Wuzhen·“5G+ blockchain”: the boundaries and imagination you don’t know

You and I are in the age of technology, the wind comes from all directions, where do people go?

From November 8th to 9th, the “2019 World Blockchain Conference·Wuzhen” hosted by Babbitt was held at the Wuzhen Internet International Convention and Exhibition Center. On the afternoon of the 9th, at the "New Potential, New Decade" forum, a roundtable forum entitled " Deciphering 5G+ Blockchains, for Fashion, Practicality? " was held.

At this round table, we invited blockchain experts or scholars from China's three major telecom operators, ZTE, China University of Science and Technology and foreign well-known blockchain projects to discuss the integration of 5G and blockchain.

Figure ( from left to right): Ma Qianli, Fang Zhaoben, Guo Manxue, Zhao Jun, Xue Yu, Zheng Jinrong, Sergey Nazarov

• Wuzhen·Coco Finance Li Lao: When we are investing in digital assets, what are we investing in?
• Ling listens to the scene | Libra is at the "most dangerous moment"? Who can save the small tie? Bai Shuo, Meng Yan, Hu Jie and other 6 experts on the same stage
• Billionaire Mike Novogratz: The valuable thing is that the bubble encryption revolution is real

Guest introduction:

Ma Qianli (host) , vice president of Babbitt, general manager of Wuzhen Time Stamp Co., Ltd. At present, the main attack blockchain project landing (BaaS platform), blockchain industry research. He has been the project director for the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Wuzhen Street, Agricultural Bank of China Shanghai Branch, State Grid and many traditional enterprise blockchains.

Fang Zhaoben , former member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and vice chairman of the Anhui Provincial People's Political Consultative Conference, is currently a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Management of the Chinese University of Science and Technology. He has published more than 70 representative articles in the fields of statistics, economy, insurance, financial technology, and financial engineering.

Guo Manxue , Research Fellow, Institute of Business, China Mobile Research Institute. In July 2018, China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom jointly led the establishment of the Trusted Blockchain Telecom Application Group, and Guo Manxue was elected as the joint leader.

Zhao Jun is the head of the blockchain technology of China Telecom Strategy and Innovation Research Institute and the joint executive leader of the Trusted Blockchain Telecom Application Group. He has won one second prize of provincial scientific and technological progress, published more than 10 international core papers, and led one of ITU's first ITU-T blockchain standards, and two research standards, leading the preparation of the industry's first blockchain telecommunications. Industry white paper, drawing 6 patents.

Xue Wei , Senior Engineer and Head of Blockchain Technology, China Unicom Network Technology Research Institute. As the editor-in-chief, he approved the ITU-T Y.2342, the international blockchain standard under the world's first telecom network scenario, and published several papers related to blockchain, and wrote more than 10 patents.

Zheng Jinrong , Director of Blockchain Product Planning, Zhongxing District. In May 2019, the Trusted Blockchain Promotion Program Telecom Application Project Team officially released the world's first "White Paper on the Application of Blockchain Telecom Industry". Zheng Jinrong is one of the main writing team members.

Sergey Nazarov , founder and CEO of Chainlink. He is one of the pioneers of smart contracts, oracles and decentralized exchanges. Chainlink is committed to solving the "prophecy problem" and moving the smart contract from the pass to the next stage of connecting with the real world.

The following is a selection of roundtable content, published by Babbitt:

Photo: Ma Qianli

Ma Qianli: In the 5G era, why do telecom operators study blockchain technology?

Guo Manxue : First of all, let me talk about what 5G can bring. On October 31, the three major operators announced 5G commercial packages, marking China's official entry into the 5G commercial era. 5G enables us to enjoy a better business experience than the 4G era, such as greater bandwidth, shorter latency and more connections. 5G can connect people and things in the whole society to form a way of rapid information communication on the line.

Then talk about the blockchain, the blockchain is essentially information technology, and the biggest difference with Internet technology is the exchange of information from value to exchange, making people's communication and communication more efficient based on existing information. . Therefore, the goals of 5G and blockchain are the same, and they are all models that change the social digital ecology or industry cooperation and digital economy. For operators, the purpose of the research blockchain is to provide a basic information service platform for the society and provide new capabilities for ecological cooperation.

Zhao Jun : We hope that through its own network resources and terminal advantages, combined with blockchain technology, operators can upgrade from sinking pipeline providers to users' value traffic portals. 5G has the advantages of high speed, low latency, high bandwidth, high concurrency, and multiple connections, which is really changing our lives. However, 5G does not address the shortcomings of 4G, such as privacy protection, virtual intellectual property protection, and data security. The blockchain is credible and not easy to tamper with, and it just happens to collide with 5G.

Specific application scenarios, such as "blockchain + 5G", "blockchain + Internet of Things" can prosper the sharing economy, "blockchain + edge computing" can release the resources and capabilities of ordinary people, "blockchain + car "Networking" allows data sharing between vehicles to enable efficient collaboration between vehicles. Not to mention "blockchain + smart city", smart city itself is a combination of emerging technologies, including government affairs, supply chain, People's livelihood. Operators can change the lives of ordinary people by opening up these technical capabilities.

Xue Wei : We know that the blockchain is a technology that changes the production relationship. It has the characteristics of traceability and non-tamperability. It can be used to establish a long-term credit system and improve synergy efficiency. Operators are in multiple relationships. For example, there are competitive relationships and cooperative relationships between domestic operators, such as number portability; international roaming and settlement cooperation between domestic and foreign operators; operators And C, B, G customers, and suppliers, outsourcing providers, and regulatory agencies have business dealings. From a relationship perspective, blockchain can optimize the management of internal relationships, improve collaboration efficiency, and bring opportunities for application innovation.

In addition, the launch of 6G network research, there are also voices to discuss the application of blockchain in the future network name space mapping system and endogenous security network. Therefore, internal applications, external innovation and future technological evolution are the starting points for operators to study the blockchain. We currently mainly study the alliance chain, and there is not a direct to C (for ordinary users) business. However, we can provide a good blockchain infrastructure and indirectly provide services for C-side and B-end users. Some direct 2C services such as user rights, distributed identities, etc. are also under study.

Ma Qianli: What combination of 5G and blockchain will bring investment and entrepreneurial opportunities?

Fang Zhaoben : My idea is that "the opportunity is too big." When Steve Jobs released the iPhone in 2007, can you imagine what it will look like 10 years later? The commonality between 5G and blockchain is to bring change to society. This change is far beyond our imagination. In addition, both 5G and blockchain are related to data, 5G enables data to be transmitted faster, and blockchain solves data authenticity and equity issues. In the future, our data does not belong to Ma Yun, nor to Ma Huateng, nor to your operators. You are just passing, you can't stay, our data is only for ourselves.

Zheng Jinrong : Professor Fang’s speech has brought us great confidence. As a communication equipment manufacturer, our company explores the integration of 5G and blockchain technology, mainly in two directions:

The first is to use blockchain technology to promote and promote the construction of 5G network infrastructure. Some time ago, China Unicom and China Telecom both announced the announcement of the sharing and sharing of 5G networks. In fact, not only in China, but also many foreign operators have the need to build and share equipment. Because the base station deployment in the 5G era is very dense, the financial pressure of the operators is relatively large. If the equipment can be built and shared, the financial burden of the operators can be greatly reduced. In the application scenario of 5G co-construction and sharing, the distributed ledger and non-tamperable features provided by the blockchain can be used to supervise various information between different nodes. At the same time, smart contract technology can provide operators with smarter networks. Inter-settlement, resource sharing, and value transfer capabilities provide operators with more open and transparent information during network construction and operation and maintenance, and achieve multi-party revenue sharing. This is a scenario where 5G is built and shared. In addition, in the areas of edge computing, network slicing, etc., blockchain can also provide a good solution.

Second, the three characteristics of 5G will bring a lot of new application scenarios, and these scenarios may not exist in the 4G era, such as the Internet of Things, Internet of Vehicles, intelligent manufacturing, industrial Internet and new smart city construction, etc. Technologies such as non-tamperable, traceable, and smart contracts for blockchains will accelerate the adoption of these new 5G industry applications. A few days ago, ZTE and China Unicom jointly released the "5G+ Blockchain Integration Development and Application White Paper", which contains descriptions of related scenes. If you are interested, you can find out.

Sergey Nazarov : We can work with telecom companies to solve the problem of data transmission to the blockchain, and create a secure data connection with them, mainly in three aspects:

One is the security of the SIM card. The telecommunications company can transmit the inter-layer communication of the SIM card to the blockchain encryption through the oracle, making the SIM card more secure and eliminating the possibility of cracking from within the telecommunications enterprise.

The second is Internet of Things data. The oracle can obtain IOT data from the terminal, and we can see that the current IOT data has been increasing, and the quality of this data depends on the telecommunication infrastructure. This data can be used for smart contracts, especially in the insurance industry.

The third is Service Level Agreements. Many telecom service providers will guarantee their service level. They will say, "We guarantee 100% availability, I have 99 devices and 6 lines." If the IoT sensor can monitor the running time of the telecom infrastructure, Chainlink can upload the performance data of these devices to the smart contract of the blockchain, calculate the monthly fee, or refund the user according to the downtime. Improve the efficiency of telecommunications companies.

Ma Qianli: Professor Fang Zhaoben is a well-known international statistical scientist with research in finance, science and technology. What do you think about the integration of 5G and blockchain?

Fang Zhaoben : I think the integration of 5G and blockchain is a big opportunity and a big blue ocean. What changed the 5G and blockchain? Changed the landscape of our entire data. The data generated in these two years is more than the data generated in the past many years. The blockchain can help the communication industry to manage and optimize 5G. There are also network slices in the 5G implementation. The management of network slices also requires the use of blockchain.

Convergence development is a big trend. Whoever does the integration development must have great benefits. Innovation is a function, the function is ABCD+5G+IoT+IIoT, how to combine A and B, how to combine B and D, how to combine A and IoT? You can't do anything at any point, and you can't do it all your life.

Picture: Fang Zhaoben

Ma Qianli: The next question is to ask Director Guo Manxue. What difficulties have you encountered in the process of studying the blockchain?

Guo Manxue : In fact, we have been doing blockchain technology research since 2016. As a research institute of a company, the goal of researching any technology is very clear, that is, whether the value of it can be achieved in large-scale commercial use, and then there will be some risks in commercial use. Our research focuses on: first, the scene, and second, the core technology.

In terms of scenarios, one is an internal scenario. The typical one is our roaming with international operators. It is a typical multi-node peer-to-peer collaboration mode. After introducing the blockchain, it may reduce the settlement cost of roaming. In addition, we have joined forces with China Telecom and China Unicom in the Trusted Blockchain Promotion Program. In May of this year, we published a white paper called “White Paper on Application of Blockchain in Telecom Industry”, which proposed three possible applications in the telecommunications field. It will work for our current and even future 6G applications.

Another is external collaboration. We will talk to them about various needs and cooperation with various industries, including energy, finance, and the Internet of Things. However, in applied research, we can also see that China Mobile may have only done some small-scale experiments or some pilots in recent years. It has not formed a large scale in application. What is the reason? The first is because the blockchain cannot solve all the business scenarios, and when some scenarios are applicable, it will involve the cost of retrofitting the original enterprise.

In terms of core technology, as an operator, we are concerned about the alliance chain. Because our goal is very clear, we have to consider its commercial value. We will evaluate the technology provided by some open source communities and evaluate its security. In addition, operators are naturally born to do network, infrastructure, and standardization, because they need to achieve interoperability and universal services.

Another key point is the assessment. Everyone knows that the flow of value across the blockchain is guaranteed based on machine or technology-based security. Once large-scale commercialization, how is technology-based security most likely to reduce risk? This may be very interesting for a company like us. If you are interested, especially if you are doing blockchain technology research, you are welcome to communicate and communicate with our institute. We will standardize and put the technology together.

Photo: Guo Manxue

Ma Qianli: The next question to Dr. Zhao Jun, can you tell us about the blockchain mobile phone made by Telecom?

Zhao Jun : The emergence of 5G, in fact, it has brought about a surge in data volume, and the data assets that ordinary individuals have mastered have grown geometrically. And the Internet of things, the connection between things and things also has an explosive trend. There are some hidden dangers behind the prosperity, such as the leakage of sensitive information, the loss of mobile phones and identity authentication. Blockchain phones can solve these problems.

In addition, blockchain mobile phones have application scenarios in terms of identity authentication, data asset management, and security privacy protection. Most of the blockchain mobile phones on the market now use wallets as the gimmick. This is not a blockchain mobile phone in the true sense. Blockchain mobile phones should be a collection of various application scenarios, such as identity authentication, data asset management, and security privacy. Protection, anti-theft and loss prevention, etc., we are seeing such business opportunities, not only to meet the actual needs of users, but also to bring us new business growth points, which is why we develop blockchain mobile phones.

Photo: Zhao Jun

Ma Qianli: Let's ask Dr. Xue Wei, how does China Unicom integrate blockchain, Internet of Things, 5G and other technologies?

Xue Wei : Let me introduce our recent achievement. On October 25th, China Unicom Network Technology Research Institute approved the world's first international telecommunication network network block ITU-T Y.2342, which is a telecommunication network. The application of blockchain technology under the scene laid the foundation. "Blockchain + Internet of Things" will play an important role in data sharing and privacy protection. In the future, the Internet of Things is a network system of one million and ten million, and there will be a large number of IoT devices for identity issuance and identity authentication. The blockchain will play its part.

In terms of “5G+ blockchain”, 5G is a big market for operators to open toB or to industry. Also, it has a network architecture change, such as our current edge infrastructure, which brings many services closer to the client. Therefore, from this perspective, the side cloud collaboration and cloud network collaboration of the carrier network in the future is a differentiated means for us to construct or provide the basic services of the blockchain. Unicom Network Technology Research Institute is also working on the edge of BaaS, and hopes that industry partners join us to build such an ecosystem.

Picture: Xue Yu

Ma Qianli: Jinrong, we know that ZTE has a lot of application for the government in the blockchain. Besides, there is no other blockchain application?

Zheng Jinrong : As a equipment manufacturer, we currently serve two types of customers in the field of blockchain research: one is the operator and the other is the government and enterprise users. For carrier customers, it is mainly considering the combination of communication equipment and blockchain technology, such as the application scenario of blockchain in the fields of 5G co-construction and sharing, edge computing, and network slicing. In the future, operators will provide diversified network slice leasing services for different users. In this scenario, the blockchain can provide record keeping and non-tamperable transaction records, while using smart contract technology to achieve reliable and efficient slicing. transaction. For government and enterprise customers, in addition to the direction of government affairs, we will focus more on the application direction of 5G industry, including Internet of Things, Internet of Vehicles, Industrial Internet, etc. In these areas, we believe that the blockchain will have a good opportunity to land.

In addition, 5G will greatly promote the landing of AR/VR application scenarios. For example, more people will enter the virtual world to learn and consume in the future, 5G provides infrastructure construction, and blockchain technology is likely to be virtual world. Identity certification provides very good technical support. In the future, 5G industry applications will be very extensive, and blockchain technology will be of great use.

Photo: Zheng Jinrong

Ma Qianli: The next question is to ask Sergey. Chainlink has provided blockchain chain-to-chain data interaction services for traditional technology companies such as Google, SWFIT, and Oracle. Then, you think, with the support of the oracle, the blockchain What sparks can the smart contract and communications industry shine?

Sergey Nazarov : We see more and more people combining data and smart contracts. In the 5G era, telecommunications-related companies will open up more data to create smart contract applications. For example, use this data to create a smart contract-based data monitoring system. Because these smart contracts are independent of the telecom company or IOT equipment, they can become an impartial third party, automatically determine faults based on data, or pay for failures. cost of. Such smart contract applications are very useful. Telecommunications IOT devices generate data, and smart contracts call data. This relationship ensures that telecom equipment remains stable, working properly, and better monitored.

Photo: Sergey Nazarov (left), Horrison (right, translation)

Ma Qianli: Finally, please ask each guest to say a message to 5G and the blockchain.

Fang Zhaoben : Focus on the integration of 5G and blockchain, this is an investment opportunity. You see that there are a lot of companies, like ChainLink, which solves the last mile problem. If smart contracts are used, they must be connected with communication.

Guo Manxue : 5G has come. We hope that through the integration of 5G and blockchain, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other technologies, we can amplify the entire information value and form a better ecological and collaborative environment. Operators can provide better network and blockchain basic service capabilities to the entire product or to the entire society, so that everyone can jointly explore the value of the entire blockchain.

Zhao Jun : The ubiquitous connection, the exchange all the time.

Xue Wei : I think that for the concept of 5G+ blockchain, my experience is that everyone can treat it pragmatically and then advance steadily.

Zheng Jinrong : The integration development and application of “5G+ blockchain” has unlimited future prospects.

Sergey Nazarov : 5G will bring an era of data blowout, which will change the world together with smart contracts!

We will continue to update Blocking; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!