Exploring the secret: Zhou Hongyi once created a virtual currency empire, and 360 Financial executives have been deeply involved in the rights protection

360 Finance just released its financial report. I was browsing on Futu and found a comment:

Could it be that 360 and 360 Finance have also been involved in virtual currency?

Yes, the Red Cannon Zhou Hongyi is not only involved in virtual currency, but also has a comprehensive layout in 2018, and even has the ambition to build an empire. However, all this disappeared with the collapse of the currency price and perhaps Zhou's loss of patience, leaving only a forked altcoin that almost no one pays attention to.

So what does that have to do with 360 Finance?

360 Finance released its financial report and announced the appointment of company director Liu Wei as vice chairman. Liu Wei previously served as chairman of 360 Finance before Zhou Hongyi. In addition to this, what other positions does Liu Wei have?

Yes, it is the consultant of the altcoin BTN mentioned in the above comments.

It all started at the end of 2017. Although 94 had just passed, the price of Bitcoin reached a record high at the end of 2017, and 360 successfully returned to China for listing. 360 smart cameras were criticized by netizens for privacy leaks, and Zhou Hongyi believed that it was manipulated by competitors.

Zhou Hongyi said angrily: He is ready to take out a few bitcoins to reward the "big boss behind the scenes" who is behind the profit chain and black public relations. This is not a big deal, Zhou Hongyi revealed that he is a bitcoin holder.

In fact, Zhou Hongyi is not only a Bitcoin holder, but also an avid supporter. In early 2018, Zhou Hongyi said at the Internet Conference that although blockchain is very popular, there is no scenario where it must be used. If there is a scenario where blockchain application must be used, the only one is Bitcoin.

With Zhou Hongyi's support, 360 began to work on many aspects to try to build a virtual currency empire. 360's involvement in cryptocurrency is the most extensive among Chinese Internet companies.

Business 1: Forking out new Bitcoin: BTN

On January 7, 2018, 360 Financial Blockchain Research Center, Qtum Quantum Chain, and the New Bitcoin (BTN) Foundation jointly announced that they would carry out in-depth cooperation in the field of blockchain underlying technology, establish a blockchain underlying technology laboratory, and promote China's blockchain technology research and development and scene implementation.

BTN has a very domineering name: Bitcoin New, which is also very Zhou Hongyi's style. As a fork of Bitcoin, BTN claims to be China's Ethereum. On January 11, BTN landed on the ZB digital currency exchange and opened BTN/QC, BTN/USDT and BTN/BTC transactions.

In February 2018, BTN released its white paper. At that time, BTN's brand spokesperson was Zhang Yunfan, chairman of the BTN Foundation. Who is Zhang Yunfan? Yes, he is the independent director of 360 Finance. In 2017, Zhou Hongyi invited Zhang Yunfan, the former COO of Perfect World, to come to 360 to be responsible for the game business, and then participated in the work of BTN, and then served as an independent director of 360 Finance for a time.

With the halo of 360, the price of BTN once reached tens of thousands of RMB. However, as the price of the currency fell and Zhou's patience may have run out, BTN came to an abrupt end in mid-2018, and the current price is only 0.04 US dollars. With such a large drop, it is no wonder that some netizens who were harvested that year are still complaining.

Business 2: Blockchain game 360 ​​BlockCat

At that time, cat raising on Ethereum was in full swing, and games were considered the largest application of blockchain and cryptocurrency. 360 also launched 360 Blockchain Cat and put it on its most important product, 360 Mobile Assistant.

As a product that completely imitates Ethereum Cats, 360 claims that "Block Cats" are virtual cats based on blockchain technology. The first batch is limited to 50,000. According to the breeding order, "Block Cats" are divided into generation 0, generation 1, generation 2, etc., among which the first generation is the most precious.

BTN's official telegram community is also holding related activities. If you hold 500 BTN, you will have a chance to get the 360 ​​BlockCat Zero Generation Legend Edition, which is limited to 2,000 pieces.

The ending of BlockCat was naturally a mess. One netizen said in February 2019: The entire team has disappeared for half a year, no emails are returned, the official account is not updated, and there is absolutely no contact or feedback channel. The last article on the 360 ​​BlockCat official account was also stopped on November 23, 2018, with the title "We were wrong!"

Business 3: Virtual currency wallet Dbank

Dbank claims to be the world's first digital asset management service platform, positioning itself as safe and simple, supporting a wide variety of digital assets, and providing functions such as "EOS one-click mapping" and "real-time market and news". On May 18, 2018, the digital wallet Dbank announced that it had exceeded the 100,000 mark in just three days since the new version was launched on the 14th. Dbank was then called the fastest-growing wallet application in the blockchain field this year. By mid-June, the platform was said to have issued two rounds of candies including ETH and EOS, with a total value of nearly 12 million yuan.

Dbank said it received investments from 360 Overseas, BTN Foundation and Great Lakes Capital, while 360 ​​provided technical security support.

Interestingly, in May, 360 Security Guards also disclosed that they had discovered a series of high-risk security vulnerabilities in EOS. As soon as this news came out, EOS plummeted, and most EOS holders still remember it. The person in charge of the EOS network said that the EOS network would not be officially launched before these problems were fixed. The EOS official Weibo also forwarded the Weibo of 360 Security Guards and said that "EOS officials are already fixing the vulnerability."

But some people also believe that 360’s move may be to promote its own wallet application Dbank.

Just five months later, Dbank issued an official announcement and sent a short message to users, stating that the Dbank Group will remove the Dbank wallet APP, official website and all related functions at 23:59 Beijing time on November 16, and the assets in the user accounts (including assets in the digital self-inspection protection plan and assets in the BTN mining pool) must be transferred out before that time.

In the official Chinese group of Dbank wallet, a user has not received a response to the EOS mapping issue, and even said that he would organize a rights protection complaint and submit materials to the Internet financial regulatory department to complain about 360 Company and the Dbank wallet project team.

Business 4: Mining Router

Also in January 2018, 360 officially announced the launch of the mining router, which is the world's first secure shared cloud platform based on blockchain. In principle, it is similar to the current shared CDN products, which share the user's idle bandwidth resources and storage space with others. And 360 cloud diamond rewards will be returned to users based on their contribution capabilities. However, 360 also stated that the cloud diamond trading function for individual users is not open in mainland China.

Business 5: Blockchain Security

On May 25, 2018, 360 released its first security solution for the blockchain field. The solution is based on 360's security big data and combined with 360's security brain, covering four major areas: wallets, exchanges, mining pools, and smart contracts. In the wallet field, Dbank is 360's first strategic partner, and the 360 ​​security team provides Dbank with core security technology.

From coin issuance, wallets, mining pools, games, mining equipment to security, Zhou Hongyi once planned such a huge virtual currency empire, but all of this disappeared with the drop in coin prices.

Zhou Hongyi's interest in cryptocurrency seemed to have disappeared in May 2018. In an interview, he said that 360's current involvement in blockchain is definitely still centered around security.

360's mess is not an isolated case. At that time, NetEase, Baidu, Cheetah and others all launched related products, but looking back now, almost no Chinese Internet company is still working in the cryptocurrency industry.

Bitcoin is called the currency of the Internet age, but Chinese Internet companies have withdrawn one after another after a frenzy in 2018, and there have been no new entrants. This is not a good thing for the cryptocurrency industry. We also hope that more giant companies like Facebook and BAT can truly join in.