Why did we write the book "Blockchain 2.0"?

Finance is a very rigorous topic, blockchain is a very technical topic, and the sharing economy is a very philosophical topic. Our view is that "all technologies that are not for practical application are rogue."

The blockchain industry was very lively in 2015, and will be even more lively in 2016. We see that many companies are making various innovations and attempts, and we believe that there will be more than one "unicorn" company in this field. We believe that the companies that will eventually win have the ability to not only know Bitcoin well, but also to know how to build a blockchain with certain characteristics. They need to have rich experience in the industry and know how to apply the blockchain system to a certain industry, which may not even have anything to do with the Bitcoin field. What is important is that they have the ability to create new applications to subvert a certain industry.

We believe that what is important is not the blockchain technology, but its underlying algorithms and design concepts. When studying this technology, I consulted a lot of information, read a lot of debates on blogs, and read articles written by many people, including Melanie Swan's "Blockchain: A Blueprint for a New Economy". To be honest, although we have read the original text from beginning to end, we doubt whether students who want to understand blockchain technology will become more confused after reading it. In order not to make the same mistake, in this book we try to use less obscure technical terms and philosophical vocabulary, and use language that readers can understand to explain the concepts of blockchain technology, Internet finance, sharing economy, and related applications.

If our dear readers know what blockchain is after reading the book "Blockchain 2.0", can find some inspiration from the book, and thus have a deeper understanding of blockchain, think about how to apply blockchain in their fields, and even join us to study the practical applications of blockchain, then our goal will be achieved.

In our book, we use four words to describe the characteristics of blockchain:

Distributed

Autonomous

Contractual

Trackable

In the book "Blockchain 2.0", we use the English abbreviations DACT of the four words Distributed, Autonomous, Contractual and Trackable to represent the characteristics of blockchain technology.

There is a saying that the four characteristics of the Internet are "fairness, sharing, openness, and transparency." The four characteristics of DACT correspond to these four characteristics.

Distributed à Share

Autonomous à Transparent

Contractual à fair

Trackable à Public

Systems implemented through blockchain technology happen to meet these four characteristics.

We will see later that when data is stored in the blockchain system, all transactions are traceable, and each node in the system has a complete copy of all transactions with timestamps, so the data in the system cannot be tampered with.

When our application is based on blockchain, we don’t have to worry about data being tampered with or lost, or errors in transaction results, because all operations are completed automatically by the system. In fact, when using a blockchain-based system, people’s trust in central institutions is replaced by trust in mathematics.

There is a saying in the Bitcoin circle that the rise of blockchain technology has gradually made the currency circle become clearly divided. On one side are the Bitcoin conservatives who are not used to blockchain, and on the other side are the new blockchain factions who do not want to play with Bitcoin.

If I have to choose one, I would choose the latter. However, our ideas may be more radical, so they may not be accepted by the mainstream blockchain community. What we value and study is blockchain technology and the design ideas behind it.

We are the third group that is neutral about Bitcoin but very interested in blockchain technology. Or as we said in the preface, we are the trend group that believes that blockchain technology will lead the trend of information technology in the next 10 years. If we can use blockchain design ideas to transform an industry system, we believe that this is the contribution of blockchain to the industry.

Many articles about blockchain technology mention the concept of "smart contract", as if it is the twin brother of blockchain. However, I have read Satoshi Nakamoto's article from beginning to end for no less than ten times, and not only did I not find "smart contract" or "smart" and "contract", I did not even find related words similar to the definition of "smart contract". It is actually the blockchain researchers and practitioners who link the concepts of "blockchain technology" and "smart contract" together, because they believe that blockchain technology is the best technology to realize smart contracts.

Careful readers will find that DAC, DAO and DAS, which are hotly discussed in the community, are hardly mentioned in this book after reading this book. The author believes that companies, institutions, organizations and communities that are completely implemented through code and do not require human intervention are just dreams that cannot be implemented in the foreseeable future and are not suitable for China's national conditions. What is truly valuable is the application of blockchain technology in various vertical fields.

(Author's note: DAC is the acronym for decentralized autonomous corporation, DAO is the acronym for decentralized autonomous organization, and DAS is the acronym for decentralized autonomous society.)

We do not agree with the concepts of blockchain 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 mentioned in the book "Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy". Blockchain technology as an idea is indeed very mature, but as a distributed technology, it is far from mature and there are still many areas that need to be adjusted. Blockchain 2.0 introduced in the book "New Economy Blueprint" is an application in the financial field, and blockchain 3.0 is an application outside the financial field. In fact, in our opinion, the only relatively mature application based on blockchain technology is Bitcoin, and applications outside Bitcoin will take some time.

In our opinion, blockchain technology is, after all, a mechanism for storing and sharing data. Just like big data technology, it is only a means. What is important is the business logic and business application based on the technology.

Just as when we choose the Hadoop system (Hadoop is a technology for implementing big data) at the bottom of big data, the differences among suppliers are often in efficiency and cost-effectiveness, while whether they can truly generate value depends on what kind of business applications they are doing.

All things are impermanent, and all dharmas are without self. In today's Internet environment, the only constant is change. In the past five years, many innovative technologies have emerged in the field of big data, and the combination of blockchain technology and big data will be a focus of our research in the next one or two years.

The book "Blockchain 2.0" is now available. Writing a book is not our goal, nor is it our original intention to become famous. We just do our best to sort out the context, make the obscure technology easy to understand, and help students who are interested in blockchain, whether they are students who intend to start a business in this field or students in the capital circle, to understand the logic and ideas behind it. We believe that the value of blockchain ideas is greater than the technology itself. We are two uncles born in the 1970s, one has been in the field of technology for many years, and the other has been in the field of finance for many years. This year's Spring Festival is also very hard, without rest, we even typed late at night. Tan Lei types in Shanghai, I type in Nanjing, almost every day we have countless phone calls, and we are still discussing the manuscript late at night.

We would like to thank all the students in the blockchain community for their inspiration, thank Xia Shao from the Electronics Industry Press for inviting us to publish the book, and thank the 37 leaders, friends, and industry elites for taking the time to write prefaces and book reviews for us.

The new book is now available for sale on JD.com, Amazon, etc. We look forward to your comments and hope to be able to really help you.

The two authors of "Blockchain 2.0": Tan Lei - Technical Uncle; Chen Gang - Financial Uncle

(The above photo is of Tan Lei, the author of Blockchain 2.0)

(The above photo is of Chen Gang, the author of Blockchain 2.0)