OKCoin's Xu Mingxing shares blockchain knowledge - Blockchain keynote speech at the 7th Internet Finance and Payment Innovation Conference

In the past two years, Blockchain technology has set off a wave of enthusiasm around the world and has received a lot of attention. At the 7th Internet Finance and Payment Innovation Conference a few days ago, Xu Mingxing, CEO of OKCoin and Chairman of the China Blockchain Application Research Center, hosted the 7th Internet Finance and Payment Innovation Conference and delivered a keynote speech on the theme of blockchain applications.

How the world views blockchain

"Some famous companies and media in the world have highly praised blockchain technology. The Economist once did a cover article saying that blockchain technology is a machine for building trust. Goldman Sachs believes that blockchain technology will be like Silicon Valley in the future, with many miracles happening and a huge impact on many fields. IBM and Andreessen Horowitz have invested in all the top Internet companies in the United States. Their founders call blockchain technology the TCP/IP of finance and give it very high praise. Governments around the world have also invested a lot of resources in blockchain research. Governor Zhou of our central bank accepted an interview this year. In fact, Governor Zhou is very professional and has done very in-depth research on blockchain technology. The People's Bank of China has also established a corresponding department. The British government is the country in the world that currently promotes and supports blockchain technology the most. Their chief economist has issued a report, even saying that blockchain technology is a tool and means for Britain to return to the world's financial center. There are many policies on blockchain technology in the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, etc."

What exactly is blockchain technology?

"In summary, blockchain is a ledger. Each block can be considered as a ledger. This ledger contains a series of transactions, and then this ledger is scattered throughout the decentralized network, so that the entire transaction is open and transparent. The general process of a transaction in the blockchain network is as follows: if a transaction is sent from A to B, then the deposit certificate will first enter a blockchain ledger, and then the transaction will be broadcast to the entire distributed network. So who has the right to verify the authenticity of this data? This is through a certain data method, called POW (proof of work), which was proposed by a mathematician in the 1980s and then used in Bitcoin and blockchain systems. It can ensure that the data written is authentic and has not been tampered with."

Applications of blockchain

"The first application of blockchain in the world is actually Bitcoin. In 2015, Nasdaq launched a product called Linq, which is actually for equity transactions of non-listed companies. As we all know, there are actually many links in the financial system of the world today. Every financial transaction has to go through many processes and is very costly. Nasdaq selected the equity of some non-listed companies. Since the establishment of these companies, the amount of money invested by any person is not recorded by the company or Nasdaq. Instead, the investor writes the amount invested at that time and the valuation related to the investment at that time on the blockchain. In the future, it will even include his financial statements, as well as his A round, B round and other such data. So you will find that Nasdaq seems to have established an open and transparent equity trading market, and a market without intermediaries. Nasdaq is using blockchain technology to build a new type of public equity trading market. This product has been launched, and now there are ten companies issuing stocks in it. The core of this application is actually blockchain asset trading."

Countries around the world are actively researching blockchain applications, which will have a disruptive impact on financial payments, the Internet of Things, cross-border remittances, notarization, and auditing.