The popularity of blockchain has attracted the attention of many giants. Following JD.com and Alibaba, Huawei released the Huawei blockchain white paper a few days ago. As an international giant, the Huawei blockchain white paper is full of weight, and many friends suffer from lack of time. With the energy and energy to read the white paper, today I will bring you the interpretation of the white paper of Huawei blockchain.
The white paper discusses that since the invention of the Bitcoin system by Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin has achieved decentralized electronic currency issuance and trading for the first time in human history, that is, without a centralized third-party certification agency or accounting management system. Transactions are verified and recorded, and the entire network jointly maintains and updates an identical ledger. However, Bitcoin is not Turing-complete in design, and cannot meet more complex business logic, such as the inability to develop Dapps based on the Bitcoin system.
Influenced by Bitcoin, Buterin developed Ethereum in 2015. Developers can deploy smart contracts based on the platform. The advantage of smart contracts is that as long as the trigger conditions are met, the contract will be automatically executed, and the contract is open and transparent without human intervention. Therefore, blockchain technology can be widely used in financial, Internet of Things, logistics, and sharing economy scenarios involving contract processing, data exchange, and ownership transfer. Types of blockchains: Blockchains are actually divided into three categories according to different application scenarios. 1 Public chain, open to everyone, anyone can join the network to write and access data. Such as Bitcoin and Ethereum; 2 Consortium chain, authorized companies and organizations to join the network, such as Hyperledger Hyperledger. 3 Private chain. Using scope control within a company and organization can improve auditing properties, but does not completely solve the trust problem. In this white paper, the core technology and principle mechanism of the current blockchain are explained. In Huawei's white paper, it defines blockchain as follows: Blockchain is an organic combination of a series of existing mature technologies. It records the ledger in a distributed and effective manner, and provides complete scripts to support different Business logic.
In a typical blockchain system, data is generated and stored in units of blocks, and is connected to a chain data structure in chronological order. All nodes jointly participate in the data verification, storage and maintenance of the blockchain system. The creation of a new block usually needs to be confirmed by the majority of nodes in the entire network (the number depends on different consensus mechanisms), and broadcast to each node to achieve synchronization across the network, and cannot be changed or deleted afterwards. Four characteristics of the blockchain system: 1. Multi-party writing and joint maintenance 2. Public ledger 3. Decentralization 4. Untamperable core technology of blockchain: Distributed ledger technology (DLT) Decentralized data storage technology for data sharing, synchronization and replication in a network composed of multiple network nodes, multiple physical addresses or multiple organizations. Compared with the traditional distributed storage system, the distributed ledger technology mainly has two different characteristics: The traditional distributed storage system implements a data management mechanism controlled by a central node or an authority, and the distributed ledger is often based on a certain consensus Rules, using multi-party decision-making and common maintenance methods for data storage, replication and other operations.
In the face of the explosive growth of Internet data, the current way of building a data management system by a single central organization is facing more challenges, and service providers have to continue to invest in the construction of large data centers, which not only brings computing, network, storage and other various The problem of the efficiency of the huge resource pool, and the increasing system scale and complexity have also brought about more and more severe reliability problems. However, the decentralized data maintenance strategy of distributed ledger technology can effectively reduce the burden of bloated systems. In some application scenarios, it can even effectively utilize the huge resource pool deposited by a large number of scattered nodes in the Internet. The traditional distributed storage system decomposes the data in the system into several fragments, and then stores them in the distributed system, and each node in the distributed ledger has an independent and complete copy of the data storage, and each node has an independent and complete data storage. They do not interfere with each other and have equal rights, and achieve the final consistency of data storage through mutual periodic or event-driven consensus. After decades of development, the shortcomings of highly centralized data management systems in traditional business systems in terms of data trustworthiness and network security have attracted increasing attention. Ordinary users cannot determine whether their data has been stolen or tampered with by service providers, and they are even more powerless when they are attacked by hackers or have security breaches. In order to deal with these problems, people continue to add additional management mechanisms or technologies. The maintenance cost of traditional business systems reduces the operational efficiency of business behaviors. Distributed ledger technology can fundamentally improve this phenomenon. Since each node maintains a complete set of data copies, any data modification by a single node or a small number of clusters cannot affect the majority of the global copies. In other words, whether it is a deliberate modification by a service provider without authorization or a malicious attack by a network hacker, most of the nodes in the distributed ledger cluster need to be affected at the same time in order to tamper with the existing data, otherwise The remaining nodes in the system will soon discover and trace the malicious behavior in the system, which obviously greatly improves the credibility and security assurance of the data in the business system.
Blockchain is a distributed (decentralized) system that can be traced back, cannot be tampered with, and solves the problem of multi-party mutual trust. Distributed systems are bound to face the problem of consistency, and the process of solving the problem of consistency is called consensus. The main existing consensus mechanisms are: 1. Proof of work (POW, Proof of work), the algorithm adopted by the Bitcoin system, and the Ethereum system currently also uses the PoW algorithm for consensus, but because the Ethereum system produces blocks faster (about 15 seconds) ), it is easier to generate blocks. In order to avoid a large number of nodes running in vain, Ethereum proposed the Uncle block reward mechanism. 2. Proof of stake (POS, Proof of stake), this mechanism was first implemented by Sunny King, the founder of Peercoin, and the Ethereum system has always had a favorable impression of PoS, and plans to use PoS instead of PoW as its consensus mechanism in the future. PoS and its variants can solve the problem of wasting computing power that the PoW algorithm has been criticized for, but it has not been sufficiently verified. 3. Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT, Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance). The PBFT algorithm was first proposed by Miguel Castro (Castro) and Barbara Liskov (Liskov) at the OSDI99 conference in 1999. Compared with the original Byzantine fault-tolerant algorithm, the algorithm has higher operating efficiency. Assuming that there are N nodes in the system, the PBFT algorithm can tolerate the existence of F malicious nodes in the system, and 3F+1 is not greater than N. Although the PBFT consensus algorithm can tolerate more Byzantine nodes as the number of nodes in the system increases, its consensus efficiency drops at an extremely fast rate. There are reasons for more than 100 nodes. Of course, other consensus mechanisms are not described in detail in the white paper, such as EOS's share authorization proof DPOS, Ripple consensus mechanism RCP, and POW+POS, a hybrid mechanism of proof of work and proof of equity, These are not introduced in this white paper. Different consensus mechanisms are suitable for different application scenarios, so I will not explain too much here. 1 Data transaction: The process of realizing data transaction is transparent and auditable, reshaping social credibility. Data is the most important ingredient in the future economy dominated by interconnection and machine learning, and AI algorithms analyzing data will lead to many world-changing discoveries. And for businesses with limited data collection capabilities, data trading will be a mutually beneficial endeavor that can boost company innovation and create new revenue streams. However, due to the problems of illegal data reselling, low information transparency, and easy tampering in the current data trading market, the scale of data trading is limited.
The decentralization, security, and non-tampering traceability of the blockchain can build trust between participating entities and promote the sustainable and substantial growth of data transactions: data ownership, transaction and authorization scope are recorded on the blockchain, data Ownership can be confirmed, and refined authorization scope can regulate the use of data. At the same time, every step from data collection to distribution can be recorded on the blockchain, making the data source traceable, and then restricting the data source and enhancing data quality. The decentralized data trading platform based on blockchain can form a larger-scale global data trading scene. Especially in the field of IoT, widely distributed IoT devices, sensors, etc. will collect a large amount of data. The decentralized data transaction network can well support distributed, real-time and refined data transactions, and can become the medium of data transactions in the Internet of Things. At the same time, it can also introduce trust, maintain transparency, and support the participants in the data transaction ecosystem in the IoT field, including participants in various processes of data collection, storage, transaction, distribution and data services; finally, decentralization The data transaction network also needs breakthroughs in scalability, transaction cost and transaction speed in order to accelerate the commercialization of the data market in the IoT field. 2 Identity authentication: verifying the legitimacy of identity and accelerating the development of digital society. Identity and access management services are an important area of blockchain technology application. Not only that, because blockchain technology can bring high reliability, traceability and The characteristics such as collaboration make it have the potential to become a basic technology in the application field of identity and access management services.
With the acceleration of the digitalization process, the application fields of identity and access management services will become more and more extensive, including the Internet, Internet of Things, social and economic life, etc. In these application fields, the typical role of identity and access management services is to ensure that users or devices with legal identities can access and enjoy services safely and efficiently. The location of identity and access management services in various application fields is crucial, but at present, the service has also been faced with problems such as privacy leakage, identity fraud, and fragmentation, which brings great harm to users, devices and systems. challenge. The introduction and development of blockchain technology provides new ideas for further solving the above problems. Applying blockchain technology to identity and access management services will likely form a collaborative and transparent identity management solution, which will help enterprises and organizations to better complete identity management and access authentication. 3 New energy: building the foundation of trust in clean energy transactions In the field of new energy, the application of blockchain technology is changing the existing industry structure, reducing transaction costs, keeping more effective records, and realizing the transformation of energy Internet from digitization to informatization. The path to intelligent development. As the cost of distributed photovoltaics and energy storage is greatly reduced, the energy microgrid community with regional autonomy as the core will gradually become more economical. At the same time, new energy sources such as solar energy are often distributed. Power plants and households can use solar panels for energy storage. Energy claims can occur between producers and consumers. The electricity meter measures and registers the power generation of different subjects to form an untamperable power generation ledger; at the same time, the point-to-point claim and transaction of excess power is realized through smart contracts.
On the other hand, blockchain can also promote new energy to bring huge public welfare and environmental protection value to the society. Through the blockchain and smart meters, the power generation of different subjects is calculated and registered to form an immutable clean power generation ledger. Relevant environmental protection and public welfare organizations can completely verify the validity of the transaction in the blockchain. Issue clean energy production and use certificates to users and power plants to encourage both parties to produce and use new energy. In a new energy blockchain project of Huawei, through the use of blockchain technology, users can clearly check each of their transaction records and know which photovoltaic power generation of which power station each kilowatt-hour of electricity used comes from. It can independently choose its own power supply source according to the electricity price of the power station and the remaining available power generation. The smart contract directly matches the claim between the power station and the user. By claiming clean electricity, users obtain authoritative electronic certificates to prove their relevant contributions to energy conservation and emission reduction. For power generation enterprises, they can dynamically calculate the supply and demand status of each power station according to the electricity application submitted by the user, and adjust the power generation strategy and price in time. 4 Internet of Vehicles: Use blockchain to achieve accurate information sharing and build a new economic model The Internet of Vehicles is based on network connection, vehicle sensor data collection, and the integration of cloud-based equipment management, big data analysis and other technologies, plus a large number of application innovations formed a comprehensive technology. It is also the continuous integration and accumulation of these technologies and applications that have gradually achieved a huge change in the operation and maintenance mode of automobiles, from the initial single-product service, to the current multi-party collaborative maintenance, and then to the foreseeable future ecological value. chain. In this development process, more and more business entities have joined the chain of services around the complete life cycle of vehicles, and will form an increasingly close relationship with each other. The cooperation between insurance and 4S stores is a typical example. But at present, in these mutual cooperation, the information is scattered in various links and in different forms, and the information transmission in the interaction process only depends on the credit and manual guarantee of both parties, that is, the integrity, consistency, reliability and interaction of the information. There are certain limitations in terms of efficiency, etc., which also raises the threshold for more business entities and third-party applications to join this value chain. Specifically, the vehicle network has the following characteristics: l Data comes from a large number of on-board sensors, network connections, and cloud services, making data acquisition/analysis automated and distributed. l Multi-party participation includes users/enterprises, car factories, 4S stores, insurance, car sharing companies, second-hand markets, vehicle management departments, law enforcement departments, innovative application developers, etc. l The interests are inconsistent and there is no single trusted party such as users, insurance, and 4S stores. There is a certain game of interests. Although there are ways to conduct authoritative arbitration, it is often a post-event and lengthy process l Objective facts such as accident records are required to be used by multiple parties l A large number of process interactions such as a traffic accident, a vehicle transaction, and a user service request are often All involve multi-party process interaction, and a unified data interaction mechanism will greatly improve its efficiency.
The scenarios and advantages of solving problems advocated by blockchain technology coincide with the above-mentioned characteristics of the Internet of Vehicles. Using the blockchain, the information of the entire life cycle of the vehicle can be recorded through a unified ledger that is data tamper-proof and traceable, and the ledger is shared among the participants (participants can be both information providers and information users). ) to achieve decentralized information exchange. At the same time, combined with more cutting-edge technologies such as smart contracts and on-chain and off-chain data interoperability, various processes on the entire value chain can be automated to further improve efficiency. For example, based on the life cycle information of vehicles, the blockchain can be considered for scenarios such as factory/repair/refit/maintenance, fault rights and responsibilities, insurance claims, and used car condition evidence collection. Data privacy is a key challenge for the application of blockchain to the Internet of Vehicles, both technical and non-technical, due to the involvement of different parties, from users to enterprises to regulators. Technically, it is necessary to use encryption, authorization and other related mechanisms, so that the data related to a process can only be accessed by entities participating in the process, rather than unrestricted access to any data on the chain; non-technical level, whether users agree to let their vehicles The data is shared among multiple entities, such as giving insurance companies visibility into car maintenance records, etc. Faced with these problems, priority should be given to low-privacy scenarios such as fleet management, car sharing, and process interoperability within auto companies. Traceability and anti-counterfeiting is still a major problem for society and enterprises. Taking food as an example, although there is a green food label, human factors are involved too much in the entire supply chain, which leads to great doubts about the reliability of the data in the intermediate links, which will greatly affect the credibility of the society and enterprises. influence. A series of issues such as whether food is green and pollution-free, and whether high-end artworks/luxury products are fakes are still in front of society. Blockchain technology relies on its existence proof mechanism that data cannot be tampered with, transactions can be traced back, and time stamps can be used to solve disputes between participants in the supply chain system when data is tampered with, and achieve effective accountability. and product security.
Supply chain traceability is divided into three categories: the first category is edible products (meat, vegetables, aquatic products, infant milk powder, Chinese medicinal materials, etc.); the second category is high-end consumer goods (precious wines) and high-end art areas (cultural relics, Jewelry, etc.); the third category is document certificate products (real estate certificate, academic certificate, etc.), which realizes that all upstream and downstream enterprises in the supply chain are included in the traceability system, and builds a full-chain traceability system with traceable sources, traceable destinations, and accountability. Take milk traceability as an example: At present, milk traceability mainly includes cow owners, cow feed providers, cow bottling manufacturers, logistics parties, regulators, and sellers (shopping malls and supermarkets). First, the cow owner obtains the daily feeding process of the cow and the detection data of the milk through the third-party sensor and records it in the ledger. In response to these data, regulatory authorities or epidemic prevention departments will provide corresponding support to the dairy business based on their data, and add them to the distributed ledger. After the data on the feed situation provided by the dairy cattle feed provider to the dairy cattle owner is uploaded to the chain, the illegal feed can be effectively tracked and held accountable. Then, through the filling process data of the filling manufacturer and the data of the logistics party, the freshness of the milk in the transportation can be known. Through the seller, it is convenient for ordinary users to obtain the entire production and sales process of purchasing milk powder through terminal applications, thereby eliminating illegal products and effectively building government credibility. At the same time, based on the sharing of data, all parties can know each other's needs and achieve more effective cooperation and mutual benefits. Of course, in the process of milk production, if the data does not meet the standard, it will immediately warn and adjust, and the data that does not meet the standard will not be able to generate a quality signature certified by the platform, the corresponding milk will be rejected for sale, and if the data exceeds the standard, it will be destroyed in time to ensure milk quality. At the same time, the supervision department will punish the owners who cannot seriously guarantee the quality of milk, cancel their qualifications for raising dairy cows, and add the owners to the list of non-integrity personnel, which will have a great impact on their subsequent business qualifications and form a supervisory role. The goal is to form autonomy. A virtuous circle to avoid artificial fraud. 6 Operators' cloud-network synergy: Solve the fragmentation of operators' networks and build a new business model Traditional operators are based on the "chimney-like network as a business" architecture. Businesses and networks are operated by operators. However, with the convergence of ICT, the communication industry has moved from closed to open, and service providers include a large number of OTT cloud service providers and virtual service providers in addition to operators.
In order to support the needs of the new business ecosystem, the operator network needs to be reconfigured in the cloud to achieve the same flexible, elastic and automated network as a service (NaaS) capabilities as cloud computing IaaS/PaaS (Infrastructure as a Service/Platform as a Service). . These capabilities can be opened to various cloud service providers and virtual service providers for a fee to realize the realization of network capabilities. Blockchain can establish trust between different nodes. As the operator network transforms from a closed internal settlement method to a monetized external service, blockchain technology can be introduced to establish mutual trust between multiple clouds, multiple networks, and multiple terminals. New trading model. 7 Supply Chain Finance: Effectively reduce financial risks, expand financial business development, care about the application scenarios of blockchain in the financial industry, and directly match the core strategy of promoting digital transformation and maturity for financial services through "cloud, management, and terminal". , Blockchain speeds up the secure distribution, presentation, transmission and processing of information. The industries that benefit the most from blockchain technology tend to be those with low levels of trust among participants and high requirements for the security and integrity of transaction records, and the financial industry is one of them. Relevant consulting report shows that blockchain or distributed ledger technology can save 50-70% of cost in the financial industry per year This cost reduction mainly comes from the improvement of existing business by blockchain, such as the improvement of the cross-border payment value chain, the optimization of the reconciliation process, the efficiency improvement of the user identity authentication/anti-money laundering process and the supply chain finance And information sharing in inclusive finance. "Blockchain + Supply Chain Finance" is one of the best application scenarios of blockchain in the financial field and has a broad market space. Supply chain finance has a systematic and structured business philosophy, which determines that information flow is the key to risk control in supply chain finance. How to obtain real, comprehensive and effective data is not only the foundation of supply chain financial risk control, but also the difficulty of risk control. Through the distributed ledger and other technologies of the blockchain, many enterprises and financial institutions participating in the supply chain can participate in the supply chain. Set up a credible information network, obtain information from the source of enterprise business information, and then achieve end-to-end information and data transparency and non-tampering through the blockchain. All participants share business flows through a decentralized accounting system , logistics, capital flow information. Banks make credit decisions based on real corporate trade backgrounds and real-time operational data, shorten the operation time for data collection, verification, and evaluation, reduce risk costs, and improve the accuracy and efficiency of decision-making. Enterprises can obtain lower loan costs and faster financial services through supply chain finance, which can help the smooth development and expansion of business. Specifically, blockchain technology can provide strong support for supply chain finance in the following aspects: through the immutability of blockchain, record the capital flow, logistics, and business flow of upstream and downstream enterprises and surrounding enterprises in supply chain finance Process, reduce the difficulty of reliable data collection and transmission in the process of supply chain finance; provide convenience for financial institutions to obtain first-hand supply chain information.
If the enterprise widely deploys IoT terminals, combined with the purchase, sale and storage information of the enterprise information system, it can truly outline the operation and assets of the enterprise; the enterprise generates funds with upstream and downstream enterprises through channels such as enterprise online banking and bank-enterprise direct connection. Contacts and provide real financial capital information; this information will help financial institutions greatly simplify the credit evaluation process and cost in the process of trade financing, warehouse receipt loans, and accounts receivable loans, so as to reduce the cost of corporate financing and provide financing. s efficiency. Through technical means such as "smart contracts", new safeguard measures are added to the "contract trust" relationship between enterprises, simplifying the process of mutual guarantee, risk sharing, repurchase, contract performance and other business behaviors between enterprises, reducing the number of default disputes. time cost and capital cost. Taking contract financing as an example, the buyer of the contract and the seller establish a medium-to-long-term supply relationship, the purchaser's sales data derives the evaluation data for the purchase demand of raw materials, and the real supply and demand relationship in the market is the first guarantee for financing recovery; The company provides risk mitigation measures. After the risk conditions are triggered, whether the purchaser performs risk compensation performance measures such as repurchase and refund according to the instructions directly affects whether the financing loan generates non-performing assets. In the current operation, the above-mentioned performance constraints mainly come from "contract trust", but there may be legal disputes in the process of performance, which will increase the processing time and cost of legal disputes in the later stage. The blockchain "smart contract" is introduced to put the above-mentioned contractual items on the chain, making it automatic triggering and operation, making up for the unexpected process and subjective breach of contract in the performance of the contract from a technical point of view, and ensuring the security of financing. Huawei Cloud Blockchain Service BCS (blockchain service) is an enterprise-level blockchain cloud service based on open source blockchain technology and Huawei's years of accumulation in core technology fields such as distributed parallel computing, PaaS, data management, and security encryption. product. Target users: What can enterprises and developers do: Enterprises can quickly and independently build an enterprise-level blockchain system on the HUAWEI CLOUD blockchain service. The HUAWEI CLOUD blockchain is in the form of a consortium chain. In this system, three consensus mechanisms are used according to different needs and usage scenarios: SOLO mode: only one consensus node is required, which is simple and fast. It is recommended to be used in the development and testing process.
Kafka/Zookeeper high-speed consensus algorithm: There is no specific requirement for the total number of nodes, and it can tolerate failure of less than half of the nodes.
FBFT Fast Byzantine Fault Tolerance Algorithm: Using 3f+1 nodes, it can tolerate up to 1/3 Byzantine fault nodes. According to the above figure, among the three consensus mechanisms, Byzantine Fault Tolerance has the highest transaction performance, with a transaction volume of 2000+ per second. In terms of file content storage, Huawei Cloud Server will be used to provide a shared file storage environment. From the perspective of application, 2018 is the first year of the application of blockchain. Before the standard is perfected, trials in different industries are the key points. Government data storage, the application of logistics and Internet of Vehicles in the IoT field, operators’ cloud-network collaboration and Supply Chain Finance will enter the first trial lineup. In essence, these fields urgently need to build an open and transparent business environment with the help of blockchain. From a technical perspective, security is an important issue that needs to be considered when building a blockchain. The national secret algorithm will become the application standard of blockchain in the main domestic market. +Hardware cooperates to build a highly reliable security capability. From the perspective of the development of the blockchain industry, China, the United States and Europe will become important areas for blockchain applications. The blockchain will not be short-lived. We can rely on the blockchain to take the lead in technological competition, and these require clear industrial policies. To provide guarantees, we can see that domestic institutions from the central to local governments are working hard to build a blockchain incubation environment and promote the healthy development of the blockchain industry. This creates a good environment for us to develop blockchain technology and industry.