BCH halving night live broadcast: Wu Jihan talks about market opportunities

At 20:19 Beijing time on April 8, BCH ushered in the halving before BTC, which is a big event for the crypto community: first, this is the first halving since the birth of BCH; second, many industry bigwigs participated in the live broadcast, including Bitmain Director & CEO Wu Jihan, BTC.TOP founder Jiang Zhuoer, Bitcoin.com founder Roger Ver, and many others.

On the night of the BCH halving, former Bitcoin.com CEO Stefan Rust hosted the BCH halving night global online live broadcast event. During the event, Wu Jihan talked about his views on the halving, DeFi, the epidemic, etc., and also repeatedly emphasized BCH's mission as electronic cash.

The following is a summary of Wu Jihan’s live broadcast:

01
Views on BCH halving

Question: Jihan, welcome, I know you are very busy, thank you for taking the time. A lot of things have happened recently, COVID-19 epidemic, lockdowns everywhere. I know your Antpool has mined the 630,000th block, which is the first block after the BCH halving, congratulations.

We have a lot of people online today, and we talked about the opportunities of BCH. Jiang Zhuoer shared some good ideas on BCH mining, and Roger shared some opportunities on social networks, and is also trying to connect different communities around the world, including those in less affluent areas. We also heard that many entrepreneurs in the community have some ideas about BCH, such as using BCH for payment, and some people are preaching BCH through meetups and other methods.

We also want to hear your thoughts on the BCH halving. What opportunities exist for the BCH community?

Jihan Wu: I am very excited tonight. This is the first halving since the birth of BCH, which is a big milestone for BCH. Facts have proved that BCH has survived all the ups and downs. People used to worry about BCH crises, but it turns out that BCH is running well. In the future, we will continue to strive for the vision of electronic cash on the global network.

The greatest asset of BCH is the community behind it. This is a global community with passionate people working towards the same goal. We want to build a payment or currency system on the network and promote transactions and applications around the world. We are also steadily advancing our expansion plan. The TPS on BCH is increasing every year, and the technology used in our protocol is also very robust.

These are not empty words. We can see many interesting and high-quality services and projects in the BCH ecosystem. The community is full of innovative thinking, and contains many excellent projects, including games, payment networks, reading applications, protocol development, token issuance services, etc. This is a full and high-quality ecosystem.

I think what BCH is waiting for is a new wave of crypto users. BCH can attract a large number of users and applications into the ecosystem, and applications can attract more users, further promoting the development of the ecosystem. Therefore, I am very optimistic about the future of BCH.

02
BCH future opportunities and new users

Question: What opportunities do you think BCH will have in the future? Where will new community members come from?

Jihan Wu: I think some of the new users of BCH in the future will come from those who are interested in the concept of encryption. They may have heard of the concept of "cryptocurrency" many times, but they don't know what it is. They will try and experience it, download some applications, and buy some cryptocurrencies to understand what it is. I think this "curiosity" will bring a lot of new users to BCH.

When the market is in a bull market, the market's curiosity about cryptocurrencies will be strong. Cryptocurrency prices will soar, speculators will make a lot of money, and a large number of speculators, new investors, and new users will be attracted.

But every speculative bubble will burst, and every 3-4 years, we will experience a bull-bear cycle. We need to ask ourselves, what can these applications leave for us, and how many users are still using our ecosystem. I think BCH will have a higher probability of retaining users than other cryptocurrencies.

03
DeFi

Question: I know you are very interested in DeFi. What do you think of DeFi? What can the BCH community do to promote the development of DeFi?

Jihan Wu: Blockchain has been a kind of DeFi from the beginning. Blockchain has created a decentralized currency system, which is part of the financial system and has a very beautiful foundation. There are currently 40-50 million crypto users in the world. We need this protocol to allow financial activities to run in a decentralized manner.

DeFi gives global users 100% freedom, enabling them to access financial markets, borrow and lend, and earn interest on savings. I think DeFi on the blockchain is just a matter of time, and we can do more advanced financial transactions.

Question: Do you think BCH should update the protocol more boldly to make it more friendly to DeFi?

Jihan Wu: I don’t think this is a good idea. Updating the protocol will cause controversy and conflict within the community. I think if we want to develop BCH’s DeFi, we shouldn’t make too radical moves on the protocol. By saving time spent on arguing and using it for development, we can develop a better DeFi protocol.

I hope the BCH community will focus on the technical route, make electronic cash, reduce transaction costs, improve scalability, and then we can consider what to do next.

Currently, DeFi on Ethereum is actually a smart contract application. I used to be very enthusiastic about smart contracts. If we can do something that is not so radical and that everyone can accept (updates and upgrades), perhaps we can develop such a smart contract or DeFi protocol.

We don’t necessarily have to change the protocol, which is the most sustainable for the development of the BCH community. BCH has inherited the true "decentralization" concept from the very beginning (because of decentralization, everyone has their own ideas). People have different opinions on many issues, which will lead to conflicts. If we want to achieve our goals, it is best not to cause conflicts within the community.

04
Impact of COVID-19 on BCH

Question: The world is now experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic and people are working remotely. What impact do you think the COVID-19 pandemic has had on BCH?

Wu Jihan: I think the COVID-19 pandemic will end soon. Although the number of confirmed cases in the United States is still around 30,000 per day, the current situation is much better than it was two weeks ago. I think the epidemic will be under control in 3-4 months. Just like previous plagues, humans can eventually defeat the COVID-19 pandemic through technology.

Overall, the crypto market can benefit from this epidemic.

In the past few months, we have seen central banks around the world take a lot of monetary incentives. Many governments have increased the issuance of currency. These already minted currencies are difficult for the central bank to recover, so the basic money supply will increase dramatically. This monetary policy will stimulate the development of those anti-inflation financial assets. Crypto assets are undoubtedly the "safe haven" that these hard assets will choose to enter, so BCH can also benefit from it.

However, if the COVID-19 pandemic continues to get out of control, crypto assets will not be immune to it. Because the purpose of blockchain and cryptocurrency is to promote financial activities, and financial activities are based on production activities. If everyone stays at home and does not work, the crypto market will also be affected. I think only 10-20% of people can work normally at home, and most other economic activities need to be completed in factories and offices.

05
Stablecoins

Question: What do you think about price volatility, not just stablecoins. I heard that Venezuela wants to maintain their purchasing power, but their sovereign currency is very volatile. Compared with the Bolivar (Venezuela's legal currency), Venezuelan people prefer to use more stable assets such as Bitcoin and US dollars.

Do you think stablecoins are a better solution? What are your thoughts on this topic?

Jihan Wu: My answer is very simple. You have already found the answer. Stablecoins can help solve this problem.

At present, there are still very few people using stablecoins in the world. If the number of stablecoin users increases from 50 million to 500 million, the transaction volume may increase 100 times, because the transaction volume is the square of the number of users. I think BCH is more capable of this than other blockchains. The BCH ecosystem includes applications such as Bitcoin.com and Electron Cash.

We have realized that if we want to make stablecoins, we need to develop together with other stablecoins. USDH is a stablecoin on BCH. If USDT wants to be listed on BCH, we will welcome it. It is a win-win situation for BCH for users to use these stablecoins on BCH. It is only a matter of time before stablecoins are exchanged or these stablecoins bring some functions to BCH. Users of these stablecoins will eventually be BCH users.