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After the first round of the Filecoin space race, the market enthusiasm remains unabated, and the second round of competition is about to begin. The market still maintains its enthusiasm for the distributed storage sector, and some investors have turned their attention to mining machine-related test data.
Amidst the cheers, in recent months, there have been reports in Beijing, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou that Filecoin-related mining machine manufacturers have been summoned and their equipment has been confiscated. These incidents are not isolated cases.
It is clear that some potential risks have been overlooked by investors.
In the first half of 2020, IPFS once became the focus of industry attention. As the price of FIL futures continued to rise, the IPFS-related ecosystem is gradually growing stronger.
In mid-September, with the end of the first round of the Filecoin Space Race, many miners around the world were attracted by the competition rewards of up to 4.6 million FIL and participated enthusiastically. Currently, the official is also actively preparing to open the second round of competition, and the market still maintains its enthusiasm for the distributed storage sector.
However, Blocklike discovered that while distributed storage solution providers, existing investment institutions, and individual investors who have purchased cloud computing power are focusing on the competition data of mining machine manufacturers, some mining machine manufacturers are facing regulatory risks.
Blocklike learned from an industry investor familiar with the IDC business that in some areas including Beijing, a certain number of manufacturers' equipment related to the IPFS concept have been seized by the Ministry of Public Security, mainly involving project parties that have issued coins. Beware of potential risks
Distributed storage has been a hot topic in the first half of this year. Just two months ago, Filecoin, a star project in the industry, was in the spotlight and became one of the few directions of large capital inflows in the first half of 2020.
Since the investment logic of distributed storage is clear and the concept is easy to understand, both traditional investors and people in the industry can easily understand and accept it. In the absence of hot spots at the time, various institutions have entered one after another. From the development of the Filecoin industry chain, we can see that Filecoin has formed a complete closed-loop ecosystem, including upstream capital, mining machine manufacturers, project parties, middle-level user groups, developers, and ecological participants, and downstream media, transactions, consulting and other links.
At the Hangzhou Blockchain Week held at the end of July, according to incomplete statistics, there were about 200-300 mining machine sellers participating in the event. During that week, activities held with the theme of distributed storage accounted for 70-80% of all the approximately 40 offline activities.
According to Feixiaohao data, as of September 25, Fil's year-to-date increase has reached 367.04%, with the peak price in July reaching nearly US$28.25.
It can be seen that with the current high popularity of IPFS, distributed storage solution providers, investment institutions with existing layouts, media observing hot topics, and individual investors who have purchased cloud computing power have all focused on topics such as the effective computing power rankings, the number of staked tokens in the entire network, the total computing power of the entire network, and the average block time, while ignoring some of its potential risks.
Coincidentally, when the news that some IPFS-related manufacturers in Beijing had their equipment seized by the Ministry of Public Security leaked out, IPFS mining machine manufacturers in Shenzhen, Hangzhou and other places were also interviewed by the Economic Investigation Bureau in late August. According to Blocklike, the Economic Investigation Bureau had interviewed IPFS-related companies in Hangzhou earlier, and some mining machine manufacturers had to change their office locations after the interview.
According to experience, when facing domestic supervision, IPFS/Filecoin mainly follows two principles: 1. Whoever owns the node is responsible; 2. Whoever distributes it is responsible.
The above-mentioned insider told Blocklike: "The stigma of IPFS is still very strong. There have been many scams under the concept of IPFS. Some regulatory actions may be due to concerns about these previous scams. It may also be that some companies have over-marketed."
Another investor from the industry believes that the main reason why some IPFS manufacturers were interviewed was because of "issuing coins" or "involving coins". In fact, in order to prevent and control fraud cases related to related concepts, certain time points every year become the focus of prevention and investigation by regulatory agencies.
In fact, in the field of IPFS, negative brand information and policy risks have always been one of the issues that investors are concerned about.
It is undeniable that since 2017, when the Filecoin test network had not yet been launched, words such as "Filecoin" were once used by lawless persons to commit fraud. In the early days, there were even fake mining machines everywhere and Ponzi schemes were rampant. As a result, the concept of IPFS once appeared at the same time as fraud cases such as Ponzi schemes, which has also had a negative impact on Filecoin. Lawyer's opinion
Blocklike contacted Chen Yunfeng, a senior partner at Zhonglun Wende Law Firm. His opinion is: "There are many pyramid schemes under the banner of IPFS. In name, they are mining, but in fact, they are using this as an excuse to issue a large number of projects in a wide range."
Lawyer Chen Yunfeng said: "If it involves a police interview, it is mainly to investigate in advance and ask the other party to explain, such as the company's address, organization, personnel, business type, operation method, etc. The person being interviewed needs to "prove his innocence". If your business has crossed the line, then it may be cleared. For the impact on the legal person and his company, if it is a company operating in compliance with laws and regulations, there will be no major problems; if it is indeed a virtual currency, pyramid scheme, fund-raising fraud, etc., it may have more serious consequences. It is recommended that practitioners pay enough attention to this situation."
Since first- and second-tier cities such as Beijing, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou have well-developed information technology, there are a large number of related companies and institutions and the scope of involvement is wide, the impact of many incidents may also be relatively large.
Ni Can, a lawyer at Beijing Yingke (Hangzhou) Law Firm, has a lot of experience in consulting in the blockchain field in Hangzhou. He currently understands the situation: "Based on my understanding of IPFS-related businesses, the business itself involves virtual currency and mining machines, which are strictly regulated in terms of policies and laws. It is normal for regulatory authorities to take precautions against this. At present, from the business chain, from selling mining machines to selling cloud storage or cloud computing power, some may even involve private placement or futures. If it is simply related to the sale of mining machines, the criminal legal risk is still relatively small, and the business fault may involve civil disputes such as false propaganda and returns. However, if it involves cloud storage, futures and other businesses, there may be risks of illegal operations. There are also some people in the market who use the name of IPFS to make capital and fraud. Of course, there is no doubt that they involve criminal crimes."
As the concept of distributed storage continues to heat up, Blocklike would like to remind all investors that they should maintain risk awareness when investing in Filecoin mining machines and improve their ability to discern information about mining machine manufacturers to avoid losses. Source: Blocklike |
