The direction you once looked down upon may eventually become the mainstream instead.

In the development of the underlying infrastructure of the blockchain, there are two obvious trends in the near future:

The first is that the circle began to reflect on "what role should the blockchain/underlying public chain play"?

More and more people are reflecting onIs Ethereum's vision of becoming a "world computer" the right direction for blockchain?。

In the past, all public chains wanted to build a "better Ethereum" and tried their best to break through the performance bottleneck on the chain. In 2017, certain projects proposed concepts such as "multi-chain parallelism", "industry chain", and "putting sub-chain data on the main chain for auditing". Disapproval. After all, there was still a myth that everything needed to be carried out on the chain.

Since then, ideas such as off-chain expansion and Layer 2 have become more mature, and more people have begun to recognize similar directions. Odaily once reportedNervos、Taxa、Oasis Labs, Celer Network and other projects, although the "function expression" of the underlying chain is not the same, but they all adopt similar ideas such as layering and division of labor. For example, the underlying chain is responsible for supervision and security, and the upper chain is mainly responsible for performance; Layer 1 is responsible for recording status and liquidation, and Layer 2 is responsible for computing or running smart contracts.

To sum up, the reason why each team has some "heroes see the same view" is probably based on the following reasons:

1. There is a bottleneck in the expansion of the chain. Excessive pursuit of absolute consensus on the "chain" makes it difficult to meet business needs and sacrifice other aspects. Even if the breakthrough of the impossible triangle is achieved and the improvement of performance is achieved, it may require a huge cost, which may not be cost-effective.

2. There are conflicts between the existing public chain design and smart contracts and the needs of specific business scenarios. For example, the "absolutely open and transparent" design of the public chain cannot meet the needs of privacy protection, code security, and commercial data protection; it is even said that the existing smart contract language itself is not mature enough, which brings systemic security risks. All on the chain.

Some observers may be more "critical" in their thinking.

Odaily came into contact with an investor who even felt that all existing public chain projects will die, and the design ideas are all wrong, and there will be another batch in the future. In terms of application, the founder of Taxa also guessed that most projects now can only imagine using blockchain to solve old problems, but it stands to reason that new technologies should be developed before new problems can be solved. For example, before the Internet matured, it was unimaginable that there would be WeChat and live broadcasts, and the bottom layer was not designed for these applications.

These views are not unreasonable, but it does not mean that today's discussion is meaningless. For example, the difference machine, Turing machine and Eniac (the first electronic general-purpose computer, using decimal) have all contributed a lot to modern electronic computers. Little experience or lesson.

The second is that there are more and more cases of blockchain landing or being recognized by large companies, but most of them are alliance chains.

Due to the limited access to information on the consortium chain, there is a view that the consortium chain cannot be regarded as a blockchain and belongs to distributed database technology. If the "block chain" is regarded as a value, that is, to satisfy "access rights are open to all" and not controlled by any centralized organization or individual, then the alliance chain is indeed considered by the decentralized fundamentalists to be not a "block chain". block chain".

However, this model has been recognized by many large companies, and start-up companies that adopt this model have at least achieved business landing first.Odaily recently sorted out the blockchain layout of major domestic companies, the conclusion is still that the layout of the giants is mainly based on the alliance chain in the direction of to B. which does not includePing An One Account Chain、One Enterprise Bank Small and micro enterprise financial service cloud platform, CreditEase’s Yiqi Cloud Service and other large financial groups. Therefore, from a commercial point of view, the alliance chain is obviously valuable.

Either focus on public chain expansion, or emphasize commercial implementation.

Odaily recently interviewed the basic public chainOntologyFounder Li Jun discussed the specific system design of Ontology, his understanding of the role of blockchain behind it, and his views on the above-mentioned industry issues. Li Jun believes thatExpansion and landing should be two aspects that the public chain team needs to work on at the same time, in addition to lowering the threshold for developers.

In terms of specific practices, the performance of the basic chain and general modules are mainly resolved by the Ontology team; in terms of industry implementation, Ontology mainly relies on partners, includingCOTInternet of Things blockchain peer platform,DAD advertising chain。

For a detailed introduction to the ontology, please refer toOntology，OntologyIt is a public basic chain project & distributed trust collaboration platform that provides basic public chains, including distributed ledgers and smart contract system support.

*This article is mainly to explore more possibilities of the next phenomenon-level public chain, underlying design, consensus mechanism, etc. Since the project is still in its early stage and the market is yet to mature, Odaily does not endorse the project, and this article does not have investment guidance.

secondary title

1. Expansion, landing, and developers should all work together

Odaily: Many people think that expansion is the biggest proposition. How does Ontology think about this issue?

Li Jun: Ontology hopes to enable the blockchain to support actual business scenarios. Now the blockchain is mainly a digital token. Part of the reason is the lack of infrastructure at the bottom layer. The bottom layer needs an elastic and scalable platform. Ontology hopes to provide common modules in applications and industries. We hope that enterprises can do business things, and the blockchain itself is an underlying platform. If you want to understand it from the perspective of traditional cloud computing, blockchain is more like the fusion of PaaS and SaaS.

Odaily: Many public chain teams pay more attention to expansion, but it seems that Ontology pays more attention to industry implementation. What do you think of the difference between these two directions?

Li Jun: Strictly speaking, there are not two directions. Ontology is also paying attention to the expansion of the bottom layer. Our chain network system is also a solution for expansion. Our consensus algorithm is also a solution for on-chain expansion. VBFT is not a pure Byzantine agreement, but VRF+DPOS+BFT. Many modifications have been made to BFT. Between the degree of decentralization and performance After balancing, it can carry thousands of nodes and reach 10,000-level TPS (Introduction to VBFT Algorithm). we alsoReleased the Beidou consensus cluster, allowing thousands of nodes to participate in the consensus。

All in all, I think that at this stage(1) Capacity expansion is only one of the points to be done. In fact, many businesses do not need to be matched on the chain, and a few thousand to ten thousand TPS is enough. (2) What the blockchain needs to solve is "whether what you do can be accepted by the entity, such as the acceptance of the legal mechanism."For example, the credit reporting system, personal identity, and asset management just mentioned cannot play a practical role if they are not recognized by most scenarios.(3) Another point is to lower the threshold for developers, it is impossible for developers to start from scratch.Therefore, the basic chain needs to provide a large number of general modules such as development tools, interfaces, SDKs, and smart contract templates, so that the industry does not need to reinvent the wheel.

Odaily: Just as you mentioned the importance of developers, now public chains often say that "developers win the world", what do you think of this point of view?

Li Jun: Developers are a part, just like Ethereum is a blockchain platform with the most developers in the world, which is the reason for its success. However, if you want to enter the mainstream network, you need industry-level applications. At this time, the team can also promote this aspect. Ontology is equally important, on the one hand, the technical community, and on the other hand, the industry.

Odaily: Cross-chain collaboration is a major feature of Ontology's projects, and it is also one of the keys to the expansion plan. How is the progress now? Have you encountered any difficulties?

Li Jun: In terms of cross-chain collaboration, we mainly realize it through the protocol group. We believe that cross-chain can not only be realized with one agreement, just like there are many kinds of agreements between countries, such as trade agreements, cultural cooperation agreements, humanitarian agreements, etc. . Depending on the business, different protocols will be used.

Ontology's protocol group is roughly divided into three layers: (1) account mapping protocol, (2) cross-chain data exchange to realize cross-chain digital asset exchange; (3) consensus level protocol, for example, different consensus clusters can participate in different The consensus of the chain, such as the nodes in the Beidou consensus cluster, can choose which chain to enter as the consensus cluster.

At present, the account mapping protocol has been completed, and data transactions and asset exchanges are being carried out. Simply put, ONT (the token of Ontology) is to be used on different chains. The first step is to use ONT on different business chains. In the future, asset mapping may be used on heterogeneous chains (that is, across different main chains, such as across Ontology and Ethereum), and there will be a corresponding asset destruction mechanism.

Now the main use is the locking mechanism, the difficulty is that the locking method is a bit slow; another problem is to ensure atomicity, that is, how to ensure atomicity and ledger synchronization in case of problems in the asset exchange process. At the same time, we are also paying attention to the progress of other cross-chain projects, which may be supported in the futuresecondary title。

2. Blockchain should be a connector

Li Jun:

Li Jun:The blockchain is not suitable for storage, but should be used as a connector. I know where to find this information and quickly find the source; in addition, it is a basic platform for recording and depositing evidence, storing clearing and transaction information. Of course, the premise of these is collaboration, and there are many different subjects collaborating in this network.

For example, Ontology's distributed identity management framework (ONT ID) does not integrate all identity information, but a person, enterprise, etc. can manage all sources of their own identity information in a unified manner to form a trust package. For example, information such as your friend's authentication of your identity is still at the source, and the authenticated person does not need to obtain it, but only calls it when needed. It's kind of like an address book of authentication information, you can use it whenever you want, self-manage it, provide it yourself. For larger B-side data providers, Ontology has a dedicated team to promote cooperation; in addition, we have also opened up interfaces to allow data parties to actively intervene, and ecological partners and users can also promote data parties to be uploaded to the chain.

As another example, the entire system of Ontology includes the public basic chain project & distributed trust collaboration platform. The bottom layer is not only the bottom layer network of Ontology, but also the chain network system, different business chains, etc. On top of the basic chain is a distributed trust collaboration layer, which provides distributed modules, including distributed identity management frameworks and distributed contract templates. These general modules have general purpose in different industries. Ontology provides a collaborative network + general-purpose tools.

As for specific industries, partners are more familiar with the needs of specific business scenarios, and we can cooperate with them to promote the implementation of the industry. Specific cooperation methods include investment and technical cooperation.

If the partner itself is a chain, it is based on the Ontology framework and uses the general modules and development framework on Ontology. Ontology provides the underlying blockchain framework, as well as general identity authentication and token systems. For example, COT, we work together to build the basic chain of the smart Internet of Things. Equipment and items will be registered through transactions on the COT chain, and will be registered simultaneously on the Ontology chain. The tokens they issue on the sub-chain can also be circulated on the Ontology token. In terms of the consensus mechanism, the underlying protocol of the sub-chain may call ontology’s protocol, and some sub-chains will have their own consensus clusters, which only share the same ID identity verification with Ontology; some may be integrated consensus, like side chains, Part of the information is anchored to the main chain.

Odaily: According to this vision, what scenarios are suitable for blockchain implementation?

Li Jun: Let me give you an example of the following two scenarios.

1. Credit investigation scene. It needs to receive verification information from different institutions and individuals, and the degree of automation is low. In the future, if one-click authorization can be achieved, the demand side can call it immediately, point-to-point transmission, and even cross-border and organizational transmission, financial risk control and insurance underwriting costs can also be greatly reduced.

2. Historical evidence of used cars. This also needs to span many different entities such as car dealers, car manufacturers, repairers, insurance, etc. The industry also needs information from other parties.

Our current industry partners include COT (Basic Layer of the Internet of Things), PTS (Enterprise Financial Information Verification), DAD (Distributed Advertising Platform), Carblock (Car Data Tracking), and we plan to expand the gaming and financial industries in the future.

Odaily: To build such a collaboration and sharing platform, it seems that the difficulty lies in how to make these data sources willing to go on the chain. Now it seems that some companies are already doing similar platforms. They already have many data sources. Why do they need blockchain?

Li Jun: Indeed, there is a bottleneck in collecting data. It is necessary to find data sources and real-time requirements, and the cost is very high. Now there are still privacy issues, which need to be authorized by the data owner. At present, most of the data monetization in the Internet industry is not "authorized by users" in the strict sense. The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) can be said to be the most stringent privacy law. Without personal authorization, data cannot be used at all. From this logic, after personal authorization, it is actually more appropriate. This is one of the visions that the blockchain hopes to achieve, allowing data to come from the source and get users. Such management from personal authorization fully complies with privacy laws.

For example, a financial service company needs to collect enough data to do KYC, and the user needs to provide 10 items; it can be reversed on the chain, which has been collected on the blockchain, and then directly provided to the service provider, and the user can authorize with one click. . Of course, the premise here is that the data provider needs to support the interface, and Ontology also provides the identity data verification interface for the B-side.

Currently, the ontology has access toandandIdentityMind, an American digital identity companysecondary title

3. It is difficult for the blockchain to land from 0 to 1, and then it will explode in batches

Odaily: Ontology is very concerned about the application of the blockchain, but the blockchain has indeed been criticized that "there is only speculation and no application".

The blockchain has not been popular for a long time, and it has only been a year or two since it really became popular. In the past, everyone was staring at digital assets. In fact, very few people were really doing bottom-level industries and industry expansion, and they were all playing with coins. So this industry has just started and has not yet accumulated to that stage.

How many years do you think it will take for entities to apply blockchain?

In the next two years, there will be some cases; in the next 2-5 years, there will be things that explode in batches; 5-10 years later, it will be one of the important infrastructures. Blockchain is not a panacea, but it will be an important infrastructure.

It can be said that artificial intelligence has been popular intermittently for decades, and it has not yet entered the real economy in batches and explosively.

Artificial intelligence is the enhancement of a single point, and the blockchain is the collaboration of all parties to change the entire process. This means that if you don't use this model, it will cost more than others. Therefore, I believe that the development of the blockchain is a very slow process from 0-1, but a very fast process from 1-10. Its popularity is difficult from 0 to 1. In this process, we need to find a point to prove that it can reduce costs, a closed-loop point in the industry. As long as you have a point that proves that it is low cost, it must be used by the whole bank.

Odaily: How about Ontology's ecological construction and industry implementation?

Li Jun: In terms of ecological construction, Ontology has entered a cycle of global tour, which will be in Asia in the near future, and will be a global technology tour and hackathon in the second half of the year. The other is the incentive plan for developers. Our main network has just launched, and some DAPPs are running on the test network itself. About 10 DAPPs will be launched on the main network in October. Now the technical community has released a development incentive plan. Among the technical tasks, there are tasks and applications related to the main network. Each task is currently being developed by 3-4 teams. In addition, global development can also submit some proposals, and Ontology will provide some financial support. Developers themselves can also use Ontology to develop applications and customize their own business chains. Performance, cost, and development tools are all reasons that can attract developers. 10% of our tokens are given to the technical community. Developers are definitely our most important strategy. The team is already developing new modules, and Ontology has more than 20 project libraries on github.

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I am Lu Xiaoming, editor of Odaily. I am exploring the real blockchain. Please add WeChat lohiuming for breaking news and communication. Please note your name, unit, position and reason.

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