A brief history of alliance chain development: three stages of "Made in China" alliance chain

Original title: "Three stages of the "Made in China" alliance chain"

Compared with the closed private chain and the difficult supervision of the public chain, the alliance chain is more in line with the requirements of domestic development and supervision. Since 2016, my country has begun to explore and develop the alliance chain, and now the domestic alliance chain has formed a rich ecology. According to the alliance chains that have emerged in different periods in China, this article divides the development of the domestic alliance chain into three stages: focusing on exploring the underlying platform of the alliance chain, the alliance chain began to take off; the Internet giants took the lead, and the emergence of start-ups enriched the implementation and application of the alliance chain; the emergence of BSN broke the isolation between chains, and Changan Chain means another breakthrough in the software and hardware of the alliance chain.

1. The emergence of domestic alliance chains

In September 2015, the US financial technology company R3CEV joined forces with 42 world-renowned banks including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and HSBC to explore the application of blockchain technology in the financial field and launched the first blockchain alliance - R3 Blockchain Alliance. R3 achieves digital collaboration under supervision, connects more than 400 institutions from the private and public sectors, promotes capital markets, global trade and insurance, and proves the feasibility of alliance chains.

In 2016, the Linux Foundation created Hyperledger, which united IBM, Intel, Samsung, Microsoft, Visa, American Express and other organizations, and launched Hyperledger Fabric and other alliance chain underlying development platforms. The alliance chain has expanded the scope of cooperation to include banking, supply chain management, the Internet of Things, manufacturing and production-based fields. Since then, a wave of alliance chains has been set off internationally.

During the rise of alliance chains, domestic alliances that explore alliance chain underlying protocol development platforms have also emerged. In 2016, the China Blockchain Research Alliance (CBRA), China Distributed Ledger Foundation Protocol Alliance (ChinaLedger), and Financial Blockchain Cooperation Alliance (Finance Alliance) were established. The three alliances worked together to compile the "China Blockchain Technology and Application White Paper" to set industry standards for the development of alliance chains.

However, due to the lack of relevant technology and collaboration systems, domestic developers still rely on "imported" alliance chains such as Hyperledger Fabric. In 2017, "domestic" alliance chains began to flourish. In that year, FISCO BCOS was born on the basis of the Golden Chain Alliance open source working group and announced to be open source. This is an early financial-grade alliance chain open source underlying platform in China, and has developed into the largest open source alliance chain ecosystem in China.

Source: 01 Blockchain compiled based on public information

Source: DT Finance

2. Giants take the lead and startups burst with vitality

From 2017 to 2018, the construction of domestic alliance chains entered a stage of vigorous growth. In addition to the alliance chain underlying development platform, such as the open source FISCO BCOS of the Golden Chain Alliance, domestic alliance chain projects have also seen the rise of alliance chain BaaS platforms launched by Internet giants, such as the Ant Blockchain BaaS platform, and emerging teams that provide alliance chain technology output services, such as Funchain Technology.

Giants have a natural advantage in the layout of alliance chains. With the help of the existing rich industrial resources and ecological circles, the alliance chains launched by giants can quickly penetrate into the upstream and downstream of different fields.

Since blockchain technology has a very high technical threshold, it is still challenging for most developers to build blockchain applications directly on the underlying operating system, which has led to the development of Internet giants to deploy second-layer networks through BaaS platforms. In June 2016, Tencent's subsidiary WeBank developed the first domestic alliance chain cloud service Baas for the financial industry; in July 2017, Baidu launched the blockchain open platform BaaS; in August 2018, "JD Blockchain Anti-Counterfeiting Traceability Platform" BaaS was officially launched, and the production, processing, logistics and transportation, retail transaction and other data of raw materials of commodities can be put on the chain.

Source: 01 Blockchain compiled based on public information

In addition, a group of entrepreneurial teams have also begun to emerge, bringing vitality to China's alliance chain. By developing blockchain underlying protocol technology, launching various targeted alliance platforms, and focusing on specific landing scenarios, these teams provide services in the form of exporting blockchain solutions, and continuously broaden the breadth and depth of the alliance chain ecosystem. The service scenarios of the alliance chain have been further broadened to cover digital copyright protection, supply chain traceability, cross-border payment, Internet of Things, medical information sharing and other scenarios.

Source: 01 Blockchain compiled based on public information

3. Rooting in infrastructure and extending to controllable software and hardware

In 2019, domestic alliance chain platforms were already competitive. However, due to the lack of unified technical standards, the data and business of each platform lacked interaction, which led to problems such as high chain building costs and difficulties in promotion and application. In April 2020, the entry of China's independent global infrastructure network BSN (Blockchain-based Service Network) changed this situation.

BSN was initiated and established by six companies, namely, the National Information Center, China Mobile Communications, China UnionPay, China Mobile Financial Technology, Smart Government and Enterprise, and Beijing Red Date Technology. In response to the lack of recognized underlying public infrastructure for blockchain in the industry, BSN has solved the problems of high chain building costs, heterogeneous underlying platforms, inability to interact with data, and difficulty in promotion and application.

On the basis of the domestic "chain" gaining a firm foothold, the domestic "core" has also been put on the agenda. On January 27, 2021, 27 alliance member units including Beijing Microchip Research Institute, Tsinghua University, Beihang University, Tencent and Baidu jointly initiated the establishment of the "Changan Chain Ecological Alliance" in Beijing. Meaning "long-term stability, creating new glory, and connecting the world", "Changan Chain" is supported by the Changan Chain software and hardware technology system, becoming my country's first alliance chain combining independent and controllable software and hardware technologies.

Source: 01 Blockchain compiled based on public information

At present, the alliance chain still faces challenges at the technical level. Performance, interactivity, security and privacy need to be further improved, and related key technologies need to be broken through. The development of the alliance chain is still a long way to go, but we can see an overall positive trend. From the underlying system to the BaaS platform, from giants to entrepreneurial teams, from financial applications to full-scenario applications, from alliance islands to public utilities, from domestic "chains" to domestic "chips". In the future, the alliance chain will continue to deepen and develop in all dimensions.