Huobi.com’s Zhang Jian: The Infancy of Blockchain

Author: Zhang Jian, Vice President of Technology at Huobi.com, Head of Huobi.com Digital Currency and Blockchain Research Center, Founder of “Block”, a leading blockchain query website in China, and Founder of “Quick Wallet”, the first Bitcoin wallet based on multi-signature technology in China. This article is excerpted from Zhang Jian’s new book “Blockchain: Defining the Future Financial and Economic Landscape”.

The Infancy of Blockchain

Recently, many people have asked me what research the Huobi Blockchain Research Center is doing recently, or what applications are more promising?

My answer is basically the same. We are mainly doing research on the basic theory of blockchain and the construction of infrastructure. In general, I think the application or application layer is not the biggest opportunity at this stage. Just like before the real Internet was formed, the network was still fragmented, and it had not yet achieved large-scale interconnection. The basic protocols and facilities were not sound, and there was no opportunity for large-scale commercial applications.

This concept has been very popular recently, but it is not changing that fast. In particular, everyone is discussing the application of blockchain in the financial field, but the financial field has such a characteristic that due to the nature of the industry, it is not changing that fast. So we are mainly trying to do some basic research with various industries. We may also try to promote some applications, which are still in the trial stage. Of course, the financial industry is also our special focus.

Blockchain technology is still in the concept promotion and application trial stage. What problems can it solve? Is it irreplaceable? What will the future hold?

So if we don’t talk about the future, but talk about the present, you will find that there are none or very few. Just like the early days of many disruptive technologies, the most typical example is the Internet bubble around 2000. After the bubble burst, you will find that the Internet is not that magical, just so-so, and even difficult to commercialize itself. In addition, the early Internet was far from being able to influence and penetrate various industries. However, the seeds of truly great Internet companies were also planted at that time.

When a technology invention has not yet reached the point where it can be used in large-scale commercial applications, especially when the infrastructure and popularity are still very immature, it is actually a bit early to put forward many good ideas and believe that a great era is coming. If you think that the expectations for the future can be realized now, this is overheating.

Blockchain technology is evolving

Now many people will ask such a question, Bitcoin can only process 7 transactions per second, how can such low transaction efficiency bring about technological changes? In fact, there is a big misunderstanding here. I remember that in the early days of the Internet, the speed of dial-up Internet access was several kilobytes per second, and it took more than ten minutes to download an MP3. But you can't say that this thing is useless.

If you insist on thinking this way, you will probably miss an era. Because technology is evolving. Many new technologies, especially disruptive technologies, have to go through the stages of growing from weak to strong, from immature to mature, just like when the steam locomotive was first invented, some people ridiculed it for not being as fast as a horse-drawn carriage. But history will soon prove how powerful the power of technological progress is.

In fact, infrastructure or basic research has a wide range. For example, Bitcoin is an open source project with a core development team. They are also working on various improvement or upgrade plans, but it will take some time. More importantly, don’t expect to solve all problems at one level. Blockchain as a whole will expand and develop a rich hierarchical system. Issues such as transaction processing capacity and concerns about the size of data will be resolved.

No technology is perfect from the beginning. When Bitcoin's blockchain was born, its goal was not to solve the problem of transaction speed. The birth of the Internet was also not to solve the problem of information transmission speed, but to connect computers to make the free transmission of information possible. After connecting, you will find that you can use it to do more things, and we need to increase the speed to ensure what we are going to do next.

As a result, the speed of the Internet has increased hundreds or even thousands of times from the initial dial-up network to the current fiber optic transmission. Therefore, the evolution of technology is such a process.

How far are we from blockchain?

As mentioned above, the development of blockchain is still in its infancy, and there is still a long way to go before it can be widely used. I believe that a large-scale explosion of applications will definitely happen in the future, and then blockchain will establish a real advantage.

It is difficult to predict the future, but if we must make a prediction, we can compare it to the process of the Internet from its birth to its development and then to its prosperity. The current development stage of blockchain technology is equivalent to the stage of the Internet in the early 1990s. Since the development and popularization of science and technology are accelerating, this time must be shorter than the time the Internet has experienced.

If you want to know more about the future development and application of blockchain, hurry up and get the new book "Blockchain: Defining the Future Financial and Economic Landscape" produced by Huobi.com and written by Vice President of Technology Zhang Jian!