Interview with Tencent Cloud Block Chain Shaobing: Cloud is the plus item of blockchain

More than two years ago, the blockchain sector was a world of grassroots entrepreneurs, and now Internet giants like BAT are all on the scene.

But for the aborigines of the blockchain world, they don't seem to be optimistic, even outspoken: BAT can't make blockchain.

However, since 2018, we have seen: Tencent's blockchain electronic invoices frequently smashed the circle of friends, and Ant Jinfu's blockchain cross-border remittances realized 3 seconds, Baidu is also recording the editing information of each Baidu Encyclopedia. Go to the blockchain.

Obviously, the giants used the action to fight back these singers, they are really doing things.

• From investment to mining, Zhao Dong, Jiang Zall is open and honest.
• Andreas Antonopoulos explains the life cycle of a transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain
• What is the winning gene in the blockchain marathon?

However, we still have a lot of questions to be solved: for example, what is the status of the blockchain in the interior of the giants, and the staffing situation? For example: BaaS platform has become a battleground for BAT to compete, can it be accepted in the market? How is the product sold? Another example: whether it is Tencent or Ali in the blockchain, why is it inevitable to mention the cloud of their own home? Also: Tencent has a micro-bank, Ali has an ant gold suit, and are doing blockchain, whether there will be conflicts of interest within each department.

Recently, Babbitt interviewed Shao Bing, head of the Tencent Cloud Blockchain, to unveil the "T" layout blockchain in BAT.

Babbitt: We are all talking about the Tencent blockchain, but it is understood that Tencent has TrustSQL (Tencent blockchain) and TBaaS (Tencent cloud blockchain). What is the difference between the two?

Shao Bing :

Tencent pays more attention to blockchain technology and has been laying out at many levels very early. The Tencent cloud blockchain is positioned as the external service and output of technical capabilities.

Around this positioning, the layout of Tencent Cloud Blockchain is mainly reflected in three aspects.

First, the blockchain service platform, Tencent Blockchain as a Service, referred to as TBaaS for short, provides a one-stop blockchain service around the bottom platform of multiple blockchains;

Second, around the blockchain technology, we are working with customers and partners to do some solutions and benchmarking applications to promote the landing and commercialization of blockchain technology.

Third, we are actively participating in and promoting the construction of blockchain communities and blockchain ecosystems, and have very close cooperation with the Hyperledger community, the Golden Chain Alliance, and the ICT. Babbitt: Which department does the Tencent Cloud blockchain belong to?

Shao Bing:

From the big level, we belong to the CSIG cloud and smart industry business group. From a small perspective, we are a financial business center under the Smart Industry Products Division.

Babbitt: Tencent cloud blockchain TBaAS platform has been officially released since November 2017. It has been more than a year, how is the product sold now?

Shao Bing:

The overall momentum is very good. At the TBaaS product level, we have iterated several major versions and the functionality is constantly improving. The underlying platform also supports Hyperledger Fabric from now on to support multiple platforms, including Tencent TrustSQL and FISCO BCOS. At the same time, the TBaaS platform also introduces many other important features, including financial-grade security, national secret algorithms, interoperability, and integration with authoritative CAs.

In terms of landing, we are constantly expanding the business areas applicable to the blockchain. At present, we have successfully settled in many scenarios, including banking, insurance, securities, mutual funds, government affairs, and medical fields. For example, in the medical field, Tencent Cloud and Donghua Medical have jointly launched the “One Chain Three Clouds” strategy and six joint solutions. The “health chain” is based on the Tencent cloud blockchain.

In addition, we have deep cooperation with many other companies and institutions, and we are still in progress. Babbitt: Just now you said that the Tencent cloud blockchain has landed in many fields, such as medical and financial. If it falls, what are the technical characteristics of the blockchain? Because now the blockchain is grounded, in fact, many of them are functions of depositing certificates. Smart contracts and zero-knowledge proofs do not seem to be used.

Shao Bing:

I think this is a good question and a big one. I will answer it separately.

In our blockchain project, we mainly use the following technical features.

The first point, the smart contract, is the carrier of the business logic.

Second, the consensus mechanism, which is the key to achieving business consensus and data consensus in distributed commerce, requires targeted design.

The third point, trusted identity, identifies the user's identity through key technology and authoritative CA, and then it is possible to sign a multi-party agreement and electronic contract with judicial effect on the blockchain. Cryptography, multi-chain and chain-linking technologies also use a number of features that can effectively protect business privacy and control data visibility.

Depositing is indeed the largest application area of ​​the current blockchain. In the first batch of blockchain information service filing list of the network office cloth, about 20% is related to the deposit certificate. Tencent Cloud also provides a complete set of trusted deposit and verification capabilities to help our corporate customers better build their own deposit and certification platform. In addition, we also have our own solutions in supply chain finance, data exchange and sharing.

The zero-knowledge proof and homomorphic encryption techniques you mentioned are more complex cryptography techniques, which can protect data privacy well, but there are certain implementation thresholds. If you want to design a very good algorithm that meets your business needs, especially a complex business scenario, there are still many challenges. We have a technical engineering team dedicated to the study of these underlying technologies in the blockchain, including homomorphic encryption, zero-knowledge proof, etc., which have accumulated some theoretical and application levels. Babbitt: There are a lot of BaaS platforms now, and you have big factories. Do you think the market can accommodate so many BaaS platforms?

Shao Bing:

As far as the domestic market is concerned, there are about 20 BaaS platforms. Not just BaaS, there are many players in all areas of the blockchain. This shows that the blockchain as a new technology has indeed attracted everyone's enthusiasm.

The blockchain market as a whole is still in its infancy, and there must be a process of shuffling in the future. After the competition, the manufacturers in the market must be far less than the current number. For the current manufacturers, it is imperative to polish the products, expand the service capabilities, and prepare for the competition. Babbitt: Whether you or the Ari Ti blockchain, you will inevitably have to say your own cloud, so can I understand that you are doing a blockchain, in fact, do some extra points for your cloud service, get more Good bargaining power?

Shao Bing:

The cloud is the infrastructure and is a plus item for the blockchain.

Blockchain is an integrated technology that, in addition to traditional IT technologies such as servers, networks, containers, interfaces, and security, continues to expand its technology boundaries, such as application systems, authoritative CAs, and even the Internet of Things, big data. Integrate technologies to meet business needs. Deploying blockchains in the cloud provides a flexible infrastructure that reduces the cost of integration, deployment, and operations.

Some organizations consider data risks or regulatory requirements, and hope to run blockchain systems within the enterprise. Tencent cloud blockchain products also provide privatization deployment methods to meet the needs of these organizations. Babbitt: Tencent's Weizhong Bank is still quite big in the blockchain. What are the different characteristics or special missions of Tencent Cloud's blockchain compared with Weizhong Bank?

Shao Bing:

In fact, we have been working closely with Weizhong Bank. One of the underlying platforms of Tencent Cloud TBaaS platform, FISCO BCOS, the biggest driving force behind it is Weizhong Bank. The successful integration of BCOS into the TBaaS platform is due to our close cooperation with the MicroBank team, and we will continue this collaboration.

Banks have always been the most active explorers and practitioners in the blockchain + finance sector, using blockchain technology to launch a variety of applications. Tencent Cloud has been using a variety of leading technologies, including blockchain, to tailor a variety of compliance security, high performance, and high availability cloud services to financial customers to help customers upgrade their technology. In turn, we also hope to deepen our understanding of the industry through cooperation with banks and continue to improve our blockchain technology and products.

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