肖风香港Web3嘉年华演讲全文：迎接Web3的「1995时刻」
Original source: Wanxiang Blockchain
On April 9, at the closing ceremony of the 2024 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival, Dr. Xiao Feng, Chairman of Wanxiang Blockchain and Chairman and CEO of HashKey Group, published an in-depth observation of the explosion of blockchain and Web3 industry applications. Dr. Xiao Feng believes that Web3 is about to usher in its 1995 moment and comprehensively analyzed the basic framework for the arrival of this moment and the timing of its arrival. In addition, Dr. Xiao Feng released at this carnivalFirst Principles of Web3 New Economy White Paper。
Dr. Xiao Feng believes that the blockchain has gone through the stage from 0-1 and gone through the construction stage of basic protocols and infrastructure. It has been 15 years since the birth of Bitcoin. Next, the blockchain will enter the explosion of applications, that is, from the 1-10 stage. If you want to talk about: Web3s 1995 moment, you need to extend the time and observe when such a great moment begins to arrive from the time dimension of the past two hundred years.
First, the four “technological paradigm revolutions”
In the past 200 years, four important revolutions have occurred in the technological paradigm: The first technological paradigm revolution was mechanization, represented by the British Industrial Revolution, which occurred in the mid-18th century. The second technological paradigm revolution was electrification, which occurred at the end of the 19th century and was an era of electrification represented by electric lights and telephones. The third technological paradigm revolution, Informatization, occurred in the 1920s, with the emergence of computers and the Internet as representative things. It is called the Informatization era.
The fourth technological paradigm revolution is digitalization, which occurred at the beginning of this century. The representative things are cloud technology, blockchain, and AI development. The underlying technology of cloud computing is also distributed computing. Important features of the digital era are distribution, decentralization, and self-organization.
Along with the four technological paradigm revolutions, the financial paradigm and capital paradigm have also undergone great transformation and upgrading.
Second, four “capital paradigm shifts”
In conjunction with the first technological paradigm revolution of mechanization, the Main Street model characterized by consortium capital has entered the main stage of the financial market. Although the famous consortia include Morgan Stanley, Carnegie, Rockefeller, etc., they are no longer in history. Center stage, but theyre all still there. The center of the historical stage With several revolutions in technological paradigms, the protagonists of financial capital are constantly changing.
With the electrification revolution at the end of the 19th century, the Wall Street model featuring financial capital began to become the protagonist in the financial market. Representative companies include Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
In the era of information revolution that came in the middle of the last century, the Silicon Valley model characterized by venture capital began to emerge. I once walked back and forth on the sand dune road in Silicon Valley to count the famous VCs and feel how they have changed finance and the way of financing technological innovation.
The revolution in the digital technology paradigm that occurred at the beginning of this century was accompanied by a new type of financial capital. The so-called crypto capital began to gradually move towards the historical stage and towards the center of the financial market. We call this model the encryption model, such as BTC, ETH, ICO in 2017, and crypto capital such as STO, IEO, RWA, stablecoins, etc. that everyone is currently discussing. These crypto capitals have a common feature, which is a new asset class based on cryptography and distributed ledgers.
Third, the first principle of blockchain: new accounting method
Let’s focus on the development and changes of the past 200 years to the last ten years, and then take a look at the paradigm revolution based on digital technology. Due to changes in the technological paradigm, crypto assets have emerged in the capital paradigm. Cryptoassets are new asset classes and capital models based on distributed ledger and cryptography technologies.
If we look at the blockchain fundamentally, from the underlying logic, essentially, from the perspective of first principles, its first principle is a new accounting method.
Human society has experienced three different accounting methods. The earliest accounting method is the single-entry accounting method, which only records income and expenditure, and each keeps its own account, which is a private ledger.
Later, the double-entry accounting method appeared, which brought assets and liabilities into accounting on top of income and expenses, but it was still recorded in private ledgers.
The blockchain that came out in 2009, as a distributed ledger (DLT), records digital value and network value, and it is no longer recorded on a private ledger, but on an open and transparent global public ledger. All stakeholders keep accounts in one ledger. This is the first principle of the blockchain, a transparent and open global public ledger. All Web3 innovations are based on the first principle.
Fourth, thousand-year changes in accounting methods
In the more than 5,000 years since human society has written records, there have been three iterations or innovations in accounting methods. It can be seen that the thousand-year change in accounting methods is indeed of great value to human society and society.
The earliest single-entry account book existed in 3500 BC. The account book was found on a clay tablet unearthed in the Sumer area. The account book used the single-entry accounting method to record accounts, and only recorded income and expenditure. The double-entry accounting method was born in the early fourteenth century in the northern Mediterranean city-states of Italy. Maritime trade made trade very complicated. After complexity, more complex accounting methods were needed. Ocean trade involves partnerships, borrowing, and taxes. The single-entry accounting method is obviously no longer able to adapt to such a complex new ocean trade. The third accounting method was more than 700 years after 1900. In 2009, with the emergence of Bitcoin and blockchain, there was a new accounting method, a distributed accounting that records digital value and network value. Distributed ledgers can also be said to be an accounting system created by human beings’ digital survival needs.
The book Digital Survival predicts the digital migration of human society in several decades. The distributed accounting method was developed for digital migration and digital survival.
Fifth, the three-layer structure of the distributed accounting system
Any computing system has a three-layer architecture, and distributed computing systems are no exception.
The distributed accounting system first has a set of accounting methods. Double-entry accounting and distributed accounting are both accounting methods. At the same time, there is an account system. Double-entry accounting uses bank accounts to record value, store value and transfer value. The Web3 era has shifted from bank accounts to encrypted accounts. Whether it is Bitcoins UTXO or Ethereums account system, they are all encrypted accounts. In addition to the account system, there are also units of account. The unit of account for double-entry accounting is the legal currency of each country. When it comes to the distributed accounting system, the unit of account becomes digital currency.
Sixth, accounting methods - the basis of economic and social civilization
Accounting methods are of great value to human economy, society, politics, etc., and are the foundation of economic and social civilization. Both economists once discussed that double-entry accounting is the core of capitalism and the basis of capitalist economy and society. If the origin of the political system cannot be recorded, then the capitalist economic civilization system cannot be born, and the corporate system, partnership system, financial market, etc., including taxation, cannot be born.
Taxation is very important to a modern country. To collect taxes from business, one must first settle the accounts clearly. Italian double-entry accounting began in 1300 and has been continuously improved. China was probably during the Ming Dynasty. The Fifteenth Year of Wanli summarized the reasons for the Ming Dynastys failure and mentioned that the Ming Dynasty lacked the ability to manage numbers. At that time, China used a single-entry accounting method and kept running accounts, and its digital management capabilities were relatively less developed and perfect than those in Europe. Accounting and financial argumentation are actually two sides of the same coin. The Ming Dynasty obviously lacked a good bookkeeping foundation for accounting and financial argumentation.
Seventh, the “1995 moment” of the Internet
Back to the topic, welcome the 1995 moment of Web3. This concept was put forward relative to the 1995 moment of the Internet. Almost all the large-scale Internet platforms that are familiar today were born in the ten years from 1995 to 2005, of course, there are some exceptions. We studied this phenomenon in depth and found that before 1995, it was precisely the mature period of the Internet infrastructure architecture.
Maturity is reflected in two aspects: First, the Internet has transferred from the ARPRNet architecture to the World Wide Web architecture, and established the Internet system architecture TCP/IP model.
Second, in addition to the infrastructure being determined before 1995, browsers and graphical operating systems that are very friendly to end users have also been gradually improved, allowing end users to use the Internet well.
The infrastructure of the Internet is certain, and the tools and methods for using the Internet are complete. Therefore, 1995-2005 was the golden decade when Internet applications exploded. Almost all large Internet platforms were born during this time.
Eighth, Web3’s “1995 Moment” (1)
When will Web3s 1995 moment happen? The development process of Web3 has two major supports: one is blockchain and the other is AI.
The earliest blockchain Bitcoin Network was born in 2009, and the earliest AI was born more than 60 years ago. However, it was not until AlphaGo appeared in 2014 that everyone realized that deep learning might be a new path for AI development. The first half of the 2010s was also the period when the two pillars of Web3, blockchain and AI, began to undergo phased transformation.
In 2015, the hot topic discussed in the blockchain circle was the relationship between blockchain and AI. Everyone came to the conclusion that AI is a revolution in productivity, and blockchain is a revolution in production relations. The two are complementary to each other. of.
Ninth, Web3’s “1995 moment” (2)
Moving forward to 2024, we found that the two pillars of Web3: blockchain and AI have each reached a critical moment for the ultimate solution in 2024. There has always been an impossible triangle in blockchain. If you only do things on the L1 basic public chain, deploy contracts directly, and deploy applications directly, then your scalability and performance will not be able to support large-scale applications. At the same time, the gas fee and cost do not support large-scale applications.
The blockchain solves the impossible triangle of the basic public chain through Ethereum sharding. The basic public chain L1 is only responsible for decentralization and security, and scalability and performance are solved through layering. Today Vitalik also talked about solving scalability and performance issues through L2 and even future L3. This proves that the basic architecture and ultimate technical solution of the blockchain have been determined here.
At the same time, the same goes for AI. From the AlphaGo deep learning model in 2014 to the current neural network model, the AI technical architecture has basically established the AI technical architecture through a general multi-modal large model.
When both technical architectures mature in 2024, we can expect that the 1995 moment of Web3 will happen from this year to the next ten years. 2024-2034 should be the 1995 moment of Web3. This is also The best moments of Web3 application innovation.
A large number of disruptive innovations at the application level should be able to support application innovation only after these two basic architectures are determined.
Tenth, disruptive innovation
Speaking of Web3 application innovation, what is the disruptive innovation of the Web3 platform? Everyone says that blockchain is a value network and the Internet is an information network. From the underlying logic of disruptive innovation, the disruptive innovation of the Internet platform, whether you are e-commerce, social networking, Didi Taxi, or Meituan Takeout, in fact, what you do is the same thing, from the lowest and most essential level. From the first principle, they are all about matching information, collecting information, collecting data, accurately profiling, and efficient matching.
The bottom and most essential thing of the disruptive innovation of the Internet platform is information matching, while the most essential thing of the disruptive innovation of the Web3 platform is value matching, creating a virtual world and a digital native world.
In the digital native world, through distributed ledgers, all participants have data sovereignty in their hands and are no longer deprived of it by the platform. Everyone can have their own data sovereignty, and the rights to these data can be carried away.
Then, in the Token economic model, we can share and create value together, and at the same time, we can all create and share value through the stakeholder economic system, instead of having your value deprived by others.
I think from the underlying logic of disruptive innovation, the Web3 platform is engaged in value matching.
Eleventh, Web3 disruptive innovation principles
From the underlying logic, I personally think that the disruptive innovation of Web3 may need to follow the following five principles:
(1) From edge to core. Starting from scratch, from zero to one, rather than transforming a popular product in the Internet era or subverting a popular product. Instead, it needs to start from the edge and slowly develop and grow, and then become the core thing in the Web3 world.
(2) From original to twin. Dont go in the wrong direction, dont go from twin to native. Digitally native things are the basis for disruptive innovation, and only then can disruptive innovation be possible. Any method of using digital twins is to improve marginal effects and is obviously not a disruptive business model innovation.
(3) From nature to manifestation. I often meet people saying that WeChat is very popular, so I want to use blockchain and AI to build decentralized WeChat. Decentralized WeChat does not exist. Socializing is human nature and has been this way for thousands of years. WeChat uses information matching in the Internet era to meet the natural social or essential social needs of others. In the world of Web3, there will definitely not be social tools/social networks like WeChat. Instead, some new tools, new methods, and new models will be used to meet everyone’s natural needs for social interaction. Don’t take these two relationships too seriously. upside down.
(4) Start Web3 innovation from first principles. The so-called first principles are to create a new business model with value matching on an open and transparent global ledger.
(5) The 1995 moment of the Internet not only matured the basic architecture, but also matured browsers and operating systems that were very friendly to terminals, allowing more people to use the Internet. I believe that Web3 is now also interchangeable with terminal-friendly tools such as browsers and graphical operating systems in the Internet era.
Mr. Jiang once mentioned before that the operating system in the AI era may not be a graphics operating system, but a natural language operating system. Therefore, the operating system of Web3 may be based on natural language. This is original, terminal-friendly tool innovation that starts from the native, starts from the edge, and starts from the nature. I believe that the graphical operating system is indeed a product of the information Internet era, and the natural language operating system may be a product of innovation in the Web3 era.
Twelfth, the technical architecture of Web3 application innovation
Innovation at the application level must be based on Web3 application innovation based on the modules and protocol stacks built in the past ten years. What have we done in the past ten years? There is a distributed network, there is Web3.0, and we have built a set of distributed ledgers - blockchain on the distributed network. A set of distributed finance, DeFi, is also built on the distributed ledger.
On this basis, all Web3 application innovations are based on such a network, on the basis of such an accounting system, and on the financial support system, so it is called distributed business.
Thirteenth, Economic Model of Web3 Application Innovation
In the closing speech of the 2023 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival event, I talked about the blockchain application economic model. The economic model of blockchain applications is different from the economic model of blockchain infrastructure. Blockchain infrastructure such as Bitcoin and Ethereum is basically a single-token economic model because it is the basic protocol. But after the application protocol comes out, it can design many more economic models and tools than the basic protocol.
I proposed the three-token model at that time, so I wont go into detail today. The three-token model mainly refers to three types of tokens: first, functional tokens, which are the tokenization of usage rights; second, security tokens, which are the tokenization of ownership; and third, NFT, which are digital commodities and digital tokens. Tokenization of services.
All Web3 application innovations may use one, two or three tokens to build your economic model. The space for innovation is much more and larger than that of technical protocols.
Fourteenth, the integration and interoperability of Web3 application innovation
The bridge between traditional finance and Crypto finance is not only a prerequisite for Web3 technological innovation, but also the result of Web3 application innovation. The integration and interoperability of the two is the future trend.
There are now at least five bridges helping traditional financial markets and Web3 financial markets/Crypto financial markets to connect with each other.
One is crypto asset ETFs.
The second is legal currency stable currency. There were no legal stablecoins before. Now Hong Kong and Singapore are beginning to have legal stablecoins.
The third is, STO. There was a lot of discussion this afternoon about the legal and compliant tokenization of STO equity.
The fourth is, RWA, tokenization of traditional financial assets. HSBC Hong Kong has tokenized gold, and BlackRock has tokenized U.S. Treasury bond funds. These are both RWAs, which build bridges to connect traditional finance and Crypto finance.
Fifth, licensed exchanges. Compliance of exchanges is a major trend. Licensed, compliant, and regulated exchanges can also well connect traditional finance, traditional investors, and crypto markets and crypto asset investments.
Licensed, compliant, regulated exchanges play two roles:
(1) Investment and trading of crypto assets;
(2) Exchange of legal currency and digital currency. For example, at Coinbase, a large number of USDC are issued through the trading platform, which completes the exchange service of legal currency and digital currency.
The above may be the overall framework for complete Web3 application innovation for the next ten years.
