The significance of blockchain
The strict definition of blockchain refers to the distributed database technology that multiple nodes in peer-to-peer network jointly maintain a continuously growing list ledger constructed by time stamp and orderly record data blocks through consensus mechanism based on cryptography technology. This technical solution allows any number of nodes in the participating system to calculate and record all the information exchange data in the system in a period of time to a data block through cryptography algorithm, and generate the fingerprint of the data block for linking the next data block and checking. All participating nodes in the system jointly determine whether the record is true
blockchain is a technical solution similar to NoSQL (non relational database). It is not a specific technology, and can be implemented through many programming languages and architectures. There are many ways to realize blockchain, including pow (proof of work), POS (proof of stake), dpos (delegate proof of stake), etc
the concept of blockchain was first proposed in the paper "bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system" by indivials (or groups) who call themselves Satoshi Nakamoto. Therefore, bitcoin can be regarded as the first application of blockchain in the field of financial payment
< H2 > [popular explanation]no matter how big the system or how small the website is, there is a database behind it. So who will maintain this database? In general, who is responsible for the operation of the network or system, then who is responsible for the maintenance. If it is wechat database, it must be maintained by Tencent team, and Taobao database is maintained by Alibaba team. We must think that this way is natural, but blockchain technology is not
if we think of the database as a book, for example, Alipay is a typical account book. Any change of data is bookkeeping. We can think of database maintenance as a very simple way of accounting. In the world of blockchain, everyone in the blockchain system has the opportunity to participate in bookkeeping. The system will select the fastest and best bookkeeper in a period of time, maybe within ten seconds or ten minutes. The bookkeeper will record the changes of the database and the account book in a block. We can think of this block as a page. After the system confirms that the records are correct, the system will record the changes of the database and the account book in a block, It will link the fingerprint of the past account book to this paper, and then send this paper to everyone else in the whole system. Then, over and over again, the system will look for the next person with fast and good bookkeeping, and everyone else in the system will get a of the whole ledger. This means that everyone as like as two peas in the system is called Blockchain. It is also called distributed account technology. P>
as like as two peas (computer) have identical accounting books, and everyone has the same rights, they will not collapse e to the loss of contact or downtime of a single person. As like as two peas, the data is transparent and everyone can see what changes are in every account. Its very interesting feature is that the data can't be tampered with. Because the system will automatically compare, it will think that the same number of books with the largest number are real books, and a small number of books with different numbers are false books. In this case, it's meaningless for anyone to tamper with his own account book, because unless you can tamper with most nodes in the whole system. If there are only five or ten nodes in the whole system, it may be easy to do so. However, if there are tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of nodes and they are distributed in any corner of the Internet, unless someone can control most computers in the world, it is unlikely to tamper with such a large block chain
< H2 > [elements]combined with the definition of blockchain, we think that we must have the following four elements to be called public blockchain technology. If we only have the first three elements, we will consider it as private blockchain Technology (private chain)
1, peer-to-peer network (power equivalence, physical point-to-point connection)
2, verifiable data structure (verifiable PKC system, non tampering database)
3, distributed consensus mechanism (Solving Byzantine general problem, solving double payment)
4 Game design of Nash equilibrium (cooperation is the strategy of evolutionary stability)
combined with the definition of blockchain, blockchain will realize four main characteristics: decentralized, trustless, collective maintenance and reliable database. And the other two will be derived from the four characteristics Features: open source Privacy. If a system does not have these characteristics, it can not be regarded as an application based on blockchain technology
Decentralized: there is no centralized hardware or management organization in the whole network. The rights and obligations of any node are equal, and the damage or loss of any node will not affect the operation of the whole system. Therefore, it can also be considered that the blockchain system has excellent robustnesstrustworthiness: there is no need to trust each other when participating in the data exchange between each node in the whole system. The operation rules of the whole system are open and transparent, and all data contents are also open. Therefore, within the specified rule range and time range of the system, nodes cannot and cannot cheat other nodes
collective maintenance: the data blocks in the system are maintained by all the nodes with maintenance function in the whole system, and these nodes with maintenance function can be participated by anyone
reliable database: the whole system will enable each participating node to obtain a of the complete database in the form of sub databases. Unless more than 51% of the nodes in the whole system can be controlled at the same time, the modification of the database on a single node is invalid, and the data content on other nodes cannot be affected. Therefore, the more nodes and computing power in the system, the higher the data security in the system
Open Source: since the operation rules of the whole system must be open and transparent, the whole system must be open source for the program
Privacy Protection: since there is no need to trust each other between nodes, there is no need to disclose the identity between nodes, and the privacy of each participating node in the system is protected
blockchain is the underlying system of distributed ledger in bitcoin. Bitcoin ledgers are built in a distributed and spontaneous way. Anyone can generate new currency blocks by performing specific cryptographic calculations, so as to obtain a digital "currency" that can be used for transactions. Bitcoin's impact on the world monetary system can be said to be subversive, which is also an important reason why it has attracted a lot of people's strong attention since it came out. After that, there were dozens of similar electronic currencies such as
"lightcoin". The abstract extraction of distributed digital currency technology from bitcoin forms a "blockchain" technology, which can be used in more fields
the basic idea of blockchain is to establish a network-based public ledger (data block), each block contains the information of a network transaction. All the participating users in the network work together to keep accounts and check accounts. All the data are open and transparent, and can be used to verify the effectiveness of the information. In this way, the authenticity and non tamperability of information can be guaranteed at the technical level without the central server as the trust intermediary
the significance of blockchain lies in "decentralization", which can fundamentally solve the fraud and rent-seeking phenomenon in value exchange and transfer by building a more reliable network system. With the popularization of blockchain technology, the digital economy will be more authentic, and the economic society will become more fair and transparent
not only digital currency, but also blockchain technology is infiltrating into more innovative fields.
virtual digital currency such as bitcoin is just an application scenario of blockchain technology. Theoretically speaking, based on the characteristics of blockchain technology, human beings can create a very rich form of services and procts, such as finance, government, enterprises, etc There are a large number of scenarios suitable for blockchain technology in cross instry and other fields, with broad prospects. At present, many countries around the world have started the research of blockchain technology, and a series of instry organizations and alliances have been established. However, as blockchain technology is a brand-new technology, which subverts the traditional centralized mode, major institutions are still in the research stage, with only a small number of actual projects landing, and the great development of the instry has just begun
now, blockchain economy is on the eve of outbreak. The exploration of financial instry is ahead of others, while the application of other instries is developing rapidly. The obvious advantage of blockchain instry application is to optimize business process, rece operation cost and improve collaborative efficiency. This advantage has been graally reflected in financial services, Internet of things, public services, social welfare and supply chain management
as the backbone of emerging technologies, blockchain is not only used in the field of virtual currency, but also in other fields such as finance, medical care, intellectual property certification, etc. a large number of excellent enterprises have emerged in China to explore or enter the blockchain instry. According to the in-depth analysis report on business model innovation and investment opportunities of blockchain instry released by foresight Instry Research Institute, as of the end of 2016, there were 105 blockchain related enterprises in China, 80% of which were concentrated in eastern coastal cities, including Shanghai, Hangzhou and Taipei
from the perspective of global blockchain technology application development, as of April 2017, financial service companies accounted for 55.43% of the 267 blockchain venture capital companies; From the perspective of the Chinese market, 34 of the top 50 blockchain venture capital companies in 2016 are involved in financial services, mainly in cross-border payment, bill discounting and financial service platform<
analysis of the development trend of blockchain
the combination of blockchain and cloud computing is more and more close, and baas is expected to become a public trust infrastructure
cloud computing is the general trend. We believe that the combination of blockchain and cloud is also an inevitable trend. There are two modes for the combination of blockchain and cloud, one is blockchain in the cloud, the other is blockchain in the cloud. The latter, namely baas, blockchain-as-a-service, refers to that the cloud service providers directly provide blockchain as a service to users. In the future, more and more cloud service enterprises will integrate blockchain technology into the ecological environment of cloud computing. By providing baas function, they can effectively rece the deployment cost of enterprise application blockchain and rece the initial threshold of innovation and entrepreneurship
the security problem of blockchain has become increasingly prominent, and security protection needs the overall consideration of technology and management
blockchain system is almost perfect mathematically, with the advantages of openness and transparency, difficult to tamper, reliable encryption, anti DDoS attack, etc. However, from the engineering point of view, its security is still restricted by infrastructure, system design, operation management, privacy protection and technology update iteration. In the future, we need to consider the overall situation of technology and management, strengthen basic research and overall protection, so as to ensure the application security
the competition of blockchain is becoming increasingly fierce, and patent competition has become an important field of competition
with the increase of participants, the competition of blockchain will become more and more fierce, and the competition is all-round, including technology, mode, patent and other dimensions. We believe that in the future, enterprises will strengthen the layout of blockchain patents. Since 2014, the number of blockchain patent applications has grown explosively. Blockchain patents are mainly distributed in the United States in North America, the United Kingdom in Europe, China and South Korea in Asia, and this pattern will be maintained in the future. The patent gap between China and the United States is narrowing, and the number of applications in China in 2016 has surpassed that in the United States. It can be predicted that the patent competition of blockchain will become increasingly fierce in the future
with the acceleration of domestic policy process, the development of the instry ushers in a new opportunity
blockchain has attracted attention from all walks of life e to its core advantages of high performance, high security, high-speed access, efficient operation and so on. In the context of the rapid development of blockchain, China conforms to the needs of globalization, closely follows the international pace, and actively promotes the research, standardization and instrialization development of domestic blockchain related fields
trustworthiness is the core requirement of blockchain, and the importance of standards and specifications is becoming increasingly prominent
in the future value delivery network based on blockchain, we will completely use algorithms and software to build the trust foundation. However, we believe that this is far from enough, and we need the standard to increase the credibility of the blockchain. In the future, the standard of blockchain will standardize the technology and governance of blockchain from the perspective of users, business oriented, and from the dimensions of smart contract, consensus mechanism, private key security, and authority management, so as to enhance the credibility of blockchain and add weight to the trust of blockchain.
take trading activities as an example. In the past, the two sides who did not trust each other usually chose an intermediary to guarantee a transaction. In the mobile Internet era, we chose Taobao shopping because Alipay provided us with an intermediate guarantee. We chose to drop dripping because it provided us with information matching.
however, these intermediaries are centralized and have their own interests. Sometimes they are not so reliable and trustworthy. Theoretically, Alipay's centralization of accounting has been artificially falsified. Part of the reason for Didi's troubles is that they only think from their own standpoint
what blockchain does is the machine of trust, which replaces the role of trust intermediary with code, ensures the fairness and justice of the whole system through consensus mechanism and distributed accounting, and provides a trust without trust
for example, in the future, people can abandon the intermediate platform and realize point-to-point docking and free trading through blockchain. Shopping does not need to go through an intermediary, and taking a taxi does not need to go through Didi. In this way, we can really achieve "no middleman to earn the price difference" and rece the cost.
secondly, blockchain will play a role of "improving the efficiency of instrial chain collaboration". Enhancing instrial collaboration is an important way to promote manufacturing in China to move towards the middle and high end. However, in many instries, the efficiency of instrial chain collaboration is still not high, especially in the field of international trade
thirdly, blockchain will play a role of "building an honest instrial environment". At present, the construction of China's social credit system is accelerating, but in some cases, the process of building trust among partners is still slow, it is difficult to obtain all kinds of credit information, and it is difficult for small, medium and micro enterprises to obtain credit loans from financial institutions. Through the "transaction on the chain", all aspects can more easily find out the accurate historical credit situation of the counterparties, and establish the cooperation mechanism faster; Banks can also give credit to enterprises more safely based on transaction records, and promote the solution of the problems of "difficult, expensive and slow financing" of small, medium and micro enterprises operating in good faith
in addition, blockchain can make use of smart contracts to avoid default and fraud to a large extent, and can also make efficient and convenient payment scenario applications in combination with blockchain asset wallet. As early as in the blockchain circle, there have been many innovation forums and Instry Summit aiming at the direction of blockchain enabling the real economy, and combining with the local economic instry to carry out landing optimization. For example, the world blockchain conference Macao station intends to make a deep integration with the local economic instry, and use and popularize the blockchain assets with the payment means of magic chain wallet.