AI blockchain and Bitcoin
Excerpted from "Wu Jun's Google Methodology" shared by Silicon Valley High-Tech Association
What is the use of blockchain
1, cryptocurrency, Bitcoin is one, now everyone uses Ethereum ether is also a kind, of course, you can build another one based on it, Zhang three coins, Li four coins can be. As for whether it can replace the currency of the future, this is doubtful.
2. Financing, we used to divide financing into three stages: the first stage, loan to the bank, you want to set up a restaurant, you need to mortgage something. The second stage is, you issue some shares, and I sell 10% of the shares, so that I can get some of the capital. The third stage is actually crowdfunding, for example, if I want to write a book, maybe the publishing house needs 50,000 yuan to publish it, and any of you can give me 50 yuan at the beginning, and in the future I will write the book, give everyone a copy, you will get the book, of course I will publish it. But there is a question, for example, I sold this book for 100 yuan, you got it for 50 yuan, what if my book sells well, let's say 100,000 copies are sold, but you don't seem to benefit from me, what should I do? Is there a fairer way to measure everyone's contribution? One way to do this is to issue a cryptocurrency (ICO) and you can benefit from it in the future when the plate of this business grows.
3, smart contract, for example, sign a contract, in the future smart contract can become like this, all the nodes in the middle are determined when this contract is signed, such as building a house for you, decorating the house, decoration to which step your money must be given to which step, you accept no problem, that payment will automatically be given to me. I can even sign with my supplier, which means that as soon as my payment arrives in my account, I will also give it to my supplier immediately. In this way, many problems of triangular debt will be saved in the future, including the problem of arrears to migrant workers.
Blockchain can also be used for the registration of real estate, car registration, and much more. Of course, another great use is gambling, in fact, gambling is the most willing to adopt new technology because it is close to money.
Which three types of people are buying Bitcoin
Historically, Bitcoin has basically been hyped up by three sets of people:
The first group of people is "Chinese Aunt", but the ability of "Chinese Aunt" is also limited, and it can't be fried when it reaches about two or three thousand yuan.
The second group of people is the so-called underground bank, that is, the group of money laundering people, in the bitcoin only a few hundred pieces, everyone is not too hyped, the fluctuation is not very large, this matter is okay, today with bitcoin money laundering is a problem, because it can fall 10% or more a day, so you take it for money may end up losing a lot, and now the delivery time is very long.
The third group of people is very interesting, they are some believers, you can also think of as believers, you can call them digital religion, no matter what you say, this bitcoin has value or not, anyway, they are faith, so when the price of bitcoin falls to a certain extent, they will continue to speculate it. You don't underestimate this group of believers, they are distributed all over the world, they are unorganized, but they are very powerful, because they have a common belief that the central bank must be finished in the future, these digital currencies will definitely rise, and now it is such a group of believers who really push up Bitcoin.
What is the difference between AI and Bitcoin
Many people ask Bitcoin and artificial intelligence, what is the difference? I said of course it's different, it's not the same thing. They asked, is that whose technology is better? I said that this is not the same thing, not comparable, and then I found that everyone could not understand this explanation, so I made a new analogy.
For artificial intelligence and blockchain, I use this analogy and you will understand:
Artificial intelligence is the equivalent of what we call productivity, and it can improve efficiency and increase the rate of wealth creation. Blockchain is equivalent to production relations, we know that production relations have three elements, the first element is who owns the means of production.
Now who owns the data, who owns these data centers and the devices that store it, is equivalent to those big IT companies in the era of big data. Who will own it in the future? Everyone can own it, you can own a part of the mining machine, or your computer can also be a blockchain connection computer, because the means of production are different. How is this profit distributed? In the past, companies and individuals were generally employed by individuals, and the better thing is that companies issue options to individuals, so that after the plate is larger in the future, they can divide this part of the benefits, and blockchain is a new distribution model.
Options address early employees who contribute particularly much to the company when they should have an appropriate reward. But early customers are actually very important to a company, for example, the first 10,000 customers and the first 1,000 drivers in Didi Dache, their contribution is very large, but today there is no difference between their gang and your taxi. The same is true for drivers, without these early people, there would be no network effect, and there would be no later career development, but the past contribution of these people cannot be measured. Blockchain gives you the opportunity that it is a production relationship. Of course, the relationship between people and people has changed, and people are no longer simple employment relationships, but cooperative relationships.
In the past, the sharing economy was completely a matter of money, or the question of chicken or egg, and if there was no money, this thing could not be shared, and if it could not be shared, there was no money. I talked about a kind of financing earlier, that is, it can be through a coin issuance (ICO), if you get this thing up, everyone can share profits in the future, now everyone starts to do it first, and each person's contribution is measured according to the ICO. Another important thing is the sharing, trading and exchange of data. Of course, now, all your data must be put in the data center, and if you put it in your home computer, no one will be able to know your data, and it will be meaningless. And today's data is nominally yours today, but in fact it is all held by Alibaba and Tencent, and they will not show you, and even its storage format you can't understand, so this matter is very troublesome.
But in the future, we can use the blockchain so that everyone can really get their own data. Large companies can use, for example, to do statistics, it can ask some questions about each of your data, it can do statistics. But you can also share a piece of the profit that may be generated in the future, because you are the owner of this data. So blockchain is a new production relationship.
The technology and existing problems of blockchain
Today's blockchain is basically the second generation, the first generation is the Bitcoin generation, it has a lot of problems, it is not a platform, it is actually a specific application. The second generation is represented by Ethereum, which is a platform on which you can issue coins yourself, and it removes the concept of mining machines, so its transaction costs will be much lower.
The reason why ICOs are everywhere today is that with Ethereum, you can issue coins, unlike in the past when Bitcoin was used, you had to completely copy its set and copy it again, you are on Ethereum today, it is easy to issue your own currency, which is the same as today on the Android operating system, you can easily make your App.
There are three problems with Bitcoin transactions;
1, the delay of the transaction is very long, I have asked people who specialize in trading bitcoin, the delivery time varies from two hours to two days, so you use it to launder money, it is very inconvenient, after the yuan is exchanged for dollars, it may fall by 20% in two days, and you will lose 20% of the money.
2, can not distribute, like Bitcoin, the early few people took away a lot of its share, so how to distribute in the future is also a problem, everyone is not clear, so that it is difficult to use as a currency. Because if it is really used as a currency that everyone uses, it is equivalent to the first few people taking away a large part of the world's property.
3. High transaction costs. For example, a cup of coffee at Starbucks in the United States averages $2.50. You usually hand over money at the counter, and then the transaction time is one minute. If you want to use Bitcoin, you have to wait two hours before you can drink coffee, and the transaction costs are so high that electricity alone costs $20. That means you pay $2.50 for coffee, but the transaction cost of electricity costs $20, so it's unrealistic.
Blockchain has a high risk, this risk is not only a technical risk, but also a policy risk, in fact, this is also an opportunity, that is, who solves this problem, who gets the opportunity. Its transaction costs are also high, so whoever can develop new underlying technologies and bring this transaction cost down will have a lot of profits in the future. Some people say that it is the next generation of the Internet, which I don't recognize, but it will definitely be a supplement to the Internet. Some people say that it can subvert the central --- bank, and this is not necessarily, because there is no reason to say that the central ---- bank or these big banks cannot do this themselves, so these people who expect it to subvert the central ---- bank may be too early to rejoice. Perhaps in the end, it was precisely these large financial institutions in the past that used blockchain to allow it to update itself.