A few days ago, the 2022 Guanhuoyuanverse Digital Collection Summit hosted by Huoxun Finance and Data Zangjia came to a successful conclusion. He Yifan, CEO of Beijing Jujube Technology and executive director of BSN Development Alliance, introduced and shared BSN's understanding of blockchain, the current status and development of digital collections in China, and what kind of infrastructure support is needed in China.
Jujube Technology He Yifan: What characteristics should NFT infrastructure have?
The following speeches have been edited and edited slightly:
Recently, Metaverse, NFT, and digital collections are also popular in our country. I really think that the entire industry is still relatively early, whether it is in terms of technology, infrastructure, application, or regulations, it is basically still in the process of exploration . Therefore, such a conference organized by Huoxun is very meaningful. It integrates various industries, including technology, policy, and application, so that everyone can fully communicate and promote the development of the entire industry.
BSN is a blockchain-based infrastructure, and the BSN technology system does not touch any application-side things. We have our own set of understanding and development direction for blockchain technology, NFT technology, and even metaverse and Web3.0. This cognition affects our technology selection, technology design, In terms of technological innovation, it is completely different from doing pure application.
Regardless of whether virtual currency is banned in our country, we have always believed that virtual currency is just an application based on blockchain technology, but now the virtual currency is directly made on the infrastructure layer, so that you have to use it for everything on it. And it also has financial attributes, so for the world, virtual currency is currently hindering the development of the entire blockchain. However, it is better in China. Because there is no virtual currency, everyone is thinking about the technical form of the blockchain and exploring what else this technology can do.
In fact, from the perspective of our BSN, the blockchain is called a "public system" or "open system", which is compared with the traditional back-end system. The public system needs to process some data that is public, shared, and transparent, while the background system is completely processing its own data, private data, and data with weak interaction. So we think that after 10 years or 20 years, when any technician designs an IT system, he will think of which data should be processed in the background system? What data should be placed in the foreground of the public system for open processing? And how to interact with foreground data and background data? I think the future of IT system design will be like this.
In today's Internet, we believe that regardless of cloud services, operating systems, etc., they are actually serving the background system. Now more than 99% of the IT systems in the world are background systems, including your computers and mobile phones. Both are background systems and front-end systems. Now only the blockchain can realize it. This is our understanding of blockchain technology.
Well, once it is a public system, it must have the characteristics - it must be transparent, because it has become a public system, then its interactivity must be very good, it must be very troublesome for you to let other systems interact with your background data, and you must Consider a range of security measures. In addition, the user has actual data ownership in the public system, and through encryption technologies such as keys and certificates, he can have very good control over his own data. If it is a background system, even if I let you master the password, password or even the key, and control some data of the background system, I can also cut off the control right for you at any time, so this kind of public system has a series of benefits.
NFT is called DDC in our BSN, because NFT still involves more virtual currency. We believe that DDC technology is a database technology on the public system. Many people in the public system call the data state is relatively scattered, so it is actually not applicable to install a relational database such as oracle and mysql on it, so To say that we think in the future on public systems, is to use DDC as a haplotype database. It’s just that everyone still uses it to represent digital collections at present, and the logic is relatively simple. It can also be said that NFT is an early application of the public system.
From the perspective of the digital collection industry, every time I communicate with you, I will remind you that I really don’t recommend that you call it a digital collection, because China’s current policy on digital collections is still in a state of vigilance. What is the point of this vigilance? It is not to be wary of NFT technology. There is no compliance problem with technology, and it will only happen when it becomes an application. What the country is worried about is engaging in non-compliant financial behaviors in the name of NFT, such as changes in its ownership and the nature of the things it represents, etc. It can show very strong financial attributes. Moreover, the term digital collection obviously has an investment attribute, and as long as it is actually an investment, it is subject to financial supervision. So what should its development direction be? From the perspective of compliance, I think it should be called a digital commodity. Once it is a commodity, it is a commodity attribute, and users are not waiting for it to appreciate when they buy it. You wouldn’t say that you bought a TV and waited for three years before selling it. You must buy a TV to watch it, and you might sell it for half the original price. Therefore, as a commodity, it must have a scene or purpose. If DDC/NFT is used to represent something, but it has no application scene, and the user buys it and waits for it to appreciate, it is a purely financial attribute. If this continues, the industry will not Long-term development, so everyone must think clearly when designing their own business model.
Strictly speaking, the digital collections that ordinary people can see at the front end can be designed in 1995 if many features of the blockchain or open system are not considered, because browsers can already see pictures in 1995, you Edit a picture to generate a string of codes for it, and then display it on the front end of the website. The user clicks to buy and then remits some money, and then it is said that this is a digital collection, and it will be realized at that time. So why is it on fire today? Of course, let the virtual currency fry. Having said that, since it has reached today, we still have to make it as close as possible to the level of the 21st century, and don't make it look like an IT system in 1995.
Whether it is a digital commodity or a digital collection, the important thing is that it must be stored in an open and systematic blockchain environment. This environment must meet some requirements. Next, I will focus on telling you that the strict meaning of not meeting these requirements From the above point of view, it cannot really be called an open system.
One is that it must be transparent. I think this is the core. If it is not transparent, it is a black box, and the black box is the background system. What does transparency mean? Transparency is not that you generate a digital commodity (NFT) with me, you can check it through the interface I provide, this is not called a public system. The public system means that I can check all the data behaviors that occur in the system through public interfaces and third-party interfaces, or even a set of interfaces or browsers I made myself. In other words, you can't even check it, so how do you know what's stored in it? Then there is no difference between the background system and the black box, so transparency is very important.
The second is that the public system must be distributed, and it must allow multiple parties to participate in the construction and management of the network. The blockchain can have many companies to build nodes, and the company behind one of the nodes is gone, which will not affect the long-term existence of the network. The blockchain form and even various new forms in the future should be co-distributed.
The third is to open the system so that everyone has the ownership of the data. For example, your chain is a blockchain distributed by everyone, but whether you are deploying or calling a contract, the private key is all under your trusteeship, then you are still a black box background system, because you can control everything about the account through the private key . Therefore, it is very important for your platform customers or end users to have their own data ownership, and to master private keys and encryption methods to control their own data.
The fourth is the co-governance of the public system. There is a situation where you allow everyone to master the private key, and transparently let everyone build nodes and data centers. As a result, your company is governed. If you press a button, the entire chain environment is gone. It is still a black box, and you are just a person. It's just a relatively open background system. We in China cannot build a public system with a public chain nature, but you can unite dozens of companies to govern together to form an alliance ecology. Everyone defines the foundation through agreement. Based on the definition of the foundation, there can be a voting mechanism for joint governance. In this way, it is not up to one person or one company to have the final say. This can be called an open system. Of course, there is also an open system, which is established by the state and uses the authority of the state to achieve openness.