OKEX Intelligence Agency: The founder of the Bitcoin mining machine was arrested, and Facebook revised the white paper
1. Yang Zuoxing, the founder of Shenma Mining Machinery, was arrested on the grounds of alleged embezzlement of 100,000 yuan
On December 12, the People's Procuratorate of Nanshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province issued an information announcement, stating that the court had recently arrested the criminal suspect Yang Mouxing with approval, and the case was being further processed. According to the Caixin reporter, Yang Mouxing, who was arrested in the announcement, is Yang Zuoxing, the founder of Shenzhen Bit Microelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. (BT Micro).
According to the criminal law of our country: the crime of occupational embezzlement is that the personnel of a company, enterprise or other unit take advantage of their position to illegally occupy the property of the unit as their own. If the amount is relatively large, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years or criminal detention; if the amount is huge , shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years and may also be sentenced to confiscation of property.
The crime of job embezzlement has constituted a criminal case, and if the amount involved is relatively large, you may face imprisonment.
Why did Yang Zuoxing, the person involved in this case, put up such a thing? Things have to start from 2016. At that time, Yang Zuoxing was the chip design director of Bitcoinland. Because of the equity issue, he did not reach a consensus with Zhan Ketuan, the executive at the time, so Yang Zuoxing left Bitmainland and went to Shenzhen to establish MicroBT, and released the Whatsminer M3 one after another. , M10, M20 series.
After several years of development, MicroBT under Yang Zuoxing has become a well-known mining machine manufacturer in the industry. Especially this year, whatsminer has snatched the market share of some high-power mining machines from Bitmain relying on its production capacity advantages and cost-effectiveness. A person familiar with the matter told the Caixin reporter that Whatsminer is a mining giant second only to Bitmain, with a market share of around 40%.
However, the entanglement between Bitmain and MicroBT under Yang Zuoxing did not start this year.
As early as 2017, the second year after Yang Zuoxing left Bitmain, a "tug of war" began between Bitmain and MicroBT. For two years, Bitmain has been suing MicroBT for allegedly infringing Bitmain's patents, but the case has always been closed. Today, the founder of MicroBT was directly arrested by the Shenzhen police for the crime of "employment embezzlement".
Up to now, it is still unclear who will win and who will lose in this lawsuit, and the police have not given more detailed reports.
For the time being, Bitmain seems to have the upper hand, but it has to be said that this lawsuit is actually a lose-lose for both: for MicroBT and Yang Zuoxing, business and reputation, and even the survival of the company will be in crisis; As for Bitmain, it is obviously unfavorable to have too many negativity and controversies when it seeks to go public.
The current mining machine market is fiercely competitive. Another mining machine manufacturer (mainly engaged in chip research and development) Canaan has already achieved listing on NASDAQ in the United States. Bitmain is still mired in the quagmire of internal and external struggles... It can only be said , In this two-year legal tug-of-war, there are no absolute winners and losers.
2. Facebook Libra quietly modified the white paper and deleted the dividend mechanism
Last week, the social giant Facebook Libra quietly modified the white paper of its stablecoin project Libra, which was first discovered by Georgetown University law professor Chris Brummer, who immediately published an article describing some changes in the Libra white paper . By comparing the initial version of the Libra white paper with the latest version, it is found that one of the biggest changes in the latest Libra white paper is that the dividend mechanism has been deleted.
The original version of the Libra white paper reads:
“Interest on reserve assets will be used to cover system costs, ensure low transaction fees, pay dividends to investors (primarily Libra Association members) who funded the startup ecosystem, and support further growth and adoption. Reserve asset interest allocation rules will be developed in advance and overseen by the Libra Association. Users of Libra will not receive returns from the Reserve Assets.”
In the latest version, this paragraph becomes:
“Interest on the reserve asset will be used to pay system costs, ensure low transaction fees, and support further growth and adoption. The rules for the distribution of interest on the reserve asset will be established in advance and overseen by the Libra Association. Libra users will not earn from the reserve asset return."
Comparing the original version of the white paper, we can find that the part "paying dividends to investors (mainly members of the Libra Association) who provide funds for the startup ecosystem" has been deleted.
So why delete the dividend mechanism? We think there are two main reasons:
1) Due to regulatory pressure, avoid the attributes of securities
In the United States, it is against federal law to issue unregistered securities. The U.S. Supreme Court’s current criteria for judging whether a financial product is a security is mainly based on a test called Howey Text, which mainly scores a blockchain project from three aspects: investment currency, joint venture, and expected profit. The higher the score, the closer the tokens and securities issued by the blockchain project are. Once a certain token is recognized as a security, it needs to be subject to the same strict supervision as securities, and the issuance threshold is much higher, and once the issuer does not meet the qualifications, it will also face serious legal risks.
Although the Facebook Libra project firmly stated that Libra is not a security, the initial version of the white paper described that initial investors (mainly members of the Libra Association) can receive investment dividends. This regulation inevitably makes Libra have the "securities attribute" suspected. Once Libra is legally recognized as a security, its issuance will face more regulatory obstacles and even be defined as illegal. Therefore, a large part of the reason for Libra’s deletion of the dividend mechanism is to avoid investors (mainly members of the Libra Association) having a profit motive, thereby avoiding the securities attributes of Libra tokens, and avoiding excessive regulatory troubles.
2) Return to the original intention of stable currency and win the trust of ordinary users
The initial setting of Libra is a stable currency, which is used for mobile payment. As a stable currency, it must ensure the stability of value. But the original Libra white paper involved two financial products: one for initial investors (mainly members of the Libra Association), who will receive "Libra investment tokens"; Get "Libra Tokens".
For investors, "Libra investment tokens" are investment dividends, so they must be pursuing higher investment returns; for ordinary people, "Libra tokens" are stable coins, and they are pursuing more stability of value. If the "dividend mechanism" is added, investors will include high-risk investments into Libra's reserve basket in order to pursue higher investment returns. Once the reserve assets are at risk, users' trust in Libra tokens will decrease. Without trust, users will also decrease, and problems will arise in the construction of the Libra ecosystem.
Therefore, based on the original intention of "stable currency", deleting the dividend mechanism is more appropriate to Libra's original setting.
For a long time, the entire industry has paid great attention to the Facebook Libra project. But recent revisions to the white paper don't seem to have made much of a splash. Is the official deliberately keeping a low profile? Or has the popularity of this project in the circle faded? Here we prefer to believe that it is the first reason, that is, the official can keep a low profile. Since the release of the white paper, Facebook Libra has been at the forefront of regulation. The white paper has been revised again and again. It is safer to keep a low profile if the regulation is not satisfied.
3. The Filecoin testnet is online. What does it have to do with the recently popular IPFS?
On December 12, the Filecoin test network was finally launched, and the underlying protocol IPFS it uses has also become a topic of interest in the industry.
Let's introduce Filecoin first:
Filecoin is a decentralized storage network (Filecoin blockchain), which uses a brand-new algorithm (proof of work). This algorithm is simply: the amount of data stored by the mining machine determines the computing power of the mining machine. Force size. In other words, the more data you store, the greater your contribution to the system, the greater your computing power, and the more Filecoin rewards you get. When a Filecoin mining machine is first connected to the system, the computing power is zero, and as the stored data increases, the computing power will continue to increase.
The Filecoin network includes miners and users. Miners contribute to the overall network by providing storage space and network bandwidth, while users pay for storage space and network bandwidth. The Filecoin network acts as a resource trading market.
Next we introduce IPFS:
IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) is a globally oriented, peer-to-peer distributed version file system. The Internet uses distributed hash tables to solve data transmission and positioning problems, and changes point-to-point single-point transmission into P2P (multipoint-to-multipoint) transmission.
Different from the current HTTP domain name-based address, the principle of IPFS replaces the domain name-based address with a content-based address. That is to say, what we are looking for is no longer the domain name of a certain address, but the content stored in a certain address. Therefore, there is no need to verify the identity of the sender, but only the hash of the content, which can make the web page faster, safer, more robust, and more durable.
The relationship between Filecoin and IPFS:
Filecoin is a decentralized storage network (Filecoin blockchain), and IPFS is its underlying protocol. We can understand Filecoin as a project on IPFS, just like the blockchain game "Crypto Kitty" is a project on the Ethereum network.
In addition, Filecoin is the first and most important application of IPFS, which aims to provide strong incentives for IPFS, thereby providing a feasible solution for the implementation and promotion of IPFS technology. In the future, many applications can be built on the IPFS protocol, and many projects like Filecoin will be built on IPFS.
Filecoin is currently in the testnet stage. For non-professionals, the threshold for mining is still relatively high. Here, the editor reminds everyone not to trust any investment advice about new projects so as not to be deceived.
4. Sichuan has become a "paradise" for Bitcoin mining, accounting for 54% of the global computing power
"Go to Sichuan to mine? The world's number one!" Recently, Sichuan has become a paradise for bitcoin mining. According to a report released by digital asset management company CoinShares, Chinese miners control 66% of the world's computing power, and in terms of geography, Sichuan province alone accounts for 54%. Why Sichuan has become a leader in the field of mining, we believe that there are mainly the following reasons:
1) Superior natural conditions and cheap electricity prices
We know that since the main cost of mining is electricity, mines are generally deployed in places with lower electricity costs. Sichuan is rich in water power resources, the river system is well developed, and has abundant hydropower resources. According to relevant data, Sichuan's hydraulic power reached 298.22 billion kwh last year, ranking first in the country. Therefore, abundant hydropower resources have become an excellent location for deploying bitcoin mining machines in Sichuan.
2) There are many blockchain companies and the mining infrastructure is relatively complete
In addition to Sichuan, my country's Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Yunnan and other places also use abundant renewable energy for power generation. However, compared with remote areas such as Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Yunnan, Sichuan has more blockchain companies and blockchain talents, and its mining infrastructure is relatively complete. According to the data from Tianyancha, there are 434 blockchain-related companies in Sichuan, 141 in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and less than a hundred in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. At the same time, Sichuan has 94 blockchain patents, ranking sixth in China.
3) Policies have loosened, and mining may become a new industry growth point
With the rise of the blockchain as a national strategic technology, the original strict mining policy in Sichuan seems to have loosened.
On October 24, Sichuan Province held a seminar on "Sichuan Hydropower High-quality Consumption and Digital Economy Innovation and Development Experiment". Clear the relationship between the energy industry and the development of the digital economy, seize the historic opportunities of the "National Digital Economy Innovation and Development Pilot Zone" and the "Hydropower Consumption Industry Demonstration Zone", form a set of infrastructure that can serve the development of the digital economy, and promote Sichuan High-quality consumption of hydropower.
On October 27, Jiang Yang, the former vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said, "Blockchain involves all walks of life, and its application in the financial field is mainly digital currency represented by Bitcoin. It is suggested that Sichuan should organize forces to study the impact of surplus hydropower on digital The attractiveness of currency-related industries, and strive to achieve breakthroughs in the field of financial blockchain, so as to discover new industrial growth points. Because blockchain is a new thing, the west and east, China and the world are all on the same starting line, "advance research To take the lead. "
