Shentu Qingchun: It’s not easy to find application scenarios for blockchain

The Shenzhen Spring Summit of the Global Shared Finance 100 Forum was successfully held recently. Shentu Qingchun, a doctor from the Shenzhen University ATR National Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratory and a senior blockchain research expert, said at the forum that after the introduction of the concept of blockchain, many financial institutions began to try it, but also encountered many difficulties. For example, it is indeed not easy to find application scenarios.

He said that after you use blockchain, it should be better than the existing solutions. How to define this? There are several criteria. First, whether it saves costs, including time costs and labor costs, whether it improves service quality, and whether it greatly improves user experience. As long as one of the three is achieved, it is progress. If the efficiency achieved is not very good, it is a failure. These are some failed attempts.

Shentu Qingchun: Hello, everyone, you may wonder why I have such a surname and such a given name when you see my name, Shentu Qingchun. I am currently studying for a doctorate at the ATR National Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratory of Shenzhen University. I studied aquaculture in college and master's degree. After aquaculture, I went to the Chinese Academy of Sciences to study for a master's degree in computer application. I worked in information security for more than ten years, and then I saw blockchain, so I switched to blockchain. Now blockchain is regarded as a financial technology. I am engaged in finance, so I switch a lot. Now I have become a member of the blockchain entrepreneurial wave, so I set up a company called Yinlian Technology. UnionPay was attacked by WeChat and Alipay on both sides, and only 7% of the market share was left. Although Apple Pay was introduced, I think it will soon. If UnionPay is fast, then does Yinlian have a chance? What I am doing now is also the research and development of the underlying technology of blockchain. Our focus is on some research on compliance and personal privacy and the development of distinctive blockchains. I am very happy to share more content with you, thank you!

Shentu Qingchun: I have three things to do. The first is related to the topic and is to add fuel to the fire. The second thing is to pour cold water on it, which is a bit inappropriate. The third is to draw another big pie.

Let me add fuel to the fire : I'm going to make this a bit simpler. I'll quote what Director Yao said during the training. He said he was born in the Internet and died in the blockchain. You can experience what it feels like. Just say it and die. Han Feng just mentioned that these relatively large Internet companies may not be too sensitive to this technology and may not recognize it too much. Warning them not to miss such an opportunity may cause changes and opportunities in the entire top-level technology. I agree with it very much. I founded Yinlian Company to meet Director Yao's call.

Pouring cold water : There are already many institutions entering the field, including what we have been doing since October last year, talking about blockchain with many financial institutions in Shenzhen, doing a lot of training, and doing a lot of exchanges, so that everyone has paid attention to this. Everyone has paid attention to it now. For example, on March 17, we had more than 150 financial institutions and relatively large IT manufacturers come to Shenzhen for a closed-door meeting. At this meeting, everyone also expressed some opinions, shared some prospects and their own research results. But in my observation, there are still many difficulties at present. All institutions are facing these difficulties in their research work.

I have summarized it into three aspects. First, it is really hard to find application scenarios. After you use blockchain, this application scenario should be better than the existing solution. How do we define this? There are several criteria. First, whether it saves costs, including time costs and labor costs, whether it improves service quality, and whether it greatly improves user experience. If you finally do it. If you only achieve one of the three, it is progress. If the efficiency is not very good, I think it is a failure. These are some failed attempts. Of course, attempts are definitely necessary. The second difficulty is the technical solution. Which technical solutions should be used? At present, we can see that some foreign companies have launched about five blockchains for their members to use, but these five blockchains are also directly borrowed from others' solutions and packaged. Their own blockchain platform has not yet come out. The second company is TIAH (sound) company, which gave the code and name to a foundation. Another three companies, such as IBM, donated their codes to the foundation. But so far, they have to integrate the ideas of these four blockchains and make a design. But now there is not even an overall plan, so there is no need to expect to use it this year. It is estimated that it will be used next year.

Let's talk about Ethereum. This smart contract is very popular and can directly compete with Bitcoin, but it still requires tokens. So it is definitely not suitable for our financial institutions. In fact, there is no good technical solution that can help financial institutions solve the application point problem in one stop. There is no mature solution so far, but according to my communication with these financial institutions, they only pay attention to some content that is combined with their business, and they are not too concerned about other things like Bitcoin.

The difficulty of resource integration, three places, may be the possibility of faster use of blockchain in finance. The first one is national payment, securities, and settlement, which are all places where breakthrough applications are likely to occur. However, these places are not technical issues, but the most important issue is resource integration. Do you have a county-wide plan to do this? Can you integrate relevant resources? Just now, everyone was talking about points. We also mentioned points at the meeting on March 17, but a general manager of China Merchants Bank said that because he issued a lot of points, he said that points are liabilities for enterprises and it is best not to redeem them. The later he pushes to realize it, the better. This is a problem that neither blockchain nor our centralized database solution can solve. How do you integrate these resources? This is also a great difficulty.

Finally, I will also paint a pie. In my foresight, according to a statistic, this year and next year, 80 to 90 percent of the global financial institutions may invest a lot of energy and manpower in researching this area, but in two to three years, 80 to 90 percent of the financial institutions may withdraw from this area completely, because they can't find an application point, can't find a better solution than now, so that customers feel that they have a good experience. In this trough, there will still be some large companies, and they will really find better applications combined with blockchain. After gradual technical improvement, product accumulation and user accumulation, there will be relatively large applications slowly born. This time may be three to five years. This is based on their statistics. Let's look forward to what the global application of blockchain will look like in the end. If they can continue to do it, they may become two foreign standards. We in China will also have some of our own standards. How to interconnect these surfaces? Everyone can borrow the Internet. As long as they meet such protocols, they can be interconnected. This may be the final interconnected chain and the final development trend of blockchain. We are also working in this direction at Yinlian Technology. Thank you!