Floating Shenji – Memories of the blockchain era (Part 1)

Blockchain Simultaneous Events

At 9 o'clock in the morning on September 19, 2014, in the impression of taxi drivers in New York on weekdays, they usually sent the last batch of alcoholic customers back home. In addition to the 24-hour McDonald's and the subway. Outside the young, it will be the quietest moment of the day. But today, when he drove to the door of the New York Stock Exchange at 11 McDonald Street, the reporters of various skin colors had already surrounded the streets. He impatiently shouted at the horn, and now he was on the street. No interest, because experience tells him that no matter what happens inside, the result has nothing to do with his driver at the bottom of the society, and the story title written by this group is the same as usual: "American Dream."

However, he was wrong. The main character of this story was born in China on the other side of the ocean.

The camera was pulled back to the New York exchange, the crowds in the hall, the numbers on the screen were constantly beating, and in a cheer, the numbers finally settled: $231.4 billion, the largest IPO in history was born. The company, founded in English by an English teacher, traveled to the NYSE over a distance of more than 7,000 kilometers. It took 22 hours to travel and the company spent 15 years. It is Jack Ma who is a household name in China. The Internet changed China, changed Ma Yun, and changed another group of people in the Alibaba campus in Hangzhou.

The Alibaba Park in Hangzhou is just in the evening. The other “families” in Ali who are unable to reach the scene are watching this historical moment of their company. When the big screen stopped beating and the number finally settled at $231.4 billion, the entire campus of Alibaba was boiling, and the colleagues cried, and the feeling of oppression caused by countless overtime nights was completely released at this moment. Yes, they belong to them today, they have reason to carnival, because after today, one of them will become a multi-millionaire, directly crossing the class.

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a seed of the blockchain

The programmers in Alibaba cheered and celebrated their financial freedom, but did not know that in another corner of the Internet four months ago, a 19-year-old programmer with a face full of acne was in northern China. Seek a different approach to financing from IPOs.

But the result is different. No matter how hard the teenagers portray their visions on the stage, they can't gain the trust of any investors because they don't believe that a 19-year-old boy can subvert the entire blockchain as written in the financing white paper. world. Reason tells them that he is too young.

The 19-year-old Vitalik Buterin, although she had already prepared for any failure before her arrival, but when the swindler came from the back of the venue, Vitalik still had a hard time burning.

Just as Vitalik was disheartened, the phone in his pocket rang. "You come to the South, I may be able to help you here, my name is Shen Bo," said the phone.

Dragging the body that was about to collapse, Vitalik hurriedly boarded the plane from Beijing to Hangzhou. He couldn't take a break because he knew that this might be his last chance in China.

Shen Bo and Vitalik met at the same time. They were talking for a long time in two days. After Shen Bo listened, there was no hesitation. The Southerners’ natural sense of smell told him that this person would change the entire blockchain pattern.

"You have to catch up with the progress of Ethereum. I have a place in my home. I will vacate it for you. You will concentrate on the code and financing. I will take you there." Shen Bo said.

Two months later, on July 24, Shen Bo promised Vitalik to do it, and the results even exceeded the expectations of the two of them. Vitalik's leading project, Ethereum, raised a total of 31,531 bitcoins in the final, which was equivalent to $84.43 million at the time. You know, today, this is worth $150 million.

This matter Vitalik and Shen Bo became.

Xu Xiaoping said: "Entrepreneurship is like a pilot's plane is crashing. At this time, the pilot must grasp the steering wheel and build a new aircraft at the same time. If the new aircraft is not built in time, the old aircraft will crash."

This passage expresses the hardships of entrepreneurship.

The young Ethereum encountered such problems.

When the entire Ethereum community was thrilled by the success of the financing, everyone never thought that the blockchain winter would soon be coming.

The dark moment of the blockchain

Episode 1: Free and easy article "Recalling bitcoin fell below 1000"

On January 14, 2015, the minimum temperature in Hangzhou was 5 °C. In the 13-year bull market, the free and easy appearance of the bull market came to his currency media company, and the bear market lasted for more than one year. Let him suffer, it seems that everything around him is irrelevant to him. Free and easy to put all the hard earned wages into the currency market, and the continued decline of Bitcoin makes him not interested in anything, but life still has to continue. Cruelty is still going on. The bitcoin of the previous day was still around 1,500 yuan. On that day, bitcoin was like crazy, and quickly fell to 1400, 1300, 1200, 1100… and when Bitcoin fell below 1000 In the renminbi, the entire Bitcoin community has become quiet, and such a dramatic change in the market, it is reasonable to say that the free and easy to do his job to do related reports, but it seems that the heavy atmosphere made him forget this. On the same day, the free and easy did not report the relevant market, and the community did not seem to make too many voices.

Episode 2: Going north latitude

I have been working hard all year, trying to make up my position, make up for a loss once, and my head is broken. Even later I wondered if I was in a MLM organization. The same is not understood, the same obsessive. At that time, I turned the white paper over and over, looking for loopholes, trying to find a reason to convince myself and stop making up the position.

Fragment III: Coin Super Jun

Zeng Ming of GQ magazine was living next door because of the activity. He asked me, can Bitcoin rise back to two thousand? I said this is simple, but I did not expect that the price of the currency fell to 900 yuan. On the lowest point, someone took the money and went to the deep mountains of Sichuan to find hydropower. When the price of the currency fell below 1000, the grief was stopped. The cooperation with the owner of the small hydropower station was stopped, and the tragic and strong all were filled into the platform to buy bitcoin. That day, the currency circle was very quiet.

As described in the three snippets, when the market just recovered a little bit of emotion, the five ministries bill was promulgated, the Mentougou exchange was stolen, the miners lost money, the roast cat suddenly disappeared, and a lot of bad air rushed to the face, each piece Everything is like a hit in the bitcoin that was born less than five years ago. Bitcoin continues to plummet, and finally on the eve of the 15th Spring Festival, the entire blockchain ushered in the dark moments of the industry. The big brother bitcoin fell from the high of 8800 on the day of nearly 90%, and the whole market was burned.

Later, Super Jun wrote in the New Year's message at the end of the 15th year: "The year that spring, summer, autumn and winter make up, in the long river of time, there is a thousand moments, and all of them are shrinking together; and the space world composed of bricks and tiles In the same place, it is not a big difference because of us.

In the three-year bear market, three well-known miners KnCMiner, ASICMiner and BitFury were killed. A large number of blockchain media chose to stop and close, even the largest blockchain forum at that time, Babbitt almost died on the eve of dawn. Similarly, the Ethereum Foundation, which had just received financing in 14 years, encountered financial difficulties again. “The genius boy” Vitalik had to travel to China twice to seek help again.

Yes, Shen Bo helped him again.

This time, the Wanxiang Foundation founded by Shen Bo and Xiao Feng gave Ethereum another $500,000 to solve the urgent needs of Ethereum. Later, the Ethereum Foundation also rewarded Shenbo with more than 400,000 eths. The highest market value of eth in the 17-year big bull market even reached 4 billion yuan.

In May 2015, the Ethereum team, which was no longer plagued by funds, released the last test network, code-named Olympic. After two months of testing, the team released the official Ethereum network in July 2015, and the Ethereum blockchain was officially launched.

Winter is another beginning of spring

The plunging is not terrible. The terrible thing is that the whole market is quiet and has no vitality. No one trades, no one discusses it, and no one believes the future of the blockchain. After the plunging, it has been 8 months. Most of the patience of the people has been exhausted. Most of the people at the beginning have left the industry. Nangongyuan has returned to work, and he has returned to the old bank to sell tea. Even the head exchange okcoin has gone online to seek loan business. Transformation.

I don’t know what the industry will be like tomorrow. Every day, there will be news popping up and who has left the Q group. The people who are still active in the Q group are the ones that are filled with the steamed buns. In this way, the other people who are still in the currency circle are ridiculed, and most of the other avatars in the group are grayed out, and everyone can't see a little hope.

Later, some people asked Chang’s teacher if he had to use a word to describe the feelings of the year, and Chang’s answer: “It’s like a year.”

The dripping water can eventually wear the big stone, not because it is powerful, but because of the dripping of the night and night.

In the second half of the 15th year, after the sharp rise and fall and the sideways clean up most of the speculators, the price of the currency began to bottom out. The blockchain did not disappoint those who really want to do things. Everything seems to be developing in a good way. In June of 16 years, btc has rebounded three times to nearly 3,000 yuan at the low point of 900, and the computing power has gradually climbed.

Many interesting coins have also begun to float in the bear market, such as – Zcash, DASH, Ruibo.

For the entire blockchain, the haze seems to have gradually disappeared, and spring is coming.

But for Ethereum, those who have just had a good day in the past few days are about to usher in a bigger crisis. This crisis has even affected the survival of the entire community.

The DAO event allows Ethereum to cross the ghost gate

At that time, I saw this information for the first time. I was still talking about it with all the people in the office. It felt a bit like a joke. Because it was too big news, the first news that appeared at the first time was you at the first scene. see. Then the screenshot of V God, the circle of friends and the network environment are everywhere. At that time, you immediately go back to open the exchange, you will see that the price of Ethereum is in a free fall. If I remember correctly, the unit price of Ethereum fell from one hundred and twenty-three yuan to four or fifty. And the more I fell to the bottom of the valley, the more my little friends around me were in desperate mood, and quickly desperately selling. Everyone is blind. ”

– Nervos founder Daniel describes the experience in an interview with the Orange Book

Time to return to 2016, at the time, Germany Slog.it needed financing, and blockchain companies were difficult to finance in the traditional industry, because the blockchain business combined with the existing financial system and legal system, There will be many problems. Slog.it hopes to have a very professional organization in the blockchain field to invest in itself to raise the funds needed to do open source projects. In the process of financing, they found that this is a very strong demand.

And their ideas are more daring, they think that every company in the blockchain field will have such financing needs. Now that there are no investment institutions specializing in the blockchain field that can invest in us, why don't we make one ourselves?

The DAO, a decentralized organization that relies on smart contracts to operate on blockchains, has not been born into a “decentralized investment company”.

The entire Ethereum community was thrilled to see The DAO. It made people see that they could work for a smart contract on the blockchain. People's collaboration can be based on blockchain-based smart contracts, no need to use traditional centers. Form. Virtual VC can be settled in time, very efficient, and very democratic.

In the next 28 days, the entire THE DAO project raised 11.5 million Ethereum, and more than 11,000 people participated in the crowdfunding. Even the Ethereum Foundation participated in the crowdfunding, and the EOC's ICO circulation at that time. It is 70 million, which means that 15% of the world's mobile Ethereum has been invested in the project of THE DAO, locked in this smart contract.

However, under the calm sea, there are still undercurrents. Hot money appears in the most intelligent places. When everyone knows that this smart contract locks a lot of money, it often means that some people are also eyeing at the same time.

When the Dao project was in progress, V God suddenly made a sentence, breaking all the peace and good imagination: "The Dao was hacked, the money is being taken away by hackers, and finally there is no money left."

The price of Ethereum began to plummet in a free fall. Everyone is desperately selling.

The replies below V God are all kinds of, ironic, sly, and lingering. Some people say "good yeah! Bitcoin To Da Moon, Ethereum Pills".

No one in the Ethereum community still has the mood to reply to these questions. At this time, only one thing is the most important thing. It is to find out how to get the money back. If it is taken away by hackers, it means that the wealth of many people will vanish. At this time, only the fork can solve the problem.

At the beginning of the Ethereum forked vote, the community’s various opposition voices were heard:

"This will kill Ethereum' soft forks or hard forks will hurt my rights and cause harm to the community."

“The Ethereum will smash the coins in their hands, and developers, researchers, and companies will leave the Ethereum community.”

“Any fork, whether it is a soft fork or a hard fork, can greatly damage Ethereum and destroy its reputation.”

"In the past few days, I have been watching the market. I am always worried about the safety of Ethereum. I am fed up. I don't want to have Ethereum again."

After an urgent consultation, V God soon issued an announcement on the official Ethereum blog "Emergency Update: About DAO Vulnerabilities". In the announcement, V God explained some details of the attack and mentioned that the soft and hard forks have been submitted.

Bifurcation is a tough choice for Ethereum. Because according to the principle of "Code is law" according to the blockchain, if the choice of bifurcation, this means that the blockchain can not be falsified, the myth of unforgeable is broken, and it is in the Ethereum.

A big discussion about values ​​and the principle of blockchain is beginning to take place. Either way, Ethereum will become an aggrieved party, and community cohesion will cause irreparable harm.

The final vote came out, and vitalik spoke with great pressure to say the community's decision: Ethereum is about to break the fork.

On July 23, 16th, the world's largest Ethereum trading platform Poloniex launched ETC, expressing its disappointment with Ethereum's forks with practical actions. Many exchanges followed suit, and ETC prices rose to ETH's three-point maximum. one. This made the originally calm community begin to confront each other. Everyone argued with each other, and finally the community was divided into two. Ethereum appeared eth and etc.

Christoph Jentzsch, co-founder and chief technology officer of Slock.it, later wrote an article recalling The DAO incident. He said: The security of smart contracts needs to be improved through practice. This field is still in its early stages, and Ethereum is still very The long way to go.

The DAO incident was so big that it even alerted the US SEC, although they were not investigating who stole the tokens.

The DAO project has now failed, and the Ethereum community has suffered an unprecedented hit, but fortunately, the Ethereum community did not die in the end. Even after this time, people saw the superiority of the blockchain crowdfunding efficiency. More and more teams started the crowdfunding road in Ethereum, and thousands of coins began to be born.

The big era of blockchain is coming in 17 years, when many "little people" who are active in the market have never thought that their fate will be completely changed in the next 17 years.

(End of the last article, the next article will be released on the 12th, the code is hard, welcome to pay attention to Weibo: Blockchain Sandaolang)

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