Through the epidemic: blockchain

Author | Hashipai - Adeline

Article word count: about 2800 words

Reading time: about 3 minutes

The beginning of 2020 was not very good. The outbreak of the new coronavirus has become a public health emergency that has attracted close attention at home and abroad. The constantly updated data on the epidemic situation has touched everyone's heart.

Due to the epidemic, the Spring Festival holiday has been extended again and again, most companies have stopped working, and all industries have been affected to varying degrees...

Among them, the blockchain industry is not immune, so this time we plan to talk about the mixed feelings in the blockchain industry behind the epidemic.

Impact on the blockchain industry

Miners out of business

As a physical industry in the blockchain industry, miners are the first to be hit in this turmoil.

On the evening of February 4, Jiang Zhuoer, the founder of Litecoin Mining Pool, posted on Weibo to share the current situation of the mining farms. He mentioned in his Weibo that under the epidemic prevention and control, the front-line mining farms were affected, transportation and supplies were cut off, and the mining farms were without power.

As the nationwide prevention and control measures to combat the epidemic were further tightened, he posted another complaint on his blog two days later, with some harsh words, saying that the remote mine that had never stopped working and had no personnel movement was inexplicably shut down .

Image source: @江卓尔 Weibo text

This feeling is understandable. Logically speaking, mining should be an industry that is not easily affected by the epidemic. As long as the mining machines are not shut down and the network remains stable, normal operations can be guaranteed without too many staff. However, under the strict epidemic prevention work, mines in remote areas have also been affected and shut down.

F2Pool COO also made similar remarks during the live broadcast of Lieyun Finance, saying that in some places mining farms were directly shut down and operation and maintenance personnel were laid off, while in some places there were only outflows and no inflows, which was an overreaction.

Mining machine eats dust

But if the miners are only affected for a short time and will get back on track after resuming work for a period of time, then the impact on domestic mining machine manufacturers may be more far-reaching.

Earlier, mining machine manufacturers were betting on the halving.

For now, the market has arrived as expected .

But the mining machines have not been shipped yet .

The sales volume of mining machines is directly linked to the market conditions. Since the beginning of the year, the market has been developing in a positive direction. At the end of January, the Antminer S9 that had been shut down across the board was operating again, and the computing power of the entire network continued to grow. This was a good time to ship mining machines, but the epidemic broke out at this time. The delayed resumption of work brought about a domino effect. The manpower and material resources needed to produce mining machines were insufficient, and the subsequent sales, logistics, and after-sales links were also delayed.

It is reported that on January 31, Bitmain, Canaan, Shenma and other large mining machine manufacturers all announced to postpone the production, delivery, after-sales and other time. According to the forecast of F2Pool COO, the time between the holiday and the holiday was originally 20 days, but now affected by the epidemic, it is very likely to be postponed until March. This makes most customers more cautious in placing orders.

The domestic mining machine manufacturers have been under imaginable pressure due to the failure to seize the flood season and the impact of the halving and the epidemic.

Marketing on hold

As for most blockchain enterprises which are Internet companies , the characteristics of Internet companies allow them to work remotely from home, and the losses caused by delayed resumption of work will be much smaller . Employees complete their daily work in front of computers and hold online meetings in WeChat groups. Many tasks that can be done remotely can be completed as usual.

However, offline marketing activities are crucial for digital currency investment companies to raise funds and invest in digital assets. Under the epidemic, the frequency of domestic high-speed rail and other public transportation has been reduced or even suspended, the demand in the international aviation market has dropped sharply, and some countries have imposed restrictions on the entry and exit of domestic citizens. Nowadays, many offline activities such as activities and summits of blockchain companies have to be postponed or even cancelled.

Jason Wu, founder and CEO of non-regulatory crypto lender DeFiner, said he had canceled several meetings with domestic Chinese clients due to the outbreak and was making other plans.

Price increase

Despite the resumption of work, the epidemic has not disappeared. It will take quite some time before the epidemic is completely controlled and panic is eliminated.

But there were also positive effects during this period - the risk aversion caused by the epidemic contributed to a further rise in the price of the currency.

On February 10, Bitcoin once broke through the 10,000 yuan mark. USDT, which has been at a negative premium recently, also saw a positive premium of up to 1%. In the first 40 trading days of this year, it had a significant increase of over 36%, far outperforming all other traditional financial assets.

The market generally believes that this rapid rise is due to fundamental news. First, Bitcoin has become a safe-haven investment option amid the US-Iran conflict. Second, the coronavirus has exacerbated investors’ panic to a certain extent.

According to a survey conducted by Bitwise Asset Management and ETF Trends earlier this year, blockchain institutional investors planned to more than triple their Bitcoin holdings in 2020 compared to last year.

Also due to the impact of the epidemic on mining, the computing power has not increased significantly. Wang Xin, head of the market of WhatsMiner manufacturer MicroBit, said: "The market situation coincides with the halving of Bitcoin block rewards. The dual factors are affecting the maintenance of mining equipment and the delivery of new mining machines, so the resumption of growth in the computing power of the Bitcoin network may be delayed for some time. " In this regard, F2Pool said in a Gyro Q&A that "the recent computing power growth rate will not be too fast, which is good for old miners. The difficulty will not increase too fast. Mining more Bitcoins before the halving will bring considerable profits. "

Reopening

The road to returning to work for blockchain employees has been full of twists and turns. For this reason, we have compiled a list of recent work resumption schedules for some blockchain companies.

Work resumption of some blockchain companies

This can't help but remind people of the self-mockery of netizens during the Spring Festival:

I woke up from a nap the day before yesterday and found that there are still 5 days left in the holiday.

I woke up from a good sleep yesterday and found that there are still 7 days left in the holiday.

After a good sleep today, I still have 13 days of vacation.

I really don't dare to sleep anymore...

Today, many blockchain companies have started to operate again. Take Bitmain as an example. On its official website, the T17, S17 and other popular mining machines that were originally marked as sold out have now started selling futures. Among them, the delivery time of T17 is from March 21 to March 31.

Image source: Bitmain official website

In this regard, miner Chen Lin (pseudonym) told us that although the delivery time was late as expected, it was better than being sold out indefinitely.

In fact, compared with the real industry and service industry, most blockchain companies as Internet companies have been limited in their impact. For example, thanks to the distributed office model that Binance has always adopted, the work content and arrangements of most Binance employees are not affected.

As the tide of resumption of work approaches, companies in the blockchain circle are also making full preparations for the return of employees. Taking Huobi Group as an example, Huobi established a "New Coronavirus Epidemic Response Team" as early as January 21, and equipped it with corresponding epidemic prevention tools in a timely manner. "In addition to checking body temperature, we mailed medical masks to Hubei employees and their families at the beginning of the outbreak."

Blockchain people in action

Putting aside the impact of the epidemic on the blockchain industry, blockchain people have never been bystanders of this epidemic.

On New Year’s Eve, in a blockchain peer group, we saw a video of a transport truck with the words “Shenzhen Blockchain Anti-Toxic Charity Foundation donates 50,000 masks” transporting masks to Huaqiao, Hubei.

Image source: Screenshot of a blockchain WeChat group video

Internationally operating blockchain companies have leveraged the advantages of overseas sites. The OK Group purchased medical protective clothing in Japan to support the Hubei epidemic area, and has put it into use in the front-line epidemic prevention work. Digital asset trading platforms such as Binance Charity Foundation, Huobi Charity, and MXC have found supply channels from abroad and donated materials that have arrived in Hubei one after another.

It is particularly worth mentioning that, relying on the openness and transparency of blockchain technology, blockchain practitioners have even created a donation system based on blockchain wallets. Every donation is uploaded to the chain in real time to prevent fraudulent donations, concealment of funds and other scams.

At present, the plan has raised 45,000 USDT (about 300,000 RMB) in public donations and purchased medical supplies from all over the world. Huobi Group and the blockchain charity organization have a 1:1 matching donation plan, with a total fundraising amount of 89,000 USDT (about 610,000 RMB). Binance Fund also paid 500,000 RMB through this channel to purchase 50,000 masks.

Image source: @区块链公益组织 Weibo text

As for when this "war epidemic" without gunpowder will end? We don't have the answer yet. But with the advent of the resumption of work, most companies will resume normal operations. Many people are shouting "Let's start over in 2020", but time has never stopped, and we have to keep moving forward. This epidemic is painful, but it is also worth remembering. The management problems and charity problems exposed by the epidemic are worth our reflection.

How to use technology to prevent evil? Perhaps this is the question that blockchain people need to think about next.