On the evening of August 8th, the second episode of the fifth season of Guanhuo Langya List was broadcast. The former chief engineer of the Internet Laboratory of the Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences), the interview guest in this issue is Mr. Luo Jinhai. He is the founder of 2140 and the CEO of Quantum School. author. He is not only an "engineer who understands poetry and poetry in the mathematical world", but also an "editor-in-chief who understands quantum mechanics in the humanities".
The topic of the conversation between the two masters is "Why Web3 will be a unique opportunity for China to realize the curve overtaking in the Internet field?" ", brought us a thought feast! One is a blockchain technology sweeper, and the other is a well-known sci-fi writer and senior preacher, bringing a profound dialogue intertwined with sensibility and rationality, idealism and realism!
In their mouths, Web3 technology is no longer boring, but full of literature and strong humanistic color. Mr. Shi quoted "Mulan Ci" when talking about Web3 and Metaverse, and said that the blockchain industry he observed was in the state of "a fire stick in his left hand and a copy of the Diamond Sutra in his right hand"; Mr. Luo Jinhai described For an ideal digital collection, quote Yu Guangzhong's "Looking for Li Bai": "When the wine enters the guts, seven points become moonlight; the remaining three points roar into sword spirit; when the embroidery is spit out, it is half a prosperous Tang Dynasty." The audience clapped their hands and exclaimed: The dialogue between masters is indeed extraordinary!
The discussion on "Is human nature worthy of Web3?" is also very exciting, and it can be called a classic question:
As a senior blockchain practitioner, Mr. Luo said that he really looks down on Bitcoin now. The status quo of Bitcoin tells us that it is entirely possible to go slanted under benign supervision, and the madness of human nature reflected in phenomena such as speculation in coins and getting rich overnight is immeasurable. If there is an answer to this question, his personal judgment is that we really do not deserve Web3.
And Shi Xingguo said: "Whether it is digital currency or the chaos in the blockchain circle, these businesses will not really be able to develop in the long run. It is just that the time has not come yet. It does hit the evil part of human nature, but I still want to Believe that human nature itself is a state where Buddha and demons are born together, one ebbs and another grows."
In fact, the expositions of the two are not contradictory, but arouse our deep thinking from two different directions.
Highlights of this issue:
1. In China, which subdivided tracks of Web3 have more future prospects?
2. Is human nature worthy of Web3?
3. How long is it estimated that humans will truly usher in the Web3 world? What barriers to overcome?
4. How to avoid risks and seize the dividends of the times in web3?
5. Why is it said that the metaverse is the metanarrative of human beings? What is the underlying logic behind the Metaverse being able to take the world by storm and cause widespread phenomenon-level dissemination?
6. What lessons does the Luna crash bring to the encryption market?
7. How do you view the actual value and future trends of NFT?
8. What is the ideal digital collection?
9. Is the digital collection market just a flash in the pan, or will it become a long-tail market? How to break the current involuntary market?
The full version of the interview video of this issue can be viewed on the video account "Huoxun Finance" by clicking "Live Playback".
Preview of the next issue: Mr. Wang Yuehua, a partner of Deding Innovation Fund, is the guest of the third interview of the fifth season of Guanhuo Langya List "Web3 Pioneer". Ding Ding Innovation Fund is a top investment institution in Silicon Valley. It has been deeply involved in the Web3 field for a long time and has invested in many well-known Web3 projects. Next week, Mr. Shi Xingguo, the owner of the pavilion, will have an in-depth conversation with Mr. Wang Yuehua. Mr. Wang Yuehua will be invited to share his investment logic and layout plan in the fields of Web3 and Metaverse, as well as his unique insights on hot topics such as new public chains and gamefi. Everyone is welcome to make an appointment to watch in the live broadcast room of the video account "Huoxun Finance"!
Program introduction: The theme of the fifth season of Huoxun Finance's high-end interview program Guanhuo Langya List is "Web3 Pioneer". In each episode, the master will interview a well-known guest in depth. From different perspectives such as industry and law, talk freely about hot topics such as Web3, Metaverse, and NFT digital collections, deeply analyze cutting-edge classic cases, look forward to the future trends of the industry, and bring users high-quality and valuable content.
Transcript of the conversation in this issue (with some deletions):
The first section: Web3
Shi Xingguo:
Before I start, I need to express my respect to Mr. Luo. Your article is a good article that provokes deep thinking. I am very happy to have the opportunity to talk face to face with Mr. Luo today. At the end of April this year, you wrote an article titled "Web 3.0 has nothing to do with China! "The article has aroused widespread heated discussions among many Web3 practitioners and many Internet people who want to all in Web3; on June 14th, you published the theme "Is Human Nature Worthy of Web3" at the Guanhuo Metaverse Digital Collection Summit? 》The speech specifically responded to the controversy, and gave the conclusion that "the Web3 era will be a unique opportunity for China to realize the curve overtaking in the Internet field". Why Web3 will be a unique opportunity for China to realize the curve overtaking in the Internet field? What subdivided tracks do you think are more promising in China's Web3?
Luo Jinhai:
Thank you Mr. Shi. Let me first respond to the reason for writing. As a senior media person, I just wanted to sort out the Web3 industry a little bit at first. It may be that the wording is a little too radical, which has produced a strong communication effect in the current public opinion environment. As for "Why is Web3 a good opportunity for China to achieve cornering overtaking in the Internet field?", it is because we started the development of the Internet as a follower from 1993 to 1998; The world's Internet powers have a little taste of equal shares, but the underlying logic is still basically derived from the Western world. The underlying Internet thinking basically comes from the Western world until the Web3 era.
One is the integration of Web3 and Web2, and we have accumulated a good and solid foundation in the Web2 era; the other is the blockchain technology level, we basically keep pace with the West, especially the application level, such as mining, mining machines, technology Computing power and other fields.
As for which subdivision tracks of Web3 have more future prospects, I think current entrepreneurs have already seen it clearly. The first one is of course the wallet. As a technology entrance for identity recognition, the wallet can easily form a monopoly, just like the current MetaMask; the second is the chain game. The third is the creator economy formed by IP and cultural creation.
Shi Xingguo:
From your answer, I can feel why you put so much importance on the matter of "Does Web3 have this relationship with China". A large part of the more promising tracks you mentioned just now may not be implemented in China. From this perspective, you really hold "deep love and deep responsibility" for China's Internet development. "Attitude. We have changed from Copy to China to Copy From China. China has undoubtedly become a paradise for the development of the Internet industry, and the biggest constraints in the track you are optimistic about are regulatory strength and capital volume. In my view, both are both enabling factors and restricting factors.
In the Web2 era, China's Internet social networking, e-commerce, short video, live broadcast and other fields are quite different from overseas markets, which has caused overseas Internet companies to be unacceptable in China. Therefore, I generally do not judge the Chinese market from an overseas perspective. In the Web3 era, I naturally expect China to lead the world, but it still depends on whether regulation and capital can play a positive role in promoting it.
Luo Jinhai:
Thank you, Mr. Shi, for your understanding. If we only talk about VR and other hardware, there is nothing particularly worth talking about about Web3, because the core of Web3 is blockchain applications, the foundation and cornerstone of Web3 for all walks of life. Then which Web3 segmented tracks are you optimistic about the development of in China?
Shi Xingguo:
From our relatively successful Web2 development history, it is not difficult to find that traffic is the most capable of driving the development of the entire industry on the Internet. We continue to use data reflecting traffic such as the number of users and daily activities to evaluate the value of Internet applications. But the flow is like an uncontrolled flood, changing as the means of operation change. Although the traffic in the Web2 era can be specific to specific people, even so, the traffic itself is still too rough. Whether it is a private domain community, or an enterprise, or a website, the traffic is just a number, and it is far from the level of refined operation.
Therefore, I think there are huge opportunities in traffic operations, and the distributed technology of Web3 can obtain detailed data in traffic, whether it is the data level or the corresponding rights and interests level, it can achieve refinement and long tail. Once the traffic can be accurately directed and reflect the long-tail value, it means that the Web3 industry can more effectively tap the value of the traffic, just like water conservancy projects.
The Web2 era has never been able to accurately express the value of traffic, we only know that traffic has value. While Web3 has just started, digital collections, NFT and other precise mapping rights and interests applications have been born. From the early art collections, it has now been further expanded to cultural tourism and personalized brands. In the future, it can also be combined with souvenirs, membership sales and other industries. , through the precise matching of traffic to match demand, which also requires a more precise and complex expression of rights and interests, which is the key to Web3.
When more and more physical businesses need this kind of expression of rights and interests, more consumer-oriented businesses will enter Web3, not just the financial and asset businesses that currently support Web3's "inside". At that time, Web3 will have Longer-term and more substantial development.
I remember that Mr. Luo’s speech at the Guanhuo Metaverse Digital Collection Summit gave people a lot of room for thinking. The title of the speech was "Is Human Nature Worthy of Web3?" ". You are the earliest pioneers of Web3. You launched the first encrypted currency e-commerce Bixu.com, the third-party payment platform colapay, and later coincola. You have also witnessed a lot of human nature along the way. In your speech, you mentioned: NFT and DAO are excellent tools for good idealists, but now there are countless loopholes and scams. So you raised this question: "Are humans worthy of web3?" Do you have your own answer to this?
Luo Jinhai:
I did work on quite a few projects and played an "evangelist" role early in the industry. But today, I really look down on Bitcoin, which we once poured our hearts into. First, Bitcoin has not made much technical progress over the years; second, Bitcoin has not become the currency of the future as our group of fundamentalists imagined; third, Bitcoin has now been completely ignored. Controlled by Wall Street Capital, its market is almost exactly the same as that of Nasdaq. When I talked about whether human nature is worthy of Web3, those of us who are grabbing wealth in Web3, can we really accept more benign supervision? Are we willing to accept this regulation ourselves?
The status quo of Bitcoin tells us that it is entirely possible to go slanted under benign supervision, which also creates a paradox. We speak out against overbearing regulation , but if regulation becomes more benign, we may still go the wrong way.
We did many idealized projects in the early days, such as Taobao in the encryption system. But today, when we look back, only projects that can bring wealth to everyone still survive in the encryption industry, one is exchanges and the other is mining. As for the application of real design technology innovation, most of them end up without a problem, and the same is true for our own projects.
The madness of human nature reflected in phenomena such as speculating in coins and getting rich overnight is immeasurable, just as Newton said back then: "I can speculate on the laws of celestial bodies, but I cannot predict the madness of human nature."
If there is an answer to this question, my personal judgment is that we really do not deserve Web3.
Shi Xingguo:
I think any new technology has a stage of barbaric growth. In my impression, from 1994 to 1998, people generally held a negative attitude towards the Internet. At that time, thousands of yuan of Internet access fees, as well as unregulated pornography, gambling, drugs, piracy and other negative fields attracted speculators with a "keen sense" for new technologies. This has also changed.
Regardless of whether it is digital currency or the chaos in the blockchain circle, these businesses will not be able to truly develop in the long run. It is just that the time has not yet come. You really hit on the sinful part of human nature, but I still believe that human nature itself is in a state where Buddha and demons coexist, one ebbs and another. Under the background that the current human nature is still difficult to fully embrace the great changes of Web3, you proposed that "Web2.5 may occupy the mainstream for a long time to facilitate the world's transition to Web3." Can you explain to everyone, what Is it Web2.5? What success stories of Web2.5 do you think are not bad?
Luo Jinhai:
In fact, my opinion is no different from Mr. Shi's conclusion. Web3 and the logic of the Internet are in the same line. Driven by the underlying technology, it is advancing with the times. Of course, there is no doubt about it.
Now that Mr. Shi mentioned it, let's look back at the Internet. The concepts of sharing, free, and freedom advocated by the Internet today, as well as the information explosion and globalization, have both advantages and disadvantages. For example, anti-globalization after globalization, the explosion of information has shattered the linear thinking of human beings for thousands of years. Knowledge and vision have not made us more rational. On the contrary, today’s Internet is becoming more emotional, and people’s knowledge structure is also different. No matter how complete it is, it cannot even have the ability to think deeply like humans in the information-poor printing age.
The disadvantages brought about by the development of the Internet have formed an ecology of loud noises and entertainment to death. Even Web2 is not well connected, let alone Web3? Of course, I agree with what Mr. Shi said, but the future we build with idealism is actually not in tune with the current era. For now, technological progress and human progress have not reached agreement.
Next, let's talk about Web2.5 issues. According to my own project experience, with the current technical level and cognitive limitations, we cannot connect all the actions and behaviors of the early application of Web3 to Web3, but graft them on the mature Web2 products.
First, Web2 products such as WeChat, Station B, and Douyin have almost reached the extreme in terms of experience; second, the development of Web3 products still follows centralized Internet rules and services, such as the TPS response mechanism. Therefore, Web3 products are biased towards the backend, involving financial settlement, financial data and other backends. We will deeply integrate them with Web3, while the frontends such as UI and operation directly use mature Web2 products.
The most typical one is OpenSea. Its essence is no different from that of an e-commerce platform. The biggest difference is that the core of its on-chain actions lies in the blockchain technology. In other words , stepping into Web3 in one step is a naive idealistic mistake of my early projects. Not only is the experience poor, but it is also difficult to popularize among the user base. A true Web3 entrepreneur must understand this.
In this regard, I also want to hear Mr. Shi's views. What do you think of the transitional stage from Web2 to Web3? In your opinion, how long will it take for humans to truly usher in the Web3 world, and what obstacles must be overcome?
Shi Xingguo:
I very much agree with Mr. Luo's statement that Web2.5 is gradually evolving to Web3. As for the real ushering of Web3 for human beings, I roughly estimate that it should be as short as three years and as long as five years. Maybe Web3 needs breakthroughs in business and legal supervision, but I think the decisive thing is still technological breakthroughs, just like smartphones brought us from the Internet era to the mobile Internet era.
People are generally accustomed to analyzing Web3 from the perspectives of business, regulations, and supervision, including user concepts, habits, business feasibility, and business models. However, as a person with a technical background, I pay more attention to technology.
Blockchain is the foundation of Web3. Under the circumstances that the public chain is difficult to carry Internet-level applications, the problem of cross-chain and chain scalability has not improved significantly in the past few years. The cross-chain bridge incident at the end of last year also caused nearly 10 million dollars in losses. Ethereum, which was suffocated by hundreds of thousands of daily jobs, has expanded its capacity many times, and set up side chains to carry business overflows.
Some projects use consortium chains to increase speed by reducing nodes, but at the same time, they lose the characteristics of the public chain itself, and are still limited by the serial structure when members increase and nodes increase. Each chain is salivating for solutions for LAYER0 and contract cross-chain.
These problems do not exist in the parallel structure blockchain, which is also the biggest achievement that our team has achieved since the beginning of research and development in 2015. According to the current research and development time of parallel blockchains, key breakthroughs will occur within three to five years. With sufficient carrying capacity of blockchains, Web3 is likely to become a reality. Until then, I also very much agree with you about the long-term existence of Web2.5.
The development of Web3 is bound to interact with supervision. Mr. Luo once mentioned that the Web3 world needs bounded supervision, but it cannot "throw out children and dirty water together". What suggestions do you have for supervision, and how to deal with the gap between supervision and innovation? What about the relationship?
Luo Jinhai:
Regarding some differences between the underlying technologies of the blockchain, including the ecological chain of Ethereum and the difficult basic operation problems, I hope that Mr. Shi can find time to discuss with me again. Let's start with the regulatory issue.
For a long time in China, the supervision of blockchain technology itself cannot be said to be absolutely strict. In 2013, when our early projects started, we found that China’s blockchain regulation was not as strict as that of the Western world, which of course may have something to do with our overall financial regulations. Until 2017, the regulations we could perceive remained flexible and loose.
But until 2017, scams and chaos in the encryption market were rampant, which led to the country's one-size-fits-all supervision of cryptocurrencies. As a result, our propaganda caliber is so secretive about Web3 and related concepts.
Therefore, my views on regulation have only one principle: Regulatory makers need to have a very specific and deep understanding of the industry. Harshness is not the problem, smattering is. When the makers don't know enough, take a sandbox approach as much as possible.
What suggestions does Mr. Shi have for supervision? At the same time, you are also a participant in the industry. Will you consider industry regulation when doing these projects? Do you think there is a concrete regulatory policy? If so, how do you face it? Worried about your project being penalized for legal issues? How do you feel about personal safety?
Shi Xingguo:
Practitioners often feel the same way about regulation. Many times, because we are not sure about the policy orientation, the results obtained after multi-party consultation are still vague, which leads to great confusion in our business development. As the underlying technology development, we may be better off. Business parties involved in customers and assets can better understand the ubiquitous anxiety brought about by regulation.
In my opinion, regulation actually determines whether Web 3.0 can take root in China. Supervision is necessary, but it must also be refined. It cannot be broadly applied across the board, and it cannot be given up because of choking. In any emerging industry, trial and error is an inevitable process, which is the source of effective innovation. Regardless of whether it is the relevant departments of supervision or public opinion, we must not demonize a certain industry at will.
Finally, supervision requires a certain degree of stability and predictability, and avoid making a 180-degree turn when it is unpredictable.
Luo Jinhai:
I fully understand what Mr. Shi said about the concerns of the business side. For the application-oriented business we developed before, we consulted three lawyers on legal compliance. They all gave me no problem, but I was still trembling.
Shi Xingguo:
Now, what advice does Mr. Luo have for practitioners who plan to or are working on all in Web3 projects? How to avoid risks and seize the dividends of the times in web3?
Luo Jinhai:
Perhaps due to my company and my perspective, I may be a little unclear about this aspect, or even a little biased.
First of all, we cannot avoid the problem that in the development of Web3, the Web2 giants entered in a centralized role and started to decentralize their business.
In the early days of the Internet and the early days of the Web2 era, the bosses of large companies could not fully accept the concept of the Internet at that time, but the current Internet people's understanding of Web3 is not even worse than our fundamentalists. The angle from which they cut into Web3 and the direction in which they combine Web3 with previous businesses are beyond our expectation. In my opinion, before practitioners and even the world can really see Web3 clearly, any entrant should be cautious.
Section Two: Metaverse
Shi Xingguo:
Teacher Luo led 2140 and Zimi Lab to publish a set of new books: "Illustrated Metaverse" and "Designing Metaverse", and compared the Metaverse to the "Exodus" of the 21st century, which is enough to replace "globalization" to describe the next generation of human beings. a hundred years. The metaverse has a natural demagogic charm and a powerful "meta-narrative" ability. Why is it said that the metaverse is the meta-narrative of human beings? What is the underlying logic behind the Metaverse being able to take the world by storm and cause widespread phenomenon-level dissemination?
Luo Jinhai:
As for why the metaverse has such a huge attraction and spiritual drive, what comes to mind is the word meta-narrative. In the beginning, the metaverse was a very illusory concept in everyone's cognition, and everything was packed into it.
When I think of the concept of language narrative, it suddenly occurred to me that Leibniz hopes to use universal mathematical logic to form a worldwide language. This idea is applied in the metaverse, which is metanarrative. It points us to a complete direction for the digital future. Compared with the dry and unimaginable Web3, Metaverse, with its amazing inclusiveness and imaginability, has successfully created a phenomenon-level communication effect. Just like the globalization proposed by American scholars in the 1960s, it brought a clear direction to many elites, and also derived the concept of globalization of information, logistics, knowledge and other things.
With the rise of anti-globalization, globalization, the so-called meta-narrative that has illuminated the world for half a century, is gradually moving away from us, all of us need to find another meta-narrative in our hearts. As a media person and writer, I founded 2140, hoping to find a meta-narrative for everyone to illuminate the way forward for mankind.
When it comes to entrepreneurship, I have also heard about Mr. Shi's entrepreneurial experience. In 2016, you gave up the halo in the system, resigned from the position of chief engineer of the Internet Laboratory of the Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, led the team to create Hyperchain, and focused on the research and development of parallel blockchain technology. I would like to hear Mr. Shi talk about your original intention and insights .
Shi Xingguo:
The first thing I came into contact with, the Internet built by rough characters, brought me a huge impact. The feeling of interacting across physical distances prompted me to devote myself to the underlying development of the Internet. By chance, I entered the Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The Internet at that time was based on the Linux operating system, and what I was engaged in at the Chinese Academy of Sciences was the development of underlying technologies related to Linux. When the blockchain appeared, just like when I first met the Internet, I suddenly felt that the blockchain would be our future and the foundation of the future Internet, just like Linux. Everything is rough in the early days, and what the bottom-level developers like us can do is to refine it, popularize it, and solve the difficulties and problems it encounters. This is how I started to study parallel blockchains original intention.
It's just that the current serial structure has many defects, making it difficult to carry Web3 or metaverse- level applications and users. At present, the promotion of daily sales on mainstream e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD.com is no less than a formal war to deal with the flood of users, just like Hua Mulan who is about to join the army for her father in "Mulan Ci" Buy saddles in the city, bridles in the south, and long whips in the north." Be prepared.
However, the blockchain industry I have observed is in a state of "a burning stick in the left hand and a copy of the "Diamond Sutra" in the right hand." Compared with the torrent, it is less than one thousandth or even one ten thousandth of it.
Our team is a geek in the perception of the outside world. Money is usually not our primary concern. More importantly, we are excited about the technology itself and its breakthrough. After realizing the potential of the parallel structure of the blockchain, it is difficult for us not to Go do something.
The third section: Crypto and NFT market
Shi Xingguo:
Let's talk about this crypto market crash. In May of this year, the collapse of Luna was like dominoes, causing the global encryption market to plummet, and various black swan events occurred frequently. Since peaking at $69,000 in November last year, bitcoin has fallen more than 70 percent, according to data from CoinGecko. Because the fall was so violent, the New York Times vividly called this situation a "free fall." Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency outside of Bitcoin, hit its lowest level since January 2021 on June 18. In Mr. Luo's view, what lessons does the Luna crash bring to the encryption market? Crypto investment institutions, once highly respected by many crypto practitioners, have fully demonstrated their fragility and vulnerability when resisting the risk of the financial tsunami. What is the reason for the recent liquidation and explosion?
Luo Jinhai:
Whether the cooling of the encryption market is related to Luna's plunge, I have no way to make an accurate judgment, but we can look at this bear market from three points.
First, in the early Bitcoin market, ups and downs of around 50% were normal, so we don't need to pay too much attention to this bear market. Second, the trend of the cryptocurrency market is similar to that of Nasdaq and A-shares, which means that cryptocurrencies, which are completely independent of the real world, are deeply tied to the real-world financial system, and the risks in the real financial market will increase. Passed to the cryptocurrency market, the loss of capital in the financial market will be made up in the encryption market. Third, players in the encrypted market may have learned to short.
Retail investors in the encryption market are often heavily invested in assets, and the natural distrust of large capitals in cryptocurrencies also leads to slow capital entry, which provides a good soil for short sellers. It is foreseeable that future fluctuations in the cryptocurrency market will be greater than the real financial market, and will be more and more closely integrated with real finance.
Finally, the concept of bear market and bull market will not exist in the encryption market that fluctuates too fast and too violently. It all depends on the boundary of human madness. What tracks does Mr. Shi think the bear market can focus on? As a large factory, how should it be laid out, as a company, how should it be laid out (how should Chinese enterprises be laid out, and how should private enterprises be laid out), and how should it be laid out as an individual?
Shi Xingguo:
Strictly speaking, we are just a bystander and have little say in the bear market itself. But in terms of layout, you need to consider your own role recognition. In the blockchain or Web3 industry, do you want to pick peaches or run with you? This creates a distinction between long-term and short-term thinking and operations. Layout business, as long as the direction is correct, it can rise quickly, but it will collapse quickly; layout technology, the cycle will be lengthened, but as long as the direction is correct, it can continue to survive.
At present, whether it is Metaverse or Web3, the technical foundation is very weak, which is a worthwhile entry angle for investment. However, the cognitive threshold in this field is high. It is difficult for you to judge whether a certain technical direction is worthwhile, whether it can occupy an important position in the industry in the future, and you also need to endure the loneliness of long-term development.
At the business level, I am more optimistic about areas that can interact with the real economy, such as NFT. At present, NFT is still mainly investment type and art type, rather than business type.
You expressed your anxiety about the occupation of the Web3 field by big companies. I have a slightly different view from yours on this aspect. For example, Nokia and Motorola, two undisputed giants in the mobile phone industry, fell on the eve of the rise of the mobile Internet. First, the innovation capabilities of major manufacturers may not necessarily meet the needs of new industries; second, when the market size is small, it is difficult for major manufacturers to join, but when the market size is large enough, major manufacturers can no longer catch up with the initial team of this "emerging market" up. Just like the Web2 dark horses that emerged after 2010, most of them are not former big companies.
The plunge in the encryption market has also been transmitted to the NFT market. The global NFT has also ushered in a bear market, and the total transaction volume and global popularity index have plummeted. Some people firmly believe in the value of NFT, while others question the illusory coat of its technology; some people think that the bubble has burst, and some people think that it is only a cyclical fluctuation at present. In Mr. Luo's opinion, what is the actual value and future trend of NFT? What is its value to the general public?
Luo Jinhai:
I haven't felt the NFT bubble bursting. I think the development of NFT has maintained a relatively healthy pace so far. The whole market is thriving. We cannot judge the value of NFT because of the decrease in its market price and the decline in popularity index. Judging from the deployment of NFT by a large number of enterprises, NFT is the most healthy and positive type of blockchain application I have seen .
The current NFT and digital collections are actually applications for everyone to pursue traffic trends, brand trends, or IP trends. Their true value will have to wait until Web3 develops to a certain mature stage. Holders can pass NFT in Yuan When traveling in the universe world. Now NFT is still in the stage of laying the foundation, and it is too early to talk about the bursting of the bubble. The current NFT is an NFT mapped to the physical world, and there are too few original NFTs.
These are some small opinions of mine. How does Mr. Shi think about the actual value and future trend of NFT? Where should it end up going?
Shi Xingguo:
Compared with the turmoil in the cryptocurrency market that year, the NFT market trend may be nothing. I agree with your point of view.
The essence of NFT is the grasp of real-world rights and interests in the digital world. NFT itself has no meaning, but the things and businesses represented by NFT are the value.
To give an inappropriate example, we know that domain names are valuable, and some domain names have been hyped to high prices. Fees become negative assets. In the same way, the price of website advertisements comes from the value of the web page, which comes from the specific business behind it.
Therefore, NFT itself is not worth discussing, we need to discuss what it represents behind. In the future, NFT can be a certificate of equity, a medium for identity expression, or even everything. Only the current primary form of NFT—copyright expression belongs to the field of cultural consumption. The market size of this field in China is about one trillion yuan. The business applications derived from this, such as brand marketing, cultural tourism, and even Web3 applications, are all NFTs. A particularly broad market in the future.
Section Four: Digital Collections
Shi Xingguo:
Let’s talk about the domestic digital collection market. Mr. Luo once pointed out that the current digital collections are basically still limited to the physical world. This is obviously only the initial creation stage of digital civilization. So in your eyes, what is the ideal digital collection?
Luo Jinhai:
Ideal digital collections need to be connected to the ultimate digital world, that is, when we have the ability to present a complete digital civilization, digital collections can obtain the maximum application scenarios in it. Of course we are still far from it.
But as far as the domestic ecology is concerned, digital collections are also incomplete compared to NFT. If the second transaction cannot be reached, it is naturally impossible to talk about specific application scenarios.
In my opinion, an ideal digital collection is something that is generated by a smart contract in a future digital scene and has the ability to span more scenarios and obtain more system recognition, so as to maximize the digital value of digital collections. When we hold a certain digital collection, we can become a character like Li Bai in a certain field, laughing proudly among the mountains and rivers, eating, drinking and having fun anywhere with the imperial gold medal, laughing proudly among the mountains and rivers, and then take out the prefabricated gold medal , you can eat, drink and have fun anywhere, "Seven percent of the wine will turn into moonlight; the remaining three percent will roar into sword energy; once you spit out your embroidery, it will be half a prosperous Tang Dynasty." (Note: Quoted from Yu Guangzhong's poem "Looking for Li Bai") We can have such pride and freedom.
Shi Xingguo:
so amazing! My idealized digital collection is more or less what you describe. What you said is very humanistic, and people can quickly feel its charm. The digital collection market is developing rapidly, and a situation of "Thousands of Tibetans" has emerged, with serious introversion on the platform and spam of IP. In your opinion, will digital collections be just a flash in the pan in the future, or will it become a long-tail market? How can the current involuntary market break through?
Luo Jinhai:
We at 2140 are also engaged in the digital collection market, and we have a relatively right to speak in this regard. For the solution of digital collections, I think one is to provide application scenarios for digital collections. For example, on the 2140 platform, we will provide collectors with corresponding props for digital collections, and collectors can operate and interact in the digital world; second Digital collections can be integrated with the entire big story background of 2140. Under the setting of the universe framework of 13.8 billion years, the pattern you posted may be in a certain six-domain civilization, on a certain stone wall A painting of yours, so your painting and my whole story can be connected.
Here are some ways to break the situation that I thought of. I wonder what Mr. Shi thought of?
Shi Xingguo:
Very good. You are a writer yourself, and writers use words to build the human spiritual world, which has remained unchanged for thousands of years. The 2140 platform is actually a new book written by you as a modern writer using emerging technologies for future humans, guiding them to read and feel in the way of the Metaverse, and the digital collection is equivalent to a certain chapter or text in it , props. I think this is very representative, at least the direction and way in which digital collections can generate long-term life value.
Luo Jinhai:
Our route is more humanistic or business application, and Mr. Shi may be more inclined to the underlying technical architecture. In the field of digital collections, the Hyperchain team led by Mr. Shi has recently done a major event. Hyperchain announced that it will cooperate with Huoxun Finance and some well-known institutions to participate in the joint launch of the "Digital Cloud" 100 million yuan plan. Enterprises provide free digital collection technology supply. It has aroused great repercussions and reports in the industry. Why does Hyperchain participate in this plan, and what is the value and significance of this matter? Can you share any successful cases of Shuzang Cloud in the past?
Shi Xingguo:
Yes, we, Hyperchain, have recently joined hands with Huoxun Finance and listed company Beeasy to jointly launch the Shuzang Cloud Project to provide free technology supply for 1,000 physical enterprises. Mr. Zhang Xiangning, the chairman of our hyperblock chain, founded China Wanwang before. It was the early days of the Internet industry. Making a plan to let at least 10,000 companies go online seemed crazy at the time, but a few years later it was found that it was not crazy at all but too conservative. Everyone knows the story behind it. All enterprises dare not make a website in order to let the industry know them.
In the same way, whether it is a digital collection or an NFT, it is an expression of network rights and interests, but it is currently a primary expression. As more and more rights and interests will exist in the digital world, the only way to express and process these rights and interests can only rely on NFT digital collections. You can say that I don't have NFT, but you can never say that I don't have the ability to handle and hold NFT.
After you have NFT, you have a place to express your digital rights. If you don't have it, then you are actually a "digital slave". From a certain point of view, in the Web2 era, each of our users is actually a "digital slave", and we do not have an independent digital individual existence. Businesses of the future will naturally need the ability to process and hold digital collections. Hope that in the Web3 era, everyone is an independent digital individual.
For physical enterprises, in the Web1 era, if the enterprise does not use a website, it means that there is no such enterprise in the world. Now we should enable companies to at least have the ability to issue collections and NFT. But to do this, it is not difficult for people in our industry, but for companies outside the industry, the threshold is still high and experience is required. And if you really want to be able to support business-level digital collections in the future, you need parallel blockchains. As I just said, you must be able to support such projects and applications that are truly large-scale, Internet-level blockchains chain technology. In this process, Shuzangyun is the road builder , helping entity enterprises pave the way to enter Web3.
If we believe that web3.0 will happen in China, then this road is the only way to lead to Web3 corner overtaking.
Shuzangyun has some successful cases. For example, Easy Town has successfully issued "Compendium of Materia Medica" and Li Shizhen's digital art copyright IP series; The Star Wish Baby public welfare collection was collected to complete social donations for autistic children and disabled children. At present, the total number of service users of Shuzang Cloud has exceeded 1.5 million. Next, Shuzang Cloud will provide complete technical solutions for all enterprise users who are willing to enter Web3 . We are willing to help these companies build and operate their own digital storage platforms, and enable them to empower their own businesses in the way of web3. This is our purpose and original intention of doing Data Zangyun.
Luo Jinhai:
Now the technical system of Hyperchain is actually going in a different direction from that of big companies, and the last thing is ecology. Whoever can form a larger ecology will have a greater right to speak. In fact, I didn’t think about it very clearly. Can the digital collections on the alliance chain and the public chain be connected very friendly in the end?
Shi Xingguo:
Personally, I am not optimistic about the collections on the alliance chain.
The alliance chain is essentially a database using blockchain technology , and does not have complete asset expression capabilities. So you can use the alliance chain to distribute collections, but when you want to use the collections on the alliance chain to express further rights and interests in the future, or when you need to combine rights and interests with enterprise business more deeply, the disadvantages of the alliance chain will be fully revealed .
Enterprises need at least one blockchain with a public chain structure and level to ensure that the things issued by the enterprise are individuals with independent digital attributes. Even if the alliance chain and the public chain are linked across chains in the future, there will be a high probability that the mapping method will be used, and it will not have the ability to interact with real smart contracts. I think that when enterprises enter Web3, they should do this on the public chain architecture at the beginning.
However, it needs to be added that the difference between public chain and consortium chain is essentially a concept of serial blockchain. Because when this chain is built, the serial chain can only set itself to a specific mode, and it cannot be compatible with different modes. After setting, it is either a public chain or a public chain using public chain technology. private chain. If there are limited nodes in this private chain, then it is a consortium chain, which is almost what it means.
But in essence, when it comes to the parallel blockchain architecture, there is actually no need to clearly distinguish the so-called consortium chain or a feature of the public chain. Because under the parallel blockchain, the chain itself is completely parallelized. Its business model can be the same credit domain on its single chain or sub-chain, or it is called seamless switching. So there is no need to consider whether I am using the alliance chain or the public chain.
So as I just said, in fact, under the parallel architecture, many of the problems we have seen so far are not actually problems, but we do have to admit that the current ecology of the serial blockchain is the most complete, and The assets that have been deposited above are the most.
Then if you want him to switch to the parallel chain, it will take a long time. But the entire industry is moving in this direction, including Ethereum 2.0, which is actually developing in this direction.