Has the golden age of the alliance chain arrived?

This article Source: chain catcher, author: Hu Tao, the original title "coalition chain into the golden age" of 2019, was uninspiring in terms of the public chain, rare breakthrough year, but for many years the alliance chain This is the most exciting and glorious year.

Due to well-known reasons, the application of blockchain technology is now highly valued in all aspects of society and has become one of the emerging technology industries with the greatest development potential. As two forms of the blockchain network, the public chain and the alliance chain are undoubtedly the main carriers in the blockchain technology boom, but compared with the public chain, the alliance chain does not involve the speculation and speculation of "tokens", and can The degree of control is higher, so it is more favored by all sectors of the domestic society than the public chain.

Therefore, the major domestic alliance chain platforms have recently become dazzling stars in the government and enterprise circles and the capital market, welcoming their unprecedented development opportunities.

01

Development process and evolution

The concept of the alliance chain first emerged in about 15 years. Now the well-known R3 alliance and Hyperledger were born in that year, becoming the earliest explorers in the alliance chain industry. Since then, the alliance chain has begun to take root in China, and technical personnel of companies such as Tencent and Ali have gradually noticed that this technology concept has begun to be practiced in small areas, and some entrepreneurs have also started their businesses for the alliance chain.

The core value of the blockchain is to provide trust, but compared to the public chain that emerged in the same period at the time, the alliance chain does not involve the issuance and speculation of "tokens". It also has a node access mechanism and significantly higher data and transaction processing capabilities. Therefore, it is more suitable for application in the physical industry at the current stage.

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However, in 17-18, the importance of blockchain technology and even the alliance chain has not yet been recognized as it is today. Each alliance chain company mainly invests a lot of resources in blockchain technology research and development and path exploration, and begins to try in some business scenarios. Looking for external partners to practice, but due to the outside world's widespread skepticism and incomprehension of early blockchain technology, this process is not easy. The founder of a well-known alliance chain company told the chain catcher that every substantial contact with six or seven prospective customers can transform a real customer.

At this stage, large Internet companies such as Ali and Tencent have gradually explored the application of blockchain technology in public welfare and traceability due to their rich scenes. At the same time, the financial industry, which has been most affected by blockchain-based cryptocurrencies, is also aware of the potential prospects of blockchain technology, and has begun to explore the application of the alliance chain in the financial field independently or in conjunction with blockchain startups.

At the same time, the form and architecture of the alliance chain are also evolving. Many alliance chains have set up roles similar to super administrators in their networks, which can set different permissions for specific users, such as emergency braking on data transmission, etc. Operation, which makes the alliance chain more and more open in terms of controllability.

With the collective learning of the current status and trends of blockchain technology in October 19th, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, as the main form of blockchain technology, received the general attention and attention of the public for the first time. Step into its golden development stage.

"Since the end of October, our consultation volume has increased five or six times. Another obvious change is that users have a better understanding of blockchain technology than before, and generally have some self-education." Marketing Director Kong Qingyang said. At the same time, several other alliance chain companies interviewed by the chain catcher have similar situations.

Behind the great market situation, the pattern and model of the alliance chain industry has also basically taken shape, which has laid a good foundation for the implementation of blockchain technology.

From the perspective of usage, the current use of the alliance chain can be divided into two types. The first type is the self-operated platform model. After launching its alliance chain, it formulates industry-oriented solutions and attracts companies within the ecosystem to integrate their business systems. It is built on its alliance chain platform; the second type is a project-based model, which uses its own existing common blockchain underlying architecture and code to develop and build alliance chains oriented to specific scenarios for external institutions.

Chen Haoming, general manager of Shuqin Technology Security Division further pointed out that the first type of model is mostly used by the company's own business, and the second type of model is mostly used by government and enterprise units. "The current implementation of the first type of model will be stronger because such platforms need to consider profitability and future prospects. If they do not do well, customers will not pay. The second type of model has a broader scope of exploration and is currently developing very Quickly, "Chen Haoming added.

From the perspective of promoting the main players, the main forces of the domestic alliance chain industry can be divided into three categories, namely large-scale Internet companies, blockchain startups, and official institutions. Most of them have both the status of technology developers and application practitioners. .

Large Internet companies are represented by Ali and Tencent. They have sufficient technical R & D capabilities and rich government and enterprise customer resources. They have been in the blockchain technology field for many years and have launched the BAAS blockchain service platform. On the one hand, in their own public welfare, On the one hand, the exploration and practice of scenarios such as e-commerce, finance, etc., on the one hand, output their blockchain solutions to a large number of external scenarios, and the richness of the landing scenarios is quite leading.

Blockchain startups are represented by companies such as FunChain Technology, Bubbi Technology, and Xita Technology. Most of these companies have also been in the blockchain field for 2-3 years. Based on their alliance chain platform, they have been applied in different blockchains. Scenario launches business solutions and gains some influence in the industry.

Official institutions include government units and banks and other state-owned enterprises. These institutions involve all aspects of individuals and enterprises in modern society, and there are a large number of collaborative relationships between institutions. Therefore, they have become the main users and practitioners of the major alliance chain platforms. The development provided fertile soil. " If there is no official organization's approval or even participation, and top-down promotion, the promotion of the alliance chain project will be very difficult. " Kong Qingyang believes.

However, from the trend in recent months, official institutions have gradually begun to become the leader of the alliance chain. A number of alliance chains initiated by official institutions have entered the market. They can rely on their official endorsement status in terms of application scope and number of users. Get innate advantages.

According to the observation of the chain catcher, there are currently two more influential official alliance chain platforms, which are the cross-border blockchain platform initiated by the foreign exchange bureau and undertaken by the China Bank of China Blockchain Technology Research Institute under the People's Bank of China, and the National Information Center-initiated Blockchain Service Network (BSN).

In particular, the latter BSN, whose member units include China UnionPay, China Mobile, China Telecom, CMB International, Weizhong Bank, Huobi China and other well-known institutions, and the national information center generates and manages the root key of the entire network, and With the support of operators, it is planned to establish BSV nodes in each city, build a public blockchain service infrastructure network covering the whole country, and provide power for government affairs, people's livelihood, business and other fields, which is ambitious.

In fact, almost every alliance chain platform has a grand vision and aims to become a universal infrastructure in the era of blockchain. The richness and depth of application scenarios will become a direct reflection of its strength.

02

Scenarios such as supply chain finance are developing rapidly

In the alliance chain industry, many alliance chains have already launched their blockchain solutions in many scenarios such as people's livelihood, finance, and business. The Ant blockchain claims to have covered more than 40 application scenarios, but in fact most of the scenarios are still Experiment and pilot status, and the existence and practicability in the daily life of the public are low.

In other words, the scenario-based application of the alliance chain technology does not mean that the technology has achieved a real landing. Because the threshold of the technical application of the alliance chain is not high, many scenarios are still in a "pseudo-landing" state. Only these applications really solve the difficulty of this scenario. Overcoming problems, or improving efficiency or reducing costs, will make it possible to achieve larger scale applications and industry acceptance. At the same time, from the industry's general point of view, if there are multiple participants with a collaborative relationship in a business, and each of them has a high degree of informatization, the alliance chain technology can be applied to improve efficiency.

In many scenarios, supply chain finance is a scenario in which the major alliance chains are focusing their efforts, and it can also be said to be the scenario with the most abundant practice cases and the largest number of participants. The logic is not difficult to understand. The difficulty of financing for small and medium-sized enterprises has existed for a long time. The difficulty lies in that the trust between banks and enterprises is difficult to achieve. Data flows on the blockchain step by step, making it easier for banks to evaluate corporate funds and business conditions and provide financing.

"More vividly, many companies will form claims for receivables in the trade process. They want to use these claims for financing, and they need detailed transaction records, but no matter which of the banks, suppliers, and enterprises Leadership is actually not credible. This is like sending chat records to a third person after two days of chatting. The probability of fraud is high, but if the logic of the blockchain is used to solve the problem, each other can see the chat in the group chat. A trusted ledger has been formed. "Said Zhang Mingyu, co-founder of Bubby Blockchain and CEO of Yinuo Finance.

The achievements of the cross-border blockchain platform initiated by the foreign exchange bureau mentioned above in this field are quite bright. According to official information, the platform has established various mechanisms for end-to-end credible information exchange and effective verification between banks and enterprises to realize a variety of information sharing, including fund receipt and payment, pledged documents, financing applications, loans, etc., and conduct financing business processes. Optimization and reconstruction will facilitate banks to quickly and accurately handle corporate financing project audits and credit granting verifications, helping to alleviate the financing difficulties of SMEs and the difficulties of bank risk control.

Public reports at the beginning of December showed that the platform has accessed more than 170 commercial banks and served 1,662 companies over the past six months, 75% of which are small, medium and micro enterprises, and the amount of financing has been equivalent to more than $ 9.5 billion. Fan Guifu, chairman of China Banking Credit Card, talked about four advantages when talking about why the platform can achieve this result. The first eliminates information asymmetry and avoids false financing; the second solves the interaction between commercial banks and solves the problem. The problem of duplicate financing; the third is to provide a nationwide shared platform to improve the efficiency of online financing; the fourth is to provide a penetrating supervision tool for regulators to enable them to issue corresponding policies in a timely manner.

Bubby Blockchain, a blockchain + supply chain financial platform launched in June 2017, has also achieved good performance. The official said that the platform has raised more than 16 billion yuan in funding in the past two years and more than 3,000 registered companies. And has reached cooperation with large customers such as Foxconn, Pangang, SDIC Beijiang Power Plant, Guiyang Bank and China Merchants Bank.

The judicial scenario is also one of the more practical scenarios of the current alliance chain. The logic is that the current data on the Internet is vulnerable to tampering and forgery. Ordinary users need to face very complicated forensic procedures if they want to obtain evidence and safeguard their rights. Blockchain technology can The user's actions on the platform are recorded on the blockchain, making the entire process of generating, storing, disseminating and using electronic data credible. At the same time, the nodes on the chain of most judicial alliance chains are notary offices, CA / RA agencies, Forensic appraisal centers, courts and other units, these organizations have more credibility to witness the electronic data transfer process.

At present, the effectiveness of alliance chains such as ant blockchain, Baidu super chain, and security chain in the certification of blockchain has been recognized by the Internet courts in Hangzhou, Beijing, Guangzhou and other places, and many cases have been formed, such as Hangzhou in June 2018 The Internet court used the information stored in the security chain to conduct a first trial of a case of infringement of the right of communication on an information network, and helped the plaintiff to win the case.

03

Future development prospects and problems

With the prosperity of the performance, the alliance chain also has its inherent problems that cannot be ignored, which will affect the development space and situation of the alliance chain in the future.

" Few of these alliance chains in the market today publish their own accounting nodes or they are vague, and some may not have real external nodes and do not really implement distributed accounting. " Zhang Mingyu Xiangchain catcher Point out a very sharp problem.

For the main open, transparent and verifiable blockchain technology, distributed accounting is one of its basic principles, but today most alliance chain platforms have not announced the specific identity of their accounting nodes, which will obviously form the development of the industry. Worry. Chen Haoming believes that this may be due to the unwillingness of some nodes to publicize their identities or the related mechanisms are not yet mature. In the future, more peers in the industry should actively disclose their node identities and data to further enhance their credibility.

At present, the market space of the alliance chain is still huge, and most of the competition is concentrated in the incremental market. However, with the intensification of the competition and the accelerated entry of the official alliance chain, the public chain has made breakthroughs in terms of performance and compliance. Today's alliance chain players are bound to face a more complex pattern.

"This market is very large. It cannot be done by one company in the future. Big companies will definitely have their own areas and scenarios that they are better at, but there are also some market segment companies. They want to use a high cost-effective or high-quality Customized ways to use blockchain technology, blockchain startups will have certain advantages in this regard. "Kong Qingyang said.

As for the possible impact of the public chain, Wu Xiaochuan, a senior expert in blockchain development of Zhongan Technology, said in an interview that the alliance chain and the public chain will cross and merge in the future, and a new technology will be born. "The two chains will not be split. It is possible that other technologies will join to form a next-generation trusted value network. "

In general, the development trend of the blockchain is irreversible, but the integration and competition between the alliance chain and the public chain, and the probability of the authenticity of the blockchain landing, will also accompany the industry for a long time, and ultimately promote the further evolution of the alliance chain And landing.

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