Xinhua Finance Inventory: Ten Major Events of the Blockchain Industry in 2019

Author: Guo Xinghua through community block in the chain's chief economic analyst

Source: Xinhua Finance

After experiencing the avalanche, the blockchain industry in 2019 is in the second stage of entrepreneurship in finding a new starting point. After experiencing "flashy", the blockchain industry is down-to-earth and steadily moving forward, and technological innovation will gradually play an important role. This year is the year of turning and foundation. The track has been re-delineated. The head players have chosen the direction. What events will determine the future of the industry? Let us revisit those "brain burning" moments.

I. China proposes an important breakthrough in the independent innovation of blockchain technology

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On the afternoon of October 24, 2019, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China conducted the eighteenth collective study on the current status and trends of blockchain technology development. The conference emphasized that the integrated application of blockchain technology plays an important role in new technological innovations and industrial changes. We must regard blockchain as an important breakthrough in independent innovation of core technologies, clarify the main attack direction, increase investment, focus on overcoming a number of key core technologies, and accelerate the development of blockchain technology and industrial innovation. The application of blockchain technology has extended to many fields such as digital finance, the Internet of Things, intelligent manufacturing, supply chain management, and digital asset trading. At present, major countries in the world are accelerating the development of blockchain technology. China has a good foundation in the field of blockchain. We must accelerate the development of blockchain technology and industrial innovation, and actively promote the development of the integration of blockchain and economy and society.

The content of this meeting is very rich. From the status quo, short board, to the force of talent, standards, and technology, the outline of the program was elaborated, and the development vision was emphasized: to occupy the high ground of innovation in technology and the standard To improve the international voice, in the industrial ecology, we must play the role of blockchain to promote data sharing, improve synergy efficiency, and build a trusted system. The conference recognized the role of blockchain technology, which is conducive to the continuous investment of talents and funds in technology research and development, and continuous consolidation of the underlying technology architecture, creating a favorable situation for the development of technology and industry.

Second, the Bank of England's governor stated that synthetic digital fiat currencies will replace the US dollar as the world's reserve currency

On August 23, 2019, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said at a Federal Reserve Commission seminar in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, that the U.S. dollar will lose its status as the world's reserve currency and will instead be based on a basket Digital fiat currency. This incident quickly became a hot spot and opened the curtain of the competition for sovereign digital fiat currencies. American media and experts have said that the digital fiat war is about to begin, and Harvard University conducted a "digital fiat war: simulation of national security crisis" in response to this event. In this new competition, the UK is currently leading the way.

Third, global social giant Facebook releases cryptocurrency Libra white paper

Relying on Facebook, the world's largest social platform in June 2019, Libra Networks released the Libra White Paper, which aims to create a globally inclusive financial technology facility. After that, the price of Bitcoin once approached $ 14,000, setting a peak for the year. It is similar to the setting of the IMF's special drawing rights, and has also attracted the attention, research and even questioning of global governments and financial institutions. Federal Reserve Chairman Powell said he has serious concerns about Libra's "privacy, money laundering, consumer protection, and financial stability." French Minister of Economy Bruno Lemaire called Libra a "threat to national sovereignty" and barred him from entering the European Union. To date, seven of the largest potential participants in the Libra Association have announced their withdrawals, including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and Stripe, due to concerns about the restricted regulatory review business.

Although Libra has a bad start and suffered a number of setbacks, its influence is far-reaching and extensive, as it has questioned and challenged sovereign currencies for the first time: Can multinational corporations use digital currency technology to issue currencies? Non-sovereign Can the alliance digital currency be accepted by today's financial system?

Fourth, JPMorgan Chase "Valentine Day" releases "JPMorgan Chase Coin"

On February 14, 2019, JP Morgan JP Morgan released "JPM Coin" (JPM Coin). JPM Coin is a stable coin that strictly anchors the dollar price one to one. JPM Coin will not be listed on the exchange, and will only be circulated in a small range. It can be regarded as a token that uses blockchain technology to improve transaction settlement efficiency. JPM Coin is only circulated to customers authorized by JP Morgan. It utilizes Quorum, a blockchain platform established by JPMorgan Chase. Quorum can effectively separate public data and private data, ensuring the privacy of all transaction information under certifiable conditions. The emergence of JPM Coin confirms Wall Street Bank's confidence in blockchain technology, especially the joining of financial giants such as JP Morgan Chase who initially opposed and questioned blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Once this technology is applied to the financial industry to upgrade existing systems, more investment opportunities and funds will flow in.

V. Bakkt's physical settlement Bitcoin futures trading platform is officially launched

In September 2019, Bakkt's highly anticipated Bitcoin futures trading was officially launched. Although the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Options Exchange also offer bitcoin futures trading, their transactions are settled in cash. Bakkt's physical-settled futures contract allows customers to obtain bitcoin instead of the equivalent fiat currency after the contract expires.

The platform is a product of the New York Stock Exchange operator ICE and is the first platform to provide such transactions with US regulatory approval. In just 3 months, Bakkt's bitcoin futures transactions reached $ 124 million. At the same time, it launched a number of businesses including bitcoin options, bitcoin hosting for institutions, and bitcoin payments for individuals. With its advantages in licenses, funds and resources, Bakkt's potential is immeasurable. Together with Coinbase, it will gradually develop into the first echelon of digital currency exchanges. It is expected to become the first batch of blocks listed on traditional stock exchanges Chain exchange.

6. The IMF report proposes a synthetic digital fiat currency issuance system

In July 2019, Tobias Adrian, Financial Counsellor and Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department of the IMF, published the report "The Raise of Digital Money", stating that stablecoins will become digital fiat currencies. Digital fiat currencies with stable prices are linked to fiat currencies, guaranteed by governments, central banks or banks, with the participation of banks or financial institutions, and may be legally and legally issued by technology companies or banks.

The article proposes that digital fiat currencies start small. Digital fiat currency started small, regionally and experimentally. At first, it was mainly engaged in a few central bank services, such as payment, and gradually formed a large digital fiat currency. Finally, it appeared on the blockchain Internet. In this way, digital fiat currency will not be built on the old system, it will be a new system. This is in line with modern system engineering. The transformation of a large system does not start from the old system, but starts from a different stove and restarts. The digital fiat currency is a 320-year currency reform that has changed the market, monetary policy, and banking structure, helped economic development, and formed a new type of currency competition. The four major elements of currency competition are speed, security, regulation and policy.

Seven, China Internet Information Office released two batches of blockchain information service record list

Since the formal implementation of the “ Regulations on the Management of Blockchain Information Services '' on February 15, 2019, China's National Internet Information Office has organized filing and review work in accordance with laws and regulations, and issued two batches of domestic blockchain information services in March and October 2019. Names and filing numbers: 197 in the first batch and 309 in the second batch.

This is the basis for China's blockchain industry to move towards legal compliance. Filing is only a registration of the subject of the blockchain information service and does not represent the recognition of its institutions, products and services. No institution or individual may be used for any commercial purpose.

Bitcoin price is manipulated by Tether

In January 2019, John Griffin, a professor of finance at the University of Texas and Amin Shams, a professor of finance at Ohio State University, published academic papers stating that through a variety of rigorous methods and different perspectives, it was proved that the Bitcoin price was manipulated by Tether. Tether is a veritable "central bank" in the digital currency world. The USDT it has actually issued has become the "dollar" in the digital currency world and is widely used in various trading scenarios. Today, USDT's daily transaction volume has exceeded Bitcoin.

In April 2019, the New York State Attorney General's Office (NYAG) issued a press release stating that documents show that Bitfinex has withdrawn at least $ 700 million from Tether's reserves. These transactions-not disclosed to investors-used Tether's cash reserves as Bitfinex's corporate funds and were used to cover Bitfinex's huge, undisclosed losses and inability to handle client withdrawals.

Nine, the British company Fnality released a stablecoin project white paper

In October 2019, the British company Fnality released a white paper on the stablecoin project. It proposes a multinational stablecoin (USC), including digital dollars, euros, yen, pounds, Canadian dollars, but also national identity cards of national currencies, establishes a cross-central bank funding pool, and provides a central bank and central bank, A benign interaction mechanism between central banks and banks.

Fnality believes that this stable currency model conforms to the synthetic digital fiat currency model established by the central bank and the private sector proposed by the IMF, and is also a wholesale digital fiat currency model approved by the central banks of many countries. Such wholesale digital fiat currency is also completed in cooperation with commercial banks and can be opened to non-bank institutions in the future. This white paper mostly talks about payment transaction design. The actual system design has not been made public, but it can still be seen that the design of the Fnality system is very intelligent, which will cause a very big change in the current payment process. As if it was a carriage and now it is a car, urban transport planning will change dramatically.

X. Syniverse and IBM collaborate to create a pilot of blockchain and 5G integration applications

In May 2019, Syniverse and IBM announced a cooperation to jointly promote mobile roaming solutions, develop global business services based on blockchain for multi-party management and revenue sharing, and ensure security. By replacing traditional contracts with "smart contracts", they can also Achieve data unification and secure encryption.

This cooperation is based on a previous 5G survey done by Syniverse. 5G is pushing most US mobile operators to shift their business focus from ordinary consumers to enterprise users, and blockchain is considered as a solution for collaborative multi-party payment. 5G is driving extensive collaboration between different types of service providers and technology providers in interconnected, overlapping markets. Operator services enabled by blockchain technology will open up a wider future business model.

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