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Ant Financial is a decentralized network protocol that digitizes the assets and rights of the physical world based on blockchain technology, and conducts financial services such as registration, issuance, transfer, transaction, clearing and delivery through a peer-to-peer network. Antminer released its white paper in September this year and is expected to start crowdfunding on the 20th of this month. Yesterday, Antminer officially announced the crowdfunding target of 2100BTC . What is the basis for this target amount? What else is worth noting about this crowdfunding? Below, Da Hongfei, CEO of Antminer's operating company, will analyze it. The Antminer project was born in the Bit Entrepreneurship Camp a year ago, and its early participants are still active in the cryptocurrency circle. At the same time, we are fortunate to interview several people who have participated in the project since the birth of the Antminer project in June 2014, including Chu Xia Hu (Gu Ying), Cancer (Liu Jialing), and Xu Yiji, to see what they think of Antminer now after a year. 8btc: The target amount announced yesterday was 2100 BTC. Seeing that the price guessing activity on Weibo was very popular, I would like to ask what the target amount was based on? Da Hongfei: We set the crowdfunding target at 2100 BTC for two reasons. First, from开发成本角度. We are currently a small team of 4 full-time people, and we plan to gradually expand to 8-12 people. 2100 BTC is equivalent to more than 3 million RMB, which can support a team of this size to carry out product development and market promotion for more than 12 months. The assets raised in this crowdfunding are enough to ensure that Antminer can complete the official version. Secondly, from项目估值角度. Antminer was established in June 2014. At that time, Rayleigh Capital invested a sum of money at a valuation of 10 million, and at the same time, a total of 9 people including the co-founder of BitCamp invested a sum of money at a valuation of 5 million. Why can these 9 people be valued at only 5 million? Because these 9 people were more or less involved in the Antminer project at that time, and were willing to make long-term contributions to Antminer, which is equivalent to half of the currency investment and half of the human investment. Over the past year, these earliest participants have indeed played a big role. For example, Xu Yiji made a lot of contributions in early fundraising and team building, and Sun Ming, a lawyer (@高优质蓝領), made a lot of contributions in compliance design. Today, Antminer is about to come out. Considering the early risks of investors such as Rayleigh, 2100 BTC corresponding to 17.25% of Antminer shares is a more reasonable target. This means that our overall valuation of Antminer is currently 12,000 BTC. If the coin price is RMB 1500-1600 during crowdfunding, the overall valuation of Antminer will be RMB 18-19.2 million, which is about twice the valuation at the time of launch. At the same time, choosing the number 2100 is also our tribute to the total amount of 21 million Bitcoins and the author Satoshi Nakamoto.
8btc: The crowdfunding plan has been announced. Is there anything else you need to remind investors? Da Hongfei: The crowdfunding will start on 10月20日, which is 9:00 PM on the first Tuesday after the Wanxiang Blockchain Summit. The crowdfunding will be conducted on Weangel (https://weangel.com), where users can register an account and top up Bitcoin in advance. This round of crowdfunding is for the digital currency community and only accepts Bitcoin. The next round will be for mainstream Internet users and will accept RMB. The first 24 hours from 9:00 pm on October 20th is “抢滩期” . Investors during the Beachhead Period will receive a 15% bonus and can also become referees. For investments after the Beachhead Period, if you fill in a referee, you and the referee will receive a total of 15% bonus. Finally, I would like to remind you of the risks. Antminer is a blockchain project that is still under development. Blockchain is an emerging field, and participating in crowdfunding is risky. It is recommended to only invest with闲置资金.
8btc: You previously revealed that Antminer will be released in the fourth quarter of this year. Can it be launched as scheduled? Da Hongfei: The development progress is basically as planned. The Antminer testnet will be launched in November. After the testnet runs normally, the Antminer mainnet can be launched. The specific time for the mainnet to be launched depends on the operation of the testnet. At present, the code of the core protocol has been completed by more than 85%, and the final consensus mechanism part is being completed.
Quick Q&A with Ant Financial’s early participants:
(Answers are given in no particular order) 8btc: What was your original intention for participating in the Ant Financial project? Chu Xia Hu (Gu Ying): That was in May and June last year (2014). At that time, Shanghai Bit Entrepreneurship Camp held many offline activities, which felt very successful. A large number of people participated, and the industry influence also rose. Many Bitcoin companies (OKCoin, Huobi, Bitcoin China, etc.), as well as domestic and foreign entrepreneurial teams, such as BitWallet, Silicon Valley's BitWage, etc., came to the Entrepreneurship Camp to participate in activities. At the same time, there were many investment institutions and individual investors. We felt that we had successfully connected the team and capital at that time, and we really wanted to continue to grow and become stronger in this regard. Moreover, we felt that the seven founding members of the Entrepreneurship Camp, Xu Yiji, Da Hongfei (Uncle Currency), Cancer (Liu Jialing), High-Quality Blue Collar (Sun Ming), Big Head (Zhang Yinhai), 101 Spaceship (Wang Guan) and me, were still very capable and strong after becoming a team. So after more than 10 meetings, we finally decided to set up a venture capital platform in August. Initially, it was decided that Xu Yiji, Wang Guan and Da Hongfei would specifically implement this project.
Cancer (Liu Jialing): A year ago, the BitCamp wanted to issue a fund, and then found out there was a problem of how to manage the fund. After continuous discussions, we came up with the idea of using blockchain for crowdfunding management, and then there was a project like Ant Group. It should be said that this project has a lot of room for imagination, but at the beginning I personally was not particularly confident about what it would eventually look like. My active participation was largely based on my passion for blockchain technology.
Xu Yiji: The Ant Financial project is, to some extent, a derivative of the Bitcoin Entrepreneurship Camp. At that time, everyone thought that digital currency was cool, so the Bitcoin Entrepreneurship Camp was established. Some like-minded friends often discussed together and wanted to do something cool. Da Hongfei and I were the main initiators. We hoped to use Bitcoin technology to solve some problems, such as advertising. Ant Financial corresponds to the solution of crowdfunding. Currently, we are trying to solve the problem of crowdfunding with Bitcoin and blockchain technology, which seems promising. So the idea of Ant Financial came into being.
8btc: As one of the early participants in the Antminer project, what have you participated in over the past year? What have you gained? Chu Xia Hu (Gu Ying): In the early stages of the project, I was deeply involved for a period of time and was also one of the investors in the seed stage. I also contributed to the idea and naming of Xiaoyi. Later, after the executive team headed by Xu Yiji was determined, I no longer participated in the specific project operations.
Cancer (Liu Jialing): I did not participate in the system design of Ant Financial. Generally speaking, I exist as a "silent investor."
Xu Yiji: I participated in the early project concept, construction architecture, team formation, and introduced a series of talents including Xiaoyi’s current CTO. I also participated in Xiaoyi’s early fund-raising, including communication and docking with many investment institutions.
Because I couldn't balance my energy with the Gempay project, I left the Ant Financial team in September and October last year. Since then, I have not participated in any specific project work.
8btc: Which parts of Antminer do you think need improvement? Chu Xia Hu (Gu Ying): Ant Financial's design ideas are very advanced even if they are taken to Silicon Valley. Ant Financial's chief designer Da Hongfei can be said to be one of the best blockchain experts in China. I have always admired him for always being able to know the latest developments related to foreign blockchains at the first time. Every time I talk to him, I can always update my knowledge. I am also very familiar with Ant Financial's CTO, who has very strong technical capabilities. So I personally think that there is nothing to worry about in terms of technology for Ant Financial. If I have to find fault, I think the Ant Financial team has not raised the level of how to do marketing well. I hope that after this round of crowdfunding is successful, the team will not spend all the money raised from crowdfunding on the already powerful technology, but spend it on the cutting edge - marketing.
Cancer (Liu Jialing): It’s better to wait until the first version of Xiaoyi is launched before answering this question. It’s difficult to answer before experiencing the product.
8btc: What are your expectations for the Antminer project? What do you think is the best about Antminer? Chuxiahu (Gu Ying): In the cryptocurrency circle in 2015, the hot topic is no longer mining, trading, or futures. Everyone is talking about blockchain. When people talk about blockchain, they think it is high-end. However, think about it, what blockchain projects belong to us in China? It seems that only the Antminer project is reliable. This is my expectation for the Antminer project, a reliable, Chinese, blockchain project. As you know, I sometimes write something for foreign media. With the Antminer project, I can also tell my foreign friends that Chinese people are not only mining and speculating in cryptocurrencies, we also have blockchain innovation.
Cancer (Liu Jialing): In fact, there have been many digital asset management tokens before Antminer. Antminer has many innovations compared to them. For example, Antminer proposed the concept of a clearing blockchain, from which the concept of "superconducting transactions" was derived. Antminer has also made a lot of considerations and designs in terms of compliance arrangements, striving to make Antminer a protocol that can connect to the existing financial system, rather than creating a parallel financial system outside the existing financial system. These innovations make Antminer very exciting in terms of ease of use and acceptability. It should be said that China does not have many real innovations in the underlying blockchain technology. Ant Financial is a bold attempt and can be said to be one of the most innovative attempts. If it can achieve a certain degree of success, it will play a very important role in promoting blockchain applications into the mainstream.
Xu Yiji: First of all, I hope that Xiaoyi is a company that does things, not a concept-first company. Because in our community, it is easy to have an idea and say that it is cool and will change the world, but changing the world requires one step at a time.
The second is that I hope that Ant Financial can go beyond the cryptocurrency circle and promote practical applications. From my recent experience, Chinese Internet companies have not succeeded through technology and products. China's environment and soil must place everyone's applications, markets, and business development in an important position.
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