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Technological changes will cause a giant to fall at any time - Nokia and Motorola, the former overlords in the mobile phone field, did not keep up with the pace of the smartphone system, and fell from the peak to the bottom in an instant. BAT understands the pros and cons, and has long been ready to fight.
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battle for internet empires
The competitive pattern of blockchain competition can be roughly divided into three camps:
Represented by Bitcoin, Ethereum, and EOS, they are based on public chains and innovate in consensus mechanisms and core technologies. This type of project faces two difficulties in policy and commercial use, and its progress is difficult.
The Internet empire represented by BAT does not have blockchain genes, but they have traffic, users, and brands. The deployment of blockchain can not only stabilize vested interests, but also take advantage of ecological advantages when confronting the army.
This article will explain the blockchain layout of BAT from the infrastructure layout to the application and ecological construction.
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Baidu——From its own ecological innovation
Compared with 2015, when it entered the market to test the blockchain research, 2018 is a year when Baidu made a bold layout of the blockchain layout:
In February, the blockchain electronic pet game DApp - "Leitz Dog" was launched;
In April, "Baidu Finance" officially separated from Baidu and changed its name to "Du Xiaoman", with a round A financing of US$1.9 billion;
In May, Baidu Encyclopedia was quietly uploaded to the chain, using the non-tamperable feature of the blockchain to ensure the accurate retention of the historical version of Encyclopedia;
In June, Baidu launched a community application product similar to Netease Odaily - "Du Universe";
In July, Baidu Totem was officially launched, focusing on "blockchain + copyright"; in addition, Baidu Cloud combined with blockchain to launch solutions in finance, logistics and other fields;
At the end of September, Baidu Blockchain Lab released the "Baidu Blockchain White Paper V 1.0", focusing on the architecture and implementation of Baidu Superchain;
In October, Baidu officially released its self-developed blockchain network system - Hyperchain. At the same time, announced the cooperation with the Hainan provincial government, the blockchain laboratory and Dulian company settled in Hainan, and launched the "blockchain + hairy crab traceability" application.
Whether it is embedding blockchain in Baidu's original products such as Baidu Cloud, Baidu Encyclopedia, and Baidu Pictures, or developing new blockchain applications such as "Leitz Dog", "Du Universe", and "Super Chain". In addition, Baidu developed the blockchain cloud computing platform "BaaS" a long time ago, joined the Hyperledger project, and invested in the American blockchain company Circle, all of which show that Baidu attaches great importance to the blockchain.
Platform Technology Analysis
According to the "Baidu Blockchain White Paper", XuperChain is a blockchain network that can accommodate all blockchain technologies. Its parachains can support XuperChain solutions and other open source solutions. The consensus mechanism of XuperChain includes but is not limited to POW, POS, PBFT, centralization, etc.
The core mechanism of XuperChain includes:
Super node technology provides unlimited expansion and computing power, which is similar to a distributed architecture;
Parallel technology in the chain, using smart contract branch prediction technology to form a Transaction DAG network that can be processed in parallel to make full use of computing power;
The three-dimensional network technology makes the logic without dependencies truly parallel through side chain and cross-chain technology, similar to the multi-thread and multi-parallel technology in the blockchain field.
Baidu Cloud BaaS is a one-stop blockchain-as-a-service product in the cloud. Users can build their own blockchain system by purchasing resources, building blockchain networks, writing smart contracts, and building decentralized application DApps. and apply.
Baidu Cloud BaaS provides many functional modules, including smart contract base library, smart contract IDE, DApp template, alliance access system, software installation and deployment, DPoS token configuration, and also provides blockchain in the blockchain cloud market Private key security, blockchain security computing, blockchain solution consulting. Based on the Baidu Cloud blockchain and Baidu Cloud ABC architecture, solutions for various industries including trusted storage, trusted information sharing, trusted finance and compliance incentives have been realized.
Landing mode and ecology
From a practical point of view, Baidu’s blockchain implementation mainly includes traceability platforms, asset trading platforms, advertising monetization platforms, and big data collaboration platforms:
Use the traceability platform to solve the problems of information authenticity and product quality;
Provide an asset trading platform to solve the protection of a series of original content such as digital copyright protection, picture protection, video, music, and media;
The advertising monetization platform uses blockchain technology to realize a new advertising monetization model;
The big data collaboration platform uses blockchain technology to unite various departments and enterprises to collaborate and process data, so as to achieve common progress in the era of big data.
Baidu's attempt started with its own ecology. Specific cases include:
Baidu Totem——Application of blockchain technology to solve the problems of data asset confirmation, copyright protection and transaction;
Baidu Huixue & Baidu Baipin——Strengthen personal information management;
Treasure Box——in the field of digital advertising, explore whether blockchain technology can be used to solve the problem of new advertising traffic monetization.
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Ant Financial - the protagonist of Alibaba's blockchain strategy
At the Wuzhen World Internet Conference in early November, Ant Financial's "independent and controllable financial-grade commercial blockchain platform" and "Alibaba cloud supET industrial Internet platform" were simultaneously selected as one of the 15 world's leading Internet technological achievements. The blockchain factor of the former is obvious, and the latter actually also provides manufacturing production quality traceability and supply chain management services by the blockchain.
From the perspective of the internal mechanism, there are currently two entities in the Ali system that undertake the blockchain strategy, namely Alibaba Cloud and Ant Financial. Both announced the launch of blockchain services this year, but in fact each has its own responsibilities. Ant Financial is at the core.
According to reports, Ant Financial is mainly responsible for developing the underlying infrastructure of the blockchain, that is, the Ant Blockchain that won the award at the Internet Conference this time. At the same time, Ant Financial will cooperate with partners in various vertical industries to develop vertical solution. Alibaba Cloud also provides general-purpose blockchain services based on Ant Blockchain and Hyperledger Fabric to help customers simplify deployment, operation, maintenance and development processes.
What does blockchain mean to Ali?
As Aliyun has harvested results after years of deployment, Ali began to realize the importance of core technology: not only in line with national strategies and improve public image, but also can enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises, increase sources of income, and feed back the main business of e-commerce and payment.
Especially for Ant Financial, after the strengthening of financial supervision in 2016-2017, self-operated financial businesses such as Yu'e Bao have encountered bottlenecks one after another, and the exploration of social direction has failed. In 2017, Ant Financial announced the transformation from Fintech to Techfin, opening free financial products to the outside world, and concentrating on providing technical services to partners.
Ali is eager to transform from a business model-driven company to a technology-driven company—any technology needs to be laid out in advance. The successive establishment of Dharma Academy, the acquisition of Zhongtian Micro, and the establishment of Pingtouge Semiconductor are all manifestations of the layout of core technologies.
Blockchain is generally believed to play a significant role in solving social trust mechanisms, allowing any number of parties to conduct transactions or collaborate without guarantees. Both Taobao and Alipay have always regarded "trust" as the foundation of their lives. Blockchain technology can not only deepen customers' trust in the Ali platform, but also be applied to all aspects of society to solve the problems of high trust costs, low transparency, and privacy. leakage etc.
Therefore, betting on the blockchain is not only an inevitable requirement for Ali to transform into a technology-driven company and enhance customer trust, but also a need to adapt to the characteristics of the new stage of the Internet and consolidate its own industry position.
The protagonist of Alibaba’s blockchain is Ant Financial. However, unlike Baidu’s focus on applying blockchain to finance, it pursues “breadth”—the blockchain scenario that Ant first applied was not finance, but various life scene.
At present, the ant blockchain technology has been successfully applied to food safety traceability, commodity authenticity guarantee, real estate rental property guarantee and even public welfare, all of which are real scenes in life. Although it is to entertain the public, the theme of "Block 7 Blockchain Paint" released by Ant Financial on April Fool's Day is also quite meaningful.
A Preliminary Study on Platform Technology
Ali has not yet released a white paper on the blockchain, but based on the sharing of various technical activities, we can roughly understand that the blockchain platform of Ant Financial is a self-developed controllable financial-level platform, and it is not based on the second-party platform of the open source platform. Second development, with the following technical advantages:
Large-scale node consensus: parallel BFT, efficient consensus and second-level confirmation, efficient consensus of 100+ nodes, new block data storage structure;
Flexible and secure coding model: supports multiple types of development programming languages, guarantees high-level execution efficiency, and secure and reliable contract auditing;
Strong privacy account model: ring signature hides transaction accounts, multi-type homomorphic encryption, zero-knowledge proof, protection of transaction content, privacy protection of trusted hardware.
Alibaba Cloud BaaS launched the public beta of blockchain services in August this year. It currently supports public clouds and will further support deployment forms such as private clouds and hybrid clouds in the future. The blockchain engine supports Hyperledger Fabric under the Linux Foundation and Ant Blockchain under Ant Financial. It can be widely used in scenarios such as commodity traceability, supply chain finance, and data asset transactions.
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Tencent - B-side results are beginning to appear
Tencent has a fixed style for most new technologies—layout first, then apply. Similar to its peers, in 2015, Tencent had already established a blockchain team, with research and development first. Its subsidiary WeBank developed the first financial industry-oriented alliance chain cloud service BaaS in China in June 2016, and implemented the first commercial scenario in January 2017, namely the Weijin project.
Weijin is an online gold trading service provided by Tencent. Users can purchase gold flexibly on WeChat with a low threshold. Behind it is the alliance chain developed by Tencent to develop the underlying infrastructure. Multiple nodes such as Tencent and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China jointly participate in bookkeeping.
The overall architecture of Tencent blockchain
The underlying platform TrustSQL: Provides basic blockchain service functions for upper-level application scenarios through SQL and API interfaces, and its core positioning is to create a leading enterprise-level blockchain infrastructure platform.
Platform product service layer Trust Platform: Build a high-availability and scalable blockchain application basic platform product on the bottom layer (TrustSQL) to help enterprises quickly build upper-layer blockchain application scenarios.
Application service layer Trust Application: Provide safe and fast blockchain applications to end users. In the future, Tencent will work with industry partners and technology suppliers to jointly explore the development direction of industry blockchains and jointly promote blockchain application scenarios landing.
Its technical characteristics are:
High performance: Relying on the massive concurrency experience of WeChat payment and QQ wallet, the transaction supports second-level confirmation; it provides massive data storage and has a processing capacity of 10,000 per second;
High security: Provide rich permission policies, secure key management system and user privacy protection scheme to ensure data security;
High-speed access: Rich application development framework and flexible deployment methods facilitate fast access and build applications for different types of users;
Efficient operation: Provide a comprehensive, real-time, visualized operation and maintenance management system, quickly identify system status, and meet the needs of multi-level operation management.
The usage scenarios of Tencent’s blockchain solution are divided into four categories: shared ledgers, digital assets, authentication certificates, and shared economy. The specific scenario overview is as follows:
Shared ledger - information on the chain at a single point, shared across the chain; real-time update, status synchronization in seconds, multi-party verification, non-tamperable, autonomous and controllable;
Digital assets——Improve supply chain finance to improve the circulation and transparency of digital assets, traceable transactions, and reduce risks;
Forensic certification - intellectual property protection is based on registration and preservation of content that cannot be tampered with, and can also cooperate with notarization agencies to provide notarization of electronic evidence to combat the malicious behavior of infringers, improve the efficiency of rights protection, and save rights protection costs;
Sharing economy - network mutual aid, capital flow can be traced; mutual aid events are true and transparent.
Tencent's blockchain business is entering the fast lane, and has made many important progress this year. Commercial application scenarios include blockchain finance, Tencent micro-gold, logistics information, legal evidence storage, public welfare tracing and other fields.
Specifically, in March, the blockchain supply chain alliance chain and cloud order platform were jointly released with the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing to improve the efficiency of the logistics and supply chain industry and help small and micro merchants in the logistics industry solve financing difficulties and other issues.
In mid-April, the "Tencent Blockchain + Supply Chain Financial Solution" was officially announced to connect the core enterprise assets and financial institutions' funds to help improve the efficiency of capital allocation and liquidity to support the supply chain of small and micro enterprises.
At the end of April, the first blockchain game "Let's Catch Monsters" was released, trying to use blockchain technology to ensure the openness and fairness of the rare content of the game. At the same time, users can permanently store rare monsters on the chain.
In May, launched the first blockchain-based digital invoice solution in China with the Shenzhen State Taxation Bureau, and released the country's first blockchain-based digital invoice at the end of the month, using blockchain technology to manage the entire process of invoice circulation.
In addition, Tencent Micro Gold has accumulated more than 30 million transaction records on the blockchain, the public welfare tracing platform has accumulated more than 300 tracing cases, and the legal evidence deposit platform has also connected tens of thousands of transactions from many banks. Deposit evidence.
Tencent's blockchain business is actually being promoted by three teams at the same time, namely WeBank, the Tencent blockchain BaaS platform of the FiT department, and Tencent Cloud, in order to seize the blockchain landing scene as much as possible.
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outlook
We analyzed the overall layout of the three BAT companies for their blockchain business from the perspectives of technology, scenarios, and ecology. Who can go further? Who will be left behind? To answer these two questions, you may have to ask another question-who is doing things that are valuable to users pragmatically, and who is keen on hype? Because things that have no value also have no value on the blockchain.
