Di Gang, deputy director of the Central Bank's Digital Currency Research Institute, talked about the concept, innovation and 3.0 new ecology of the blockchain (full text of the speech is attached)
Editor's Note: This article comes fromNakamoto shallots, Odaily is authorized to publish.
Editor's Note: This article comes from
Nakamoto Shallot (ID: xcongapp)
Nakamoto shallots
, Odaily is authorized to publish.
On November 8, the "2019 Trusted Blockchain Summit" co-sponsored by China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, China Communications Standards Association, and Trusted Blockchain Promotion Plan was held in Beijing.
Attendees of this summit include leaders of relevant domestic authorities, as well as leading experts, scholars and project parties in the blockchain industry at home and abroad. There are more than 1,000 participants. After learning the blockchain), an important event in the blockchain industry.
Di Gang, deputy director of the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China, attended the summit and spoke as a special guest. During the period, he expressed his unique views on the basic concepts of blockchain and digital currency, the essence, innovation and application of blockchain technology. Xiaocong participated in this meeting and sorted out the main points of his speech (as follows).
First of all, Di Gang emphasized the need to raise awareness of the concept of blockchain and its essence. He pointed out that the blockchain is essentially an integrated innovation of various traditional technologies such as cryptography, peer-to-peer networks, and consensus mechanisms. Can't and can't", take the essence of the blockchain and avoid the shortcomings.
In terms of technological innovation of the blockchain, Di Gang believes that "innovation with joint efforts" is required. In terms of performance improvement, he believes that blockchain should explore improvements from two aspects: network and computing; in terms of scalability, blockchain should mainly explore improvements from two aspects: architecture design and cross-chain interoperability; security and controllability On the one hand, the current privacy protection algorithm and the future anti-quantum cryptography are the keys to the application.
Finally, Di Gang pointed out that the blockchain should serve the entity, and iteratively integrate and play an improved role in pragmatic innovation. ecology".
According to Di Gang, at present, with the support of the state, the Central Bank’s Digital Currency Research Institute is working with relevant parties to create a “2+2+1=1” ecosystem, that is, to study a set of theoretical systems and formulate a set of business standards , Break through the key technologies of the blockchain, solve the problem of data controllable sharing, create a symbiotic application platform, and finally form an ecosystem with the model of co-construction, co-management, and co-governance. Realize the three major capabilities of "inclusive docking", "controllable sharing" and "peer-to-peer interconnection", and create a financial infrastructure with open trade and financial ecology, penetrable supervision and credibility.
Di Gang also revealed that the Central Bank’s Digital Currency Research Institute has signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Hong Kong Trade Linkage Platform under the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to open the cross-chain between the central bank’s trade finance blockchain platform and Hong Kong’s first cross-bank trade linkage blockchain platform Butt work. The central bank's trade finance blockchain platform was successfully launched in Shenzhen on September 4, 2018. As of the end of October 2019, 29 banks participated in the promotion and application, with 485 outlets, and the business volume was about 75 billion yuan.
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Di Gang, deputy director of the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China
Dear Chief Economist Wang, Chairman Shang, leaders and guests, good morning!
Thanks to Dean Liu for the invitation. It is a great honor to have an exchange with you at the 2019 Trusted Blockchain Summit. Here, on behalf of the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China, I would like to extend my warm congratulations to the convening of this summit!
All of you here are experts in blockchain, especially after listening to the speeches of several leaders just now, I was deeply inspired and gained a lot. Yesterday we just participated in the Hong Kong Financial Technology Week. Blockchain technology is a hot topic in the Technology Week. We communicated with some experts in the same field and signed a cooperation agreement with the Hong Kong Trade Linkage Platform under the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Memorandum to start the cross-chain docking work between the central bank's trade finance blockchain platform and Hong Kong's first cross-bank trade linkage blockchain platform.
The central bank's trade finance blockchain platform was successfully launched in Shenzhen on September 4, 2018. As of the end of October 2019, 29 banks and 485 outlets participated in the promotion and application, with a business volume of about 75 billion yuan. I would like to take this opportunity to share with you some of my understanding and experience of blockchain through practice:
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One is to raise awareness and clarify concepts.
First of all, it is necessary to raise awareness, deeply understand the essence of General Secretary Xi's speech, and attach great importance to the development of blockchain technology.
Blockchain technology has now developed into an independent technology and has become a strategic frontier for countries to compete for layout. After the United Kingdom, Germany and other countries raised the blockchain to a development strategy, on October 24, 2019, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized during the 18th collective study of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee that "it is important to use the blockchain as a core technology for independent innovation." breakthrough". In recent years, blockchain has gradually become a popular technology in the field of financial technology with its unique trust establishment mechanism, which helps to improve the efficiency of collaboration among multiple social entities, reduce business friction costs, and optimize the allocation of social resource elements. It has realized the huge potential of accelerating my country's digital transformation and stimulating the development of the digital economy.
Secondly, the concept must be clarified. "Coin" and "chain" should not be confused.
Once again, it is necessary to maximize strengths and avoid weaknesses, and to extract the essence of the blockchain and avoid shortcomings.
At the expense of synchronous storage and joint computing of a large amount of redundant data, the blockchain sacrifices system processing efficiency and some privacy. It is not suitable for highly concurrent payment scenarios such as retail payments. It is also necessary to pay attention to the privacy protection of business information and personal data. ; but with the technical advantages of collective maintenance, multi-party collaboration, traceability, and credible sharing, it is expected to explore multi-party co-construction systems in public service fields such as certificate deposit, confirmation of rights, and trade finance, break information islands, and accelerate data. Trust sharing, reshaping the multi-party collaboration mechanism. Therefore, we need to find the right application scenarios. We can’t catch up with technological trends for the sake of blockchain and blockchain. We must correctly understand the applicable scenarios of blockchain technology. Not all projects need blockchain, nor are all data All need to be on the chain. Blockchain technology itself has neutral characteristics. What kind of technology is used, the first thing to consider is the problem to be solved. Before adopting blockchain technology, first think about what will happen without blockchain, and whether there is a lower cost and better effect. technology. The use of blockchain technology will bring new benefits. Many cases now do not use a single technology. Blockchain is often used in combination with other technologies or used in local scenarios to address different problems. Practice has proved that the mixed use of different technologies can achieve the best comprehensive effect.
Finally, it is necessary to advance pragmatically. The blockchain is not a vanity project that can be accomplished overnight.
It is undeniable that from its birth to the present, the blockchain technology, which has been developed for ten years, is still in the early stage of development and faces many challenges in terms of efficiency, security, standards, and compliance. Therefore, we neither overestimate its current role, nor underestimate its future potential. Instead, we should think calmly and devote ourselves to practice, how to let the blockchain resolve the pain points of the industry, and let the blockchain deeply serve the real economy. From the perspective of implementation path, blockchain is a complex system engineering with systematic, long-term and complex characteristics. We often encounter questions such as "Are there any system loopholes in engineering implementation?" "How does the on-chain and off-chain data match the facts?" Therefore, we should objectively understand that there is no technology that can conquer the world. The same is true for the blockchain. We should comprehensively consider the requirements of multiple dimensions such as market development, risk control, and legal compliance. On-chain and off-chain linkage, technology and business integration, Pay equal attention to innovation and management, and give full play to the digital empowerment potential of blockchain +.
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The second is to focus on technology and work together to innovate.
In 2019, with the cohesion, joint innovation and joint efforts of all sectors of society, blockchain technology is continuously promoting the iterative update of technology around the three aspects of "performance improvement", "scalability" and "safety and controllability".
In terms of performance improvement, the blockchain explores improvements from both network and computing aspects.
First talk about network optimization.
As we all know, the blockchain uses an end-to-end network communication mechanism, and the delay jitter of the network will significantly affect message delivery and data update, which is a key indicator affecting the performance of the blockchain. Therefore, the industry realizes the "cost reduction and efficiency increase" of network communication from the aspects of message compression and reducing the scope of message broadcasting, and improves the performance level of the blockchain.
Next, let's talk about computational improvements.
On the one hand, the performance of the blockchain is mainly limited by the execution efficiency of transactions. The low efficiency of transaction execution is closely related to the sequential execution of smart contracts and the limitation of computing energy efficiency. At the same time, the current CPUs are all multi-core CPUs, and smart contracts do not give full play to the computing advantages of multi-core CPUs. Therefore, the industry is researching the parallel execution framework of smart contracts, giving full play to the computing performance advantages of multi-core CPU and cluster architecture, and improving the execution efficiency of transactions. On the other hand, the industry further improves the transaction processing performance and universality of the blockchain platform by selecting a simplified instruction set, designing a new smart contract language, and adopting a compatible and efficient bytecode format.
At the level of architecture design, on the one hand, through the micro-service of node functions, in addition to the flexible combination and replacement of functional modules such as cryptographic modules, consensus algorithms, and virtual machines, it can also be horizontally expanded for performance bottlenecks, so as to provide nodes. Features and performance provide the advantage of scalability. On the other hand, the centralized and distributed hybrid architecture has attracted more and more attention from the industry, and the integration of random verification functions and other characteristics has gradually derived the research direction of layered network and hybrid consensus;
At the level of cross-chain interoperability, the interconnection and interoperability between multiple chains is the focus of attention in 2019. At present, most of the mainstream cross-chain platforms adopt the relay method, mainly for the access and intercommunication of isomorphic chains. The cross-chain interoperability between heterogeneous alliance chains is progressing slowly. After all, the programming language, system interface, and smart contract execution logic are inconsistent. Compared with the cross-chain interoperability of the isomorphic alliance chain, the cross-chain of the heterogeneous alliance chain is still full of challenges, and more breakthroughs are expected in the future.
In terms of security and controllability, the current privacy protection algorithm and the future anti-quantum cryptography have become the key factors for the application to be implemented.
The blockchain avoids the problem of single point of failure through the high redundancy of data. Any node is equal. If there is a failure, data synchronization can be performed by re-connecting to the system without worrying about data loss. However, a high degree of information redundancy will bring great challenges to the protection of personal privacy and business secrets. On the one hand, through zero-knowledge proof and multi-party secure computing to solve the problems of data cross-comparison and aggregation utilization, commercial applications can be truly implemented; on the other hand, with the advent of Google quantum computers, how to develop commercially available anti- The quantum cryptography system is also the focus of our attention.
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The third is service entities and iterative integration.
Taking the central bank's trade finance blockchain platform as an example, trade finance is a low-to-medium frequency transaction involving multiple subjects and links, and mutual trust and sharing is required, especially for cross-border business. Features are a natural match. Trade finance is also constantly innovating.
The 1.0 stage is a systematic and digital stage, and the business process is online, which is a "manual moving" process, and risks are mainly controlled offline;
The 2.0 stage is a platformization stage, centering on a single application scenario, building a platform based on the blockchain, and at the same time achieving risk prevention and control online. At present, many enterprises are in the 2.0 stage. However, new problems have been encountered in the 2.0 stage. There are blockchains in every scene, and there is a lack of standardization. The internal information islands of each chain are solved, but new information islands are formed between chains.
Therefore, we need to work together to create a 3.0 ecology. With the support of the state, the Central Bank Digital Currency Research Institute is working with all relevant parties to create a "2+2+1=1" ecosystem. What is "2+2+1=1"?
The first "2" represents two sets of soft systems, constructing a set of digital economic theory system and a set of standard specifications. The theoretical system mainly studies the causal and related models of technology supply and business output. Through the standard system, business can be carried out Abstract and form the greatest common divisor, realize real business optimization and process reengineering, and fully enjoy the digital dividend.
The second "2" represents the formation of two sets of hard breakouts.
A hard breakthrough is to thoroughly implement the instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping, use the blockchain as a breakthrough for independent innovation of core technologies, and carry out technical breakthroughs and original innovations around key technologies such as high-throughput, cross-chain interoperability, digital identity, and privacy security protection. innovation breakthrough;
Another hard power breakthrough is to build a public data service bus around the secure integration and cross-validation of multi-source heterogeneous public data, and comprehensively apply multi-party secure computing, zero-knowledge proof, and homomorphic encryption to improve the efficient use of public data.
On the basis of two "2", superimpose a "1", that is to build an open platform, support different application development, and finally work together to form a "1", that is, to jointly create a complete ecology. Focusing on the three goals of "information penetration", "trust transferability" and "credibility sharing", technically support regulatory implantation and risk warning, and put the core documents and key processes of trade financing business on the chain, so that both parties to the trade And any intermediate participant can quickly obtain real information, with the characteristics of cross-validation of trade data, data cannot be tampered with, and business lifecycle management. Realize the three major capabilities of "inclusive docking", "controllable sharing" and "peer-to-peer interconnection", and create a financial infrastructure with open trade and financial ecology, penetrable supervision and credibility.
To sum up, it is to study a set of theoretical systems, formulate a set of business standards, break through the key technologies of the blockchain, solve the problem of data controllable sharing, create a symbiotic application platform, and finally form an ecology with the model of co-construction, co-management and co-governance system. The day before yesterday, we signed a memorandum of cooperation with the trade linkage platform of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to officially start the international docking work of the central bank's trade and finance platform, and jointly move towards the 3.0 ecologicalization.
Comrades and friends:
The current era is not only a period of challenges without major changes in a century, but also a period of opportunities that are rare in a century. It is the basic requirement of governments at all levels to have a certain insight into technological development and forward-looking technology layout. The overall work arrangement of the bank undertakes the research and development of the national legal digital currency, and focuses on the innovative development of financial technology. Since its establishment, the Digital Currency Research Institute has continued to strengthen its theoretical research and business exploration capabilities in digital currency and financial technology, and has become the world's first official institution to research and develop digital currency.
ladies and gentlemen:
