The Bitcoin blockchain will part ways, Libra's suffering will continue, and the 2020 blockchain will enter a critical period

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Blockchain Camp (ID: blockchain_camp)

Blockchain Camp (ID: blockchain_camp)

, Author: Andrew Keys, translation: Wang Yanni, reproduced by Odaily with authorization.

As the managing shareholder of Digital Asset Risk Management Advisors (DARMA Capital), and the former head of the global business development department of the blockchain software giant ConsenSys, I understand the rapid development of blockchain technology and the extreme instability of the cryptocurrency market. There have been deep insights into sexuality, emerging ecosystems, and decentralized cultures. Let me tell you: the blockchain will enter a critical period in 2020, and this critical period will determine not only the future of cryptocurrencies, but also the future of blockchain and the concept of decentralization.

Fasten your seat belts, the thrilling journey is about to begin. Here are 20 predictions for the blockchain space in 2020.

1. Ethereum is now as fast as dial-up internet in 1996 (only 14.4kbps), but soon it will catch up to broadband.

Remember the days of dial-up Internet? Let's go back to 1996: While AOL is quickly becoming a household name, getting online for most people means exchanging tangled lines and hogging phone lines, and even that can only be done in Snail-speed access to limited Internet offerings. With this 14.4kpbs connection, intrepid retail consumers can browse the World Wide Web while transferring data at 1.8kbs per second. Downloading 1M bytes of data took up to 9 minutes. All internet content is text-based, but the web does! Ordinary people can see that this technology will be useful in the future, but few people can predict that the Internet will bring comprehensive social and economic changes to the world in a few years.

Sound familiar? The current blockchain is exactly the same as the Internet back then. 2020 in the blockchain era is equivalent to 1996 in the Internet era. According to Moore's Law, the development of the blockchain will enter an era of rapid development just like the original Internet, and Ethereum 2.0 will be a huge red button that can lead us out of dial-up speed and into the era of broadband speed.

All indications are that virtually every industry and leading enterprise is figuring out how to implement blockchain, governments are scrambling to catch up for fear of being left behind in the race, and now the infrastructure elements are in place for developers to develop , deploy and scale the product. In 2020, we will start to see what a truly decentralized future looks like.

2. Bitcoin and blockchain will eventually part ways

Bitcoin should be honored as the patriarch of the digital asset world. It integrates encryption technology, peer-to-peer network, virtual machine and consensus formation algorithm, which can solve "double spending" and "Byzantine generals problem" elegantly. Nevertheless, the pace of time will not stop. Those Bitcoin supremacists who believe that Bitcoin is the center of gravity for the development of decentralized technology may have a waking hour.

As blockchain reaches a watershed moment in its development, the world will recognize a key difference that enthusiasts are probably already all too familiar with — the difference between Bitcoin, Ethereum, and every other decentralized technology. Bitcoin's ascent to digital gold has been astonishing, marking the beginning of a new techno-economic era. But digital gold is just the beginning.

Gold currently has a market cap of $8 trillion. That's an astronomical number, but for "digital gold" like Bitcoin, it represents the upper limit of the potential market opportunity. Smart contract-based blockchains like Ethereum will digitize the global economy and unlock value across assets and processes. Correspondingly, the decentralized network will also go deep into the most extreme corners of every industry on the planet. We will be able to digitally represent fiat currencies, gold, software licenses, equity, debt, derivatives, credit points, reputation ratings, and even more that we can't even imagine. This is a market opportunity valued at over $80 trillion. Bitcoin is a single special use case. In contrast, Ethereum has an infinite number of use cases.

3. The haze of the global economic recession has not dissipated, and fiat currencies should be vigilant!

For years, the global economy has been clouded by uncertainty. It's no longer a question of "if" but "when" the house of cards will come crashing down with a major impact on the world. Europe may be the first country to experience a recession. Just look at the five largest economies in Europe. Germany's Deutsche Bank is merely on life support. Britain has been destroying the Great Wall for years because of Brexit. France has been in a state of protest. The economies of Spain and Italy are dying. At present, the EU is only a union in name, and the growing divisions will make many countries particularly vulnerable.

As for the US, let me paint two realities for you: In 2020, China and the US finally reached a real trade deal. The U.S. economy is sailing into 2021 with Donald Trump re-elected. The stock market surge phase has another pillar. House of Cards survived another day. If there is no trade deal or re-election, and the global economy is further challenged, the QE frenzy could bottom out and the value of many currencies around the world will face unprecedented challenges. The value of fiat currencies can experience a sharp depreciation due to extreme inflation.

Similar to gold and oil, digital assets are scarce. In the event of a crisis, the digital asset class would serve as a safe haven for the traditional central banking system. This is because the traditional central banking system uses printing to issue money in times of crisis, which devalues ​​the currency.

4. After China’s big moves in crypto and blockchain, the US will have to catch up

In January 2020, a new set of regulations will come into effect, representing the Chinese government’s stance in favor of blockchain technology. Clearly, China is taking action. Countries like the United States, which have been somewhat slow in supporting the development of blockchain in the past, will only be forced to catch up, and the result will bring huge net benefits to the entire industry.

5. We will continue to move towards Ethereum 2.0

Our long-awaited Istanbul hard fork (the final hard fork of Ethereum 1.0) has been successfully deployed. And the delayed Muir Glacier difficulty bomb update is the icing on the cake. Vitalik Buterin has released a blockchain manager for the Beacon Chain, and the march to Ethereum 2.0 is rapidly underway. Proof of Stake Ethereum exists. it's alive! The Serenity roadmap is in full effect. In 2020, Ethereum will quickly pass Phase 0, enter Phase 1 and start the shard chain. Then, the game begins.

Ethereum developers have proven themselves capable of performing miracles. And this decentralized team is now making ambitious strides towards the goals of the roadmap, and this is the most important sign of the future success of the blockchain. To the average onlooker, the upgrade process might seem long and tortuous, but the extra time it takes to develop the network rationally will benefit humanity as a whole. While Web2 was defined by the philosophy of "move fast and break things", Web3 should be guided by the words "do the right thing this time".

6. Layer 2 scaling solutions will supercharge Ethereum

ogre, like onion and other blockchain networks, is all about layers. With the launch of the Istanbul hard fork, Ethereum is moving towards level 2.0 scalability at the first layer. Joe Lubin said at SXSW last year that Ethereum will process millions of transactions per second. It does so through the integration of stable upgrades to the layer 1 network and extensions to the layer 2.

Poon and Buterik's Plasma "blockchain on a blockchain" solution was not only brilliant but prescient, and it gave birth to a whole field of second-layer development. The shard chain may currently occupy a lot of public opinion controversy, but with the development of Celer, Connext and Counterfactual, the state channel will become a huge underground mycelial data network (massive mycelial data network underground), releasing the main chain so that it is not subject to state Weight bondage. Sidechains will quickly process large volumes of low-risk transactions. Payment channels like Raiden will enable instant token transfers, while ZK-Snarks will keep all your data private during transactions. The technology stack is already there, and in 2020 we will witness the birth of 2.0.

Meanwhile, innovations like Plasma's Optimistic Virtual Rollup mean projects don't have to wait for the required transaction throughput to thrive. This is too big. In the past, blockchain scaling has remained a mere theory and hope. This situation no longer exists! The incredible, globally distributed, decentralized Ethereum development team will change the world with technology, and we will all be eternally grateful for that.

• 7. Layers of the Web3.0 stack go live

• A decentralized environment involves more than shards and nodes, as we will realize in 2020. Web 3.0 will be defined by mesh networks connecting smart contracts, file storage, messaging, payment channels, sidechains, oracles, and more. 2020 will see many of the essential infrastructure elements of Web 3.0 go live.

• What is Web3.0? The following is an introduction:

Digitization of all kinds of assets: stocks, bonds, fiat currencies, e-money, loyalty points, software licenses, Beyoncé concert tickets, insurance policies, other derivatives, and many other previously unimaginable assets will all be natively digital .

Automation of agreements: Microsoft Word legal documents will become digitized If>Then>Else computer codes that transfer those digital assets in an unreliable manner, creating entirely new business models such as a An employment agreement that pays by the minute, a work of art that pays an artist a royalty each time it is sold from one owner to another, and one that automatically pays interest to its investors every time rent is received real estate, a feature that distributes revenue among band members whenever a song is played, or the ability to efficiently route an electron to different parts of a microgrid.

Some examples: The Interplanetary File System (IPFS) has shown the nature of data file storage on a decentralized network. Protocol Labs' Filecoin project is built on IPFS to rent users' hard drive space for encryption. The platform is scheduled to launch in March, and the testnet (testnet) has only just launched.

Helium is a mesh network where participants can purchase nodes for under $500 to provide lower bandwidth to IoT devices. Delphi Digital's Tom Shaughnessy recently noted: "Since going live on August 1, 2019, more than 2,130 nodes have come online on the network, covering more than 425 cities, or 90% of the US states. Under Verizon's IoT cost (600KB/year/$12), Helium is priced 99.9988% less than Verizon ($0.00001 for 24 bytes, or 0.024 KB). We should expect the next generation of cell phone service providers, data storers, and any intermediaries to pass A decentralized World Wide Web for this price integration.

Kyle Samani and the team at Multicoin Capital have done an excellent job of mapping the potential Web 3.0 software stack with examples of companies trying to provide solutions. Although it's still early days, we'll see a race for supremacy at all layers of the Web 3.0 stack. A Web3.0 stack might look something like this:

image description

Picture from: Multicoin Capital

• 8. The blockchain landscape is expected to change radically by 2021

• Before 2021, we will have a clearer understanding of whether new layer-1 blockchain networks like Near, Polkadot, Dfinity, and Nervos can make a substantial contribution to the blockchain ecosystem. Competition is good, and I remind everyone that our goal is disintermediation, decentralization, and the commoditization of trust on a global scale, not a brand's agreement to win. That said, the sprint toward layer one supremacy has only spurred the development of Ethereum 2.0, with many competing elements experimenting with new ways of developing the best blockchain products. Who succeeds depends on developers and users.

• Ethereum still maintains the strongest developer engagement by far. Some would argue that the race is winner and loser, but there is so much to be gained from developing this new technology, and cooperation in competition will power everyone. Specialized blockchains for specific needs may also emerge. Emerging competitors in the layer 1 space will have to grapple with Matteo Leibovitz's "distributional quandary," which specifies criteria that new networks must simultaneously meet at launch to generate a monetary premium. They are:

• broad/fair distribution

generate income

upside potential

legal compliance

The biggest challenge is number four. If one VC or many Bitcoin whales own a large amount of network tokens (common in layer 1 "Ethereum killers"), it will be very difficult to convince the SEC that tokens are not securities, which means all these huge investments Just destroys the VC piggy bank.

9. Libra’s misery will continue…

Facebook's Libra will not be live in any form in 2020. This so-called “decentralized wolf in sheep’s clothing” has done a lot to bring blockchain to the forefront of global opinion — which is good, but sometimes bad. But the company is quickly learning that even the best plans, conceived and deployed by billionaires, don't always unfold as planned. When it does go live, Libra will undoubtedly power the education and adoption of billions of people. Farmville and cryptocurrency? Looking forward to it! Until then, however, expect organizations like WeChat, Alipay, and Alibaba to aggressively seek to be first movers in this space, given China’s recent loosening of policies. As we head into another election year in the US, trust in Facebook continues to plateau. If social media proves to be so shockingly problematic, then we can guess what might be going on inside Facebook's version of "social banking."

10. The emergence of trillion-dollar companies marks the peak and end of the third industrial revolution

When the next giant is worth more than a trillion dollars, it will always be a giant. And this company may not even pay $1 in taxes to the United States. This is a classic example of the massive inequalities in value capture in our economy that are only going to get worse. Legacy Web 2.0 companies made billions for bourgeois shareholders by turning individuals into products. With alarming consistency, they leak personal data into the hands of nefarious actors. A growing number of companies break the trillion-dollar mark, a sign that late-stage capitalism is about to enter its take-off phase. After the inevitable collapse, we will face a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spur a proliferation of more equitable, democratized, sustainable business models. Will you be prepared when the time comes?

11. Self-sovereign identity on the web will become a human right

Hacks and breaches in Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 environments are happening on an almost daily basis, so it was clear that something had to change. Projects like the Decentralized Identity Foundation have made significant progress in establishing an open-source standard that will pack trusted decentralized digital identity components into the entire blockchain ecosystem. Blockchain IDs and zero-trust datastores like those created by uPort and 3box will quickly replace the old segregated databases we rely on today. Building this network of trust may be the most important piece of the blockchain puzzle in 2020.

Web 2.0 stalwarts like IBM and Microsoft have recognized the urgency of the problem, and they have allocated significant resources to iterating on their own digital identities. But before the Internet can be truly democratized, self-sovereign identities must be our own. Ownership and privacy of data will soon be recognized as a human right, and self-sovereign identity is the solution to make it happen.

12. CME Ethereum Futures

After Bitcoin futures had options in January, I think it's Ethereum's turn now. CME Ethereum futures will be announced and live in 2020. With a nearly 125-year history of innovation in financial instruments, CME has spawned the two new asset classes mentioned above and digitized the trading process. Following Bitcoin and Ethereum, CME will continue this tradition of innovation, further promote the legitimacy of digital assets, and open the door for mainstream investors and institutions to start the next round of digital asset market growth. Futures and options create a forward demand curve, a necessary precursor to a regulated ETF market. Our asset class, once childlike, is growing up.

13. A billion-dollar DeFi ecosystem is just months away

In the first quarter of 2020, decentralized finance will continue to lead the industry. Over $600 million is currently locked in decentralized finance platforms. The funding figure will top the billion mark by summer. Organizations like a16z are betting big on MKR and Compound’s platforms, while projects like Synthetix, Uniswap, dYdX, and InstaDapp are adding to an active space in the blockchain ecosystem that isn’t quite Depends on the timeline for scaling up. That said, DeFi organizations may have to spend some big legal fees on compliance and lobbying. Just one example: In all 50 states, companies require specific licenses to make loans to retail customers. When DeFi inevitably becomes too large, regulators will regulate it accordingly.

14. The sleeping giant of the blockchain world has woken up — that is the supply chain

Counterfeit goods represent an annual market value of more than $1.8 billion, estimated to grow by more than 10% as production and online sales grow. Household names like Louis Vuitton and Levi's are quietly partnering with leading blockchain companies to perfect proof-of-concept trials to ensure provenance and protect consumers globally. Treum has already demonstrated the value of blockchain-secured supply chain processes for everything from salsa, to tuna, to skincare and more. Now, big box retailer Wal-Mart and international food companies Nestle and Dole are among those jumping ahead. A recent report states that companies in Western Europe alone could save $450 billion over fifteen years by using blockchain-based supply chain solutions, with an overall reduction in operating costs of nearly 1%.

15. Art and music will take the lead in blockchain apps for consumer interfaces

For the art, music, and creative spaces, blockchain's impact will be profound. The Fine Arts Expert Institute (FAEI) in Geneva reported in a 2014 report that more than 50 percent of the artwork it examined was either fake or had the wrong artist's name on it. Blockchain can now solve this problem, I have experienced it myself. This year, I purchased a work entitled "The Human Way" by Vladimir Kush. Payment records, certificates of authenticity, and ownership history are all irreversibly recorded on the Ethereum blockchain using Treum. By this time next year, the process will become more common in people's lives. What makes art an important area for blockchain adoption isn't just the provenance of the artwork. Tokenized ownership and fair business models that are not subject to gatekeepers have captured the attention of the art world. Please pay more attention to the art space.

16. Proof of Work is dying while killing the earth, Proof of Stake is forever.

Maybe retro gaming is catching on, but by the end of 2020 Proof of Work will be seen as Atari and we'll all be getting used to the controls of the new game Proof of Stake. The concept of Proof of Stake was only adopted by Vitalik Buterin and Ethereum in the early days, and now the industry is full of projects that utilize stake-based validators to support blockchain networks. The reasoning behind it is clear: it not only unleashes the speed, security, and scalability trilemma, but it also greatly reduces the burden on the planet -- you know, the one we don't care about anyway. A place to change through the decentralization movement. Proof of work is inherently wasteful, and what's the point of reforming the economic system if it has to come at the expense of the environment? Now is the time to move forward.

17. Regulators will regulate

While expectations for blockchain and the leading tech world may be moving fast, progress by regulators and governments has traditionally been slower. Digital assets have now passed the phase of legislative and regulatory mistrust, and policy at both the agency and legislative levels is being adjusted to unleash the power of the technology and simplify regulation. The U.S. government has acknowledged that virtual currencies will play an important role in the future economy, as seen in the latest directive issued by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in October. In addition, it is well known that the CFTC does not consider Ether to be a security. Other states should follow Wyoming's actions in this regard (13 pro-blockchain laws in total). If there is one driving force that can push the federal government to make progress on this issue, it is not to be left behind by China. 2020 will see favorable policies for blockchain at the state, national, and global levels.

18. The unbanked will remain unbanked — for now

Decentralized finance is a compelling phenomenon with major implications for blockchain and the global economy. But its oft-repeated mantra and its goals are, for now, unattainable. (i.e. 'banking the unbanked' by providing financial services to billions of people who need them most)...why? As it stands, the lending community is siled, and issues surrounding "credibility" mean that those who need it most don't get loans. These issues will certainly be ironed out over time, but during 2020, decentralized finance will continue to grow in a growing but still closed circle. But that's not a bad thing. How about looking at it this way: the industry is already approaching the billion dollar mark, but we're still effectively in beta mode.

19. User experience must be better than Web2.0

Apple's iPhone is the best-selling phone of all time because it's simple and easy to use. Consumers only need to know these two points. While many of us tech geeks are happy to poke around at the various layers of the Web 3.0 stack, appealing to a broad audience requires abstracting everything away from the typical Web 3.0 user experience. This is why highly skilled UI/UX designers are as important to the industry as low-level distributed systems computer scientists these days.

But UX/UI doesn't just mean clean lines and minimal design. From standards to libraries, toolkits, extensions, onboarding, custody and wallet integrations, there is so much behind the scenes that needs to be optimized to show that level of functional simplicity. Rimble is an example of an open source codebase for optimizing user experience for Web3.0 decentralized apps. This is expected to be a major area of ​​development in 2020. The first wave of decentralized consumer apps pushed blockchain to the center of the conversation, but the next wave will be led by projects with a more granular approach to blockchain integration.

20. "If you're in hell...keep going" - Winston Churchill