Tencent's Blockchain Opportunities: Throbbing, Planning, and Attacking

Production: CoinVoice

Text: Xin Yi

Editor's Note: The original title was "Tencent's Blockchain Opportunity"

We underestimate the impact Libra will have on the world. Facebook's ambition is to use Libra globally-and the Fed is more willing to use it as a hidden dollar to help its monetary policy work. This is why EU countries are wary or even opposed to Libra. Ma Huateng may have insight into all this. When Libra appeared, Ma Huateng wrote in the comments of the circle of friends: "The technology is mature and not difficult. It depends on whether the regulation allows it." Can Tencent, which does not issue coins, play digital currencies well?

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Throb

Bitcoin is born. Satoshi Nakamoto opened a window for the world to reveal a beam of light, and the gate of the blockchain world slowly opened.

This is a battlefield not to be missed. Several months before the Fourth of September, Tencent officially released the first white paper of the blockchain solution: "Building a trusted blockchain and building the foundation of trust in the digital economy era."

The overall architecture of Tencent's trusted blockchain solution is divided into three levels: the bottom layer is the Trust SQl platform independently developed by Tencent, which provides the basic blockchain service functions for upper-level application scenarios through the interface of SQL and API; in the middle is the platform product service layer Trust Platform is a blockchain application foundation platform product built on the bottom layer, which includes multiple directions such as shared ledger, authentication services, shared economy, and digital assets; the application layer (Trust Application) is provided to end users Blockchain applications.

The white paper also summarizes the direction of Tencent's blockchain solution from the perspective of blockchain application value. It has five categories: authentication certification, shared ledger, smart contract, shared economy, and digital assets.

In addition, the previously tested golden red envelope has started to apply blockchain technology for parallel accounting of digital assets, improving the efficiency of reconciliation between multiple internal systems, and protecting user assets from the bottom.

After 1994, Tencent's blockchain continued to steadily lay out-Tencent applied for trademarks such as BoCoin, Qbanking, LinkBanking, Wave Planet, Wave Star, infcoin. Regarding the infcoin trademark, Tencent applied for five. In the details of the trademark, data encryption, data storage, electronic payment, and currency transactions can be seen.

There are rumors in the market that Tencent will issue coins. On July 30, 2018, in response to the rumors of "Tencent Coin Issuance" circulating on the Internet, Tencent responded that Tencent's blockchain does not issue digital currencies.

Tencent has made it clear that it will not get involved in issuing coins. During the first two sessions after the 1994, Ma Huateng expressed his optimism about blockchain technology:

"Blockchain is a good technology, but it is still in the early stages of development. An effective application model needs to be established. Tencent is also actively exploring the application of blockchain in various scenarios."

Ma Huateng also mentioned, "Technology is good, but how to make good use of it is another aspect. If you do digital currency ICO, there are still many risks. If everyone can use blockchain technology to issue digital coins, it will cause a lot of Regulatory issues. "

For the blockchain, BAT is cautious and low-key layout, but the trial has never ended.

Plot

Data is a company's most valuable asset and the source of continuous evolution; algorithms are an effective way to analyze and mine data. Unfortunately, in the Internet era, it is difficult to make any breakthroughs. Sitting on the resources of the Internet era, Tencent has a lot of room for development, but Tencent's current strategy requires great and disruptive product directions.

In 2015, Tencent set out to create a blockchain-related R & D team; in 2016, Tencent began independent research and development of the underlying technology of the blockchain, and successively established a financial blockchain cooperation alliance (the alliance includes Weizhong Bank, 31 companies, including Ping An Bank and Tencent.), Developed alliance chain cloud service BaaS, and launched an inter-bank joint loan settlement platform based on blockchain technology.

After two years of technology accumulation, Tencent officially completed a complete underlying technology research and development in 2017, and officially released the aforementioned "White Paper on Blockchain Solutions" in April 2017, proposing the concept of building the cornerstone of trust in the digital economy era.

It is worth mentioning that Tencent pays more attention to credible and ecological planning-At this stage, Tencent aims to work with partners to promote the development of the trusted Internet and create a win-win ecosystem for the blockchain. In September 2017, Tencent first passed the "Trusted Blockchain Testing Standards" of China Information and Communication Technology Institute. In November, it officially released the financial-grade solution TBaaS, which basically completed the construction of the overall Tencent blockchain ecological platform and was ready to enter business Application phase.

In 2018, with the downturn of digital currency and the explicit prohibition of 1CO by the regulatory authorities, blockchain technology has washed out the lead, gradually decoupling 1CO and de-monetizing, and has become a highly promising basic technology recognized by the industry. BAT is also more willing to announce its own blockchain technology layout and future plans.

Tencent has a fixed style for any new technology. It is laid out first, and then applied. The application is also taken step by step. Tencent-owned fintech unicorn Weizhong Bank is more active on the blockchain-Weizhong Bank launched the Financial Blockchain Cooperation Alliance (Golden Chain Alliance); Weizhong Bank and Shanghai Huarui Bank announced joint development -Based interbank joint loan clearing platform based on blockchain technology was launched for trial operation; Weizhong Bank launched the Tencent Cloud-based Alliance Chain Cloud Service (Baas) …

On October 19, 2019, Tencent Research Institute, together with Tencent FIT, Tencent Cloud, Tencent Legal Innovation Center, and Tencent Financial Line jointly held the first phase of the digital transformation strategy conference entitled “ Road Breaking the Industrial Blockchain '' and The "Tencent Blockchain White Paper 2019" was officially released at the meeting. The Tencent White Paper is defined as the way to break the industrial blockchain.

On November 15th, Wang Leqing, Director of Tencent's Blockchain Product, said at the Industry Forum that Tencent has been conducting research and application of blockchain technology for 4 years. So far, it has applied for 300 blockchain patents. In the fields of finance, justice, finance, public welfare, etc., many scenes have been implemented.

Tencent's blockchain business covers three major scenarios: finance, life, and general. The business focuses more on finance and life. Relying on Tencent's social advantages, mass-related products are easy to be widely disseminated. If Tencent wants to integrate the blockchain into more scenarios, it has its advantages.

Strike

The weather is not as good as the time

-"Mencius"

On December 23, 2019, Tencent internally released the "Notice on the Establishment of a Digital Currency Research Project Group (Virtual Organization) and the Designation of Responsible Persons" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"). This group will focus on the further development of Tencent's use of blockchain technology in the digital payment industry.

The "Notice" stated that Tencent will set up a digital currency research project group (virtual organization) on the payment development platform and financial application offline of the enterprise development business group. The project team is overall responsible for advancing the work of the digital currency research project, following up on the latest policies of relevant government departments, conducting digital currency related research, business model innovation and application scenario verification.

The Chinese central bank's digital currency, DCEP, is ready. Then, when the central bank's legal digital currency is about to appear, digital currency will inevitably become the indispensable place for Internet financial business. Tencent's move is inevitable.

On the one hand, with the implementation of DCEP, mobile payment software ushers in new market opportunities. C-end users need a security tool that can store and use digital currencies. Therefore, digital wallets and digital currency payments will become an important development direction of the payment industry. On the other hand, unlike current currency digitization, fiat digital currency is a kind of New forms of currency and new financial derivative services are bound to accompany them. This is a huge impact and challenge for the existing financial Internet giants. They also need to focus on developing innovative financial derivative services in order to seize the opportunity in the upcoming digital currency market.

When Libra appeared, Ma Huateng wrote in the comments of the circle of friends:

"(Facebook's Libra) technology is mature and not difficult. It depends on whether regulation allows it."

In the field of mobile payment, China's WeChat and Alipay are already the highest in the world. Therefore, some people will compare Libra with mobile payment. In fact, this underestimates the long-term impact Libra has brought to all areas of the world. According to Facebook's plan, the association that runs Libra will build a vibrant developer ecosystem, build applications and services to stimulate global use of Libra-and the Federal Reserve is more willing to use it as a hidden dollar to help its monetary policy. This is why EU countries are wary or even opposed to Libra.

Ma Huateng is aware of all this. In the "2019 Tencent Blockchain White Paper" released in October this year, Libra was mentioned several times.

Tencent believes that members of the Libra Association bring rich usage scenarios and massive user resources. If Libra successfully landed, it will greatly affect the global payment industry and even the entire financial industry. In addition to the direct impact of traditional financial institutions, it has a relatively complete Internet of payment ecosystem. The company will also be hit by dimensionality reduction, affecting its global strategic layout.

In fact, the strategic positioning of DCEP is also further improved and clear because of the influence of Libra and the dollar forces behind it. Previously, China's official digital currency did not intend to use the Internet giant as an issuer, nor did it intend to use it in the retail scene, nor did it promote the internationalization of the RMB as one of its goals.

As early as the end of 2017, several months after Yao Qian was appointed director of the Digital Currency Research Institute of the Central Bank, he wrote a dissertation in his personal capacity, mainly to discuss the issue of the central bank's digital currency. The earliest issuance method was very clear: the central bank Authorization allows commercial banks to issue on their own, similar to a Hong Kong dollar issue.

Today, China's central bank's digital currency not only gives more practices to state-owned commercial banks and telecom operators, but also must include Internet giants such as Alibaba and Tencent. The decision-making level is very clear. This is because the use scenario needs to be broadened to the retail level, otherwise it will not be able to compete with Facebook, which has hundreds of millions of mobile terminals, and empower the international credit of the RMB.

Long planning and far-reaching layout-Tencent's shot at this time can be described as taking advantage of the time and place.

Today, DCEP is out of the central bank's internal testing system, and cooperates with the four major state-owned banks and three major telecommunications operators to implement practices in Suzhou and Shenzhen. In August this year, in the relevant opinions issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council in support of the construction of Shenzhen, it was pointed out: "Support the development of innovative applications such as digital currency research and mobile payments in Shenzhen."

Shenzhen is the headquarters of Tencent. It can be known from the "Notice" that the establishment of a project team by Tencent first responded to the policy call and followed up and implemented the latest policies of relevant government departments …

Tencent has already cooperated with the government to implement in Shenzhen. In May 2018, Tencent cooperated with the Shenzhen Taxation Bureau to announce that it would launch the nation's first blockchain-based electronic invoice solution. In August of the same year, Shenzhen International Trade Revolving Restaurant issued the nation's first electronic blockchain invoice.

In the field of block chain access to mobile payment applications, following the launch of the blockchain electronic invoice function on the WeChat payment merchant platform in December 2018, WeChat also launched the “Invoice Folder” application in August this year to help companies implement electronic invoices through the WeChat platform One-click reimbursement.

In addition, blockchain electronic bills also have applications in the field of smart transportation. The specific implementation of "Payment + Travel + Blockchain" has been applied to Shenzhen's Tencent ride code blockchain electronic invoice function. Electronic invoices based on the underlying technology of Tencent's blockchain have been connected to payment platforms such as WeChat Pay and UnionPay.

boundary

Knowing who can fight and who cannot fight, wins-"Sun Tzu's Art of War: Conspiracy"

The "2019 Tencent Blockchain White Paper" conceives and thinks about the industrial blockchain, showing Tencent's practices in blockchain electronic invoices, micro-enterprise chains, Zhixin Chain, and blockchain bank drafts. Sitting on the WeChat and QQ social tools, the mobile payment ecosystem derived from it is a good soil for Tencent digital currency application exploration.

However, the premise of all this is that Tencent does not issue coins, and it must rely on the central bank's DCEP to graft on Tencent's industrial blockchain practice.

The "2019 Tencent Blockchain White Paper" indicates that blockchain can be deeply integrated into traditional industries and accelerate the construction of an industrial blockchain ecosystem. Blockchain can be deeply integrated into traditional industries. By integrating issues such as trust and automation encountered in the process of industrial upgrading, it can greatly enhance sharing and reconstruction to help traditional industries upgrade, reshape trust relationships, and improve industrial efficiency. On the one hand, it helps the physical industry, and on the other, it integrates traditional finance.

Blockchain can make up for the asymmetry of information between finance and the physical industry, solve the problem of financial destabilization, and establish an efficient value transfer mechanism to realize the circulation of traditional production value in the digital world, helping to achieve a three-tier flow of business, information, and capital flows. Cooperation, and then promote the digital transformation of traditional industries and build an industrial blockchain ecosystem.

In terms of landing applications, Tencent has been actively involved in research in the fields of finance, taxation, public welfare, games, legal affairs, supply chain, and medical care, and conducted multi-party discussions and exchanges on industry pain points, solutions, generated value and potential applications. Among the Tencent blockchain applications that have already landed, the blockchain electronic invoice project “Tax Chain”, the supply chain finance project “Micro-enterprise chain”, the judicial deposit project “Zhixin Chain” and the city commercial bank bank draft project have all achieved certain results. The results.

The latest news is that 52 of China Resources Pacific Coffee's Shenzhen stores will be fully connected to the blockchain electronic invoice system on December 25th. After online payment, invoices can be issued on mobile phones anytime, anywhere.

Different from traditional invoices, the Shenzhen Electronic Taxation Bureau's blockchain electronic invoice platform combines invoice issuance and online payment, opening up the entire process of invoice application, invoicing, reimbursement, and tax reporting, and achieving a seamless connection between consumption scenarios and tax services. .

The expansion of the new scene indicates that the Tencent blockchain is taking another step towards the layout of diversified scenes and will be expanded to more convenient scenes in the future.

As of early November, Shenzhen Tax Services had reported that China's technology capital had issued more than 10 million blockchain invoices. Shenzhen's blockchain invoice system was developed by Tencent-more than 7,600 companies have used blockchain-based invoice systems with a total value of nearly $ 1 billion. Therefore, the blockchain invoice service has been applied in local finance, insurance, retail, hotel catering and parking services.

In this wave of technological and commercial innovation, both at the national level and the capital level, they hope to compete for the first-mover advantage and right to speak of the blockchain. At present, domestic enterprises represented by Tencent, Ali, Baidu, and Huawei have actively participated in the development and application of blockchain technology. Looking at the world, Internet giants such as IBM, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have also entered the game and launched their own BaaS products.

The so-called BaaS refers to Blockchainas a Service, which can be simply understood as a cloud service combined with blockchain technology. It is designed to help enterprise developers create, deploy and manage blockchain networks. In specific application scenarios, BaaS technology is suitable for a variety of business fields, such as product traceability, supply chain finance, data asset transactions, digital content copyright protection, movable property mortgage, and judicial deposit.

But all of this, for Tencent, ultimately falls on payment.

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