the manufacturing sector. The main application scenarios include anti-counterfeiting and traceability, product lifecycle management, and supply chain management. Co-manufacturing, etc. But overall, due to the complexity of the scenarios involved, the application of blockchains in the manufacturing sector is still in its infancy.

In addition, the development of blockchain can promote the integration of industry and finance, introduce financial living water into the real economy, and promote the development of large and medium-sized enterprises. For example, the development of supply chain application solutions based on blockchain technology can solve the problem of information islands in the supply chain, release the core enterprise credit to the multi-level suppliers of the entire supply chain, improve the financing efficiency of the entire chain, and reduce the business cost. Enrich financial business scenarios, thereby improving the efficiency of capital operation throughout the supply chain.

He Baohong, director of the China Institute of Cloud Computing and Big Data, said in an exclusive interview with the reporter that the blockchain allows finance to support the manufacturing industry, mainly in several levels.

First, distributed ledger technology enables non-commercial confidential data to be stored and backed up at participating nodes, solving the problem of information silos in supply chain financial services; second, through the transferable, financing information registered on the blockchain The problem of the core enterprise credit can not be transmitted to the multi-level supplier; the third is that under the blockchain architecture, the information system can constrain the behavior of the participants in the supply chain, and integrate the relevant transaction data through the chain, To support the authenticity of trade behavior; Fourthly, the addition of smart contracts can be automatically implemented when the conditions of execution are met, and the risk of compliance is prevented; Fifth, the combination of blockchain technology and supply chain effectively solves the problems of enterprises in the supply chain. The problem of difficult loan financing is to achieve financing and cost-effectiveness.

Encourage and control

Just like the two sides of the coin, the decentralization of the blockchain and the uncertainty of the variables are also a problem for regulation.

In particular, on the one hand, the blockchain was initially applied to the field of bitcoin, causing some people to mistakenly believe that the blockchain is equivalent to bitcoin. In the subsequent development process, illegal financing was carried out under the name of “blockchain”. The phenomenon of fraud.

"On the other hand, the data on the blockchain has the characteristics of being difficult to tamper with, posing challenges to the existing information security management system, and the phenomenon of using the blockchain to spread bad information." He Baohong said.

To this end, China's competent departments continue to explore the construction of blockchain supervision system, timely introduce standardized measures, optimize the blockchain industry environment, and resolutely curb all kinds of illegal and illegal activities carried out by the blockchain technology.

On September 4, 2017, the People's Bank of China issued the “Announcement on Preventing the Risk of Subsidy Issuance Financing”, which defined “Icoin Issue” (ICO) as “an act of unauthorised illegal public financing, suspected of illegal sale. Coupon tickets, illegal issuance of securities, and illegal criminal activities such as illegal fund-raising, financial fraud, pyramid schemes, etc." The announcement also requires that all types of token financing activities should be immediately stopped, and organizations and individuals that have completed the issuance of tokens should make arrangements for retreat. After the announcement, the first token issue activity was illegal in China, and the ICO-induced illegal financing chaos was effectively curbed.

On January 10 this year, the National Internet Information Office issued the “Regulations on the Management of Blockchain Information Services”, requiring the implementation of the operational responsibilities of blockchain information service providers, and the block according to the provisions of the current effective laws such as the Cyber ​​Security Law. The information content disseminated by the chain information service is subject to compliance supervision; the blockchain information service and service provider are filed and managed, and the record number is issued.

"Based on the experience of developed countries, China's regulatory policies should further enhance flexibility, pay equal attention to effective supervision and rational guidance, and actively balance risk control and encourage technological innovation." He Baohong said.

He Baohong believes that it is necessary to strengthen the guidance and regulation of blockchain technology and the research and analysis of blockchain security risks, closely track development trends, and actively explore development laws. It is necessary to explore the establishment of a safety guarantee system that adapts to the blockchain technology mechanism, and guide and promote blockchain developers and platform operators to strengthen industry self-discipline and implement safety responsibilities. It is necessary to implement the rule of law network into the management of blockchain and promote the safe and orderly development of blockchain.

Industrial application expands into multiple fields

“The application of blockchain has extended from the financial sector to the physical field, electronic information deposit, copyright management and transaction, product traceability, digital asset trading, Internet of Things, intelligent manufacturing, supply chain management and other fields.” Development Research Center of the State Council Li Guangqian, a researcher at the center, told reporters that blockchain technology has begun to deepen integration with the real economy industry, forming a number of "industrial blockchain" projects, ushered in the era of industrial blockchain "hundred flowers".

For example, e-commerce companies have helped companies deploy anti-counterfeiting products through the open blockchain service platform, which has been widely used in milk powder, health products, rice and other products. In 2018, “Double 11” achieved traceability of more than 150 million items from hundreds of countries and regions through blockchain.

Electronic bill management is also gradually being promoted. In 2018, Shenzhen City piloted an electronic invoice based on blockchain. At present, Shenzhen Metro, taxis, airport buses and other traffic scenarios have been officially launched on the blockchain-based electronic invoices, more than 5,300 companies registered for use, the cumulative number of invoices exceeded 8 million.

But to make the blockchain truly widespread, it is necessary to build a complete standard system. China's blockchain technology application is in the active exploration stage, and most of the solutions in various industries and scenarios are still in the stage of research and development or small-scale application testing. At present, there is still a lack of consensus among industry users on the blockchain. The differences in technology paths also make limited R&D efforts not effectively concentrated and cannot meet the needs of the blockchain application development market.

According to the relevant person in charge of the Information Technology and Software Service Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, at present, China's blockchain standard system has been initially established, and the development of standards has been steadily advanced. In terms of reference architecture, data, security and privacy protection, a number of group standards have been issued, the National Standard for Blockchain Reference Architecture and nearly 10 industry standards. The National Blockchain and Distributed Accounting Technology Standardization Committee was approved for preparation.

The industry is generally optimistic about the prospects of blockchain technology. Li Guangqian said: "China's blockchain industry chain is accelerating, from upstream hardware manufacturing, platform services, security services, to downstream industrial technology application services, to industry investment and financing, media, and talent services to ensure industrial development. The enterprises in the field are basically complete, coordinated and orderly, and jointly promote the industry to continue to advance."

It is worth noting that blockchain technology cannot be spurred by individual forces. He Baohong believes that the development of blockchain technology and applications requires a new generation of information technology such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data, and Internet of Things as the infrastructure support. At the same time, the integration of a new generation of information technology will also spawn more new formats and new models, and accelerate the application of blockchain.

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