At 9:30 am on September 20, the 8th Blockchain Global Summit opened online. Xiao Feng, Chairman and General Manager of Wanxiang Blockchain, Avery Ching, Founder and Chief Scientist of DFINITY Foundation, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Aptos, E. Glen Weyl, Li Ming, chairman of the IEEE Computer Society Blockchain and Distributed Accounting Technology Standards Committee, and other guests attended the opening ceremony.
Xiao Feng, chairman and general manager of Wanxiang Blockchain, delivered a keynote speech "The Explosion of Application Protocols in the New Stage of Blockchain" at the summit.
The following is the full text of the speech:
Dear friends and audience, thank you very much for participating in the Wanxiang Blockchain Global Summit. Today, the topic I want to share is "The Explosion of Application Protocols in the New Stage of Blockchain". A few days ago, a big migration of the Ethereum consensus protocol was not only of great significance to Ethereum, but also a very important historical moment for global blockchain technology and blockchain applications. The infrastructure construction phase is coming to an end, and the application explosion is coming.
Before talking about the explosion of blockchain application protocols, let's review how the Internet protocol stack is built. In the decades from the 1970s to the 1990s, Internet protocols were chaotic and flourishing.
The most important agreements at that time were:
At that time, the well-known DEC company launched the DECNET Internet protocol model.
IBM's own SNA Internet Protocol model.
The OSI Internet protocol model introduced by European authorities.
In the United States, the TCP/IP Internet protocol model initiated from the bottom up by the people has become the ultimate winner in the decades of protocol wars. I think that the TCP/IP model can defeat the Internet protocol models advocated by officials, large companies, scholars and experts, mainly including
The following five reasons:
First, the TCP/IP model is guided by requirements, and codes precede standards, that is, codes that can be run are used first, and standards are gradually derived after market testing. And OSI, an Internet protocol model organized by European officials, it is precisely from the framework to the standard, and finally to the code. Obviously, the demand-oriented TCP/IP model has greater competitiveness.
Second, the TCP/IP model is driven from the bottom up by communities and ad hoc organizations. Although it eventually had an official organization, in the first 20 years, that is, until the mid-1980s, it was a community approach, with some developers with the same values to jointly promote the development of the TCP/IP model.
Third, the TCP/IP model adopts the rapid iteration of the agile development model, and constantly iterates the TCP/IP model according to market needs and technical possibilities. The OSI model is a waterfall development, that is, after the entire model is designed, it is given to users and users at one time. This is obviously not a typical practice of the Internet.
Fourth, the TCP/IP model is a developer-friendly and user-friendly model. Customer first, customer priority.
Fifth, the TCP/IP model is a completely open source and open model. Of course, several other Internet models are also open source, but they are not license-free. They are proprietary models and require a license to use them. The TCP/IP model does not require authorization, anyone can use it, and anyone can add to this model.
By summarizing the successful experience of the Internet protocol stack TCP/IP model, we can find that, in fact, the blockchain protocol follows these characteristics and develops in a similar way. At this point, the Internet protocol stack and the blockchain protocol stack follow the same path.
We generally divide TCP/IP into five levels: the physical layer is its first layer, that is, the bottom layer, including cables, optical fibers, etc. The second layer is the link layer, such as IP. The third layer is the network layer, the fourth layer is the exchange transport layer, and the fifth layer is the application layer of the Internet.
Borrowing the five layers of the TCP/IP Internet protocol stack, we can design a protocol stack for the blockchain value network.
The bottom layer is the base layer of the value network protocol stack, which we call L0, which mainly includes decentralized bandwidth, decentralized storage and decentralized computing. Bandwidth, storage, and computing are very important foundations of the future value network. In the roadmap announced by the Ethereum Foundation to the community, the performance of Ethereum will reach 10 million TPS per second in the next 10 years. The prerequisite for reaching 10 million TPS per second is that the bandwidth must be increased by 100 times.
The second layer - L1, we call it the settlement layer. Since it is a value network, there must be a valuable clearing and settlement-related protocol layer.
The third layer is L2. I call it the transaction layer. This layer is mainly to realize how to exchange and trade some value markers such as NFT and Token smoothly and efficiently.
The fourth layer I call it the data layer, this layer protocol is mainly used to generate data assets and digital assets. Data assets and digital assets are two types of things. Data assets here specifically refer to the identities bound to each of our users, individuals or organizations on the Internet and on the blockchain, and the identity data generated based on the behavior of these identities, we call it data assets. Digital assets are new asset classes created by users as creators on the Internet and on the blockchain, including some digital artworks marked by NFT.
The fifth layer is the top layer, which I call the application layer. All the business scenarios we are familiar with, experienced, and used will eventually be refactored at L4, the application layer. Any business is worth doing all over again on the value network, which is the structure of the blockchain protocol stack we assume now.
In this structure, I personally feel that Ethereum plays a central role. Ethereum had an important upgrade on September 15, from the PoW consensus algorithm to the PoS consensus algorithm. This is not only an important historical moment for Ethereum, but also an important historical moment for the global blockchain industry. Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, once announced the future development roadmap of Ethereum, which has 5 stages. I think the three stages of merging on September 15, sharding after merging, and Verkle tree after sharding are the three most important stages in this upgrade process. The fourth and fifth stages are just optimizations and partial iterations of the previous ones.
After the completion of these three stages, as the underlying value clearing and settlement network of the blockchain, Ethereum will have very high performance and very flexible scalability. The robustness and security of the Fang network. Higher TPS and more flexible scalability on a robust and secure network provide a very good technical foundation for the explosion of applications, which will surely usher in an explosion of applications.
In addition to the five-stage upgrade of the Ethereum main network, there are other new technologies and new protocols such as sharding, layering, side chains, and sub-chains on or outside the main network. Further develop the security, robustness, higher TPS, and more flexible scalability of Ethereum, so that the entire blockchain technology system is expected to reach hundreds of thousands of TPS within three years, and is expected to reach millions within five years The TPS is expected to achieve the tens of millions of TPS planned by the Ethereum Foundation within 10 years.
If these 3-year, 5-year, and 10-year plans can be realized as scheduled, then the value settlement achievement of the blockchain protocol stack is none other than Ethereum. At the same time, the infrastructure construction of Ethereum should be over within three to five years, and the next step is to build a lot of applications on top of a very good infrastructure, so it will usher in a big explosion of blockchain applications stage.
We can also compare the historical periods of the explosion of Internet applications and the explosion of blockchain applications. First, let's review how the explosion of Internet applications happened.
Everyone agrees that the explosion of Internet applications began in 2010, but in the early 1990s, the TCP/IP Internet model had been formally established. In 2000, the basic models of Internet business had already appeared, but they had not been able to realize large-scale operation, especially they had not yet found the way and means of cashing out.
With the emergence of the mobile Internet and smart phones in 2010, especially the revolution of APP, the Internet presentation method, we think that the explosion of Internet applications has begun. Before APP, we used computers and browsers to log in to webpages to have a relationship with the Internet. Such a complicated and multi-link process prevented most people from connecting with the Internet. However, you can use the APP on your mobile phone to surf the Internet with one click. This has enabled Internet businesses to acquire customers on the order of billions or billions. On the basis of billions of customers, through algorithm recommendations and customer portraits, companies can achieve high conversions. rate to gain commercial value.
The explosion of blockchain applications refers to the development process of Internet applications. I think the explosion of applications should begin in 2025. This judgment is first based on the fact that in 2025, the blockchain system may be able to reach a TPS of millions of transactions per second. At the same time, technologies in all aspects of Web3 may be basically ready. In addition, new forms of business organization began to be perfected and began to work well. At that time, the blockchain began to enter a period of its application explosion, and I predict that this time will be 2025.
The application protocol of the blockchain, first of all, it must be on the blockchain chain and run based on the blockchain. Second, it must use smart contracts to ensure the effective operation of the entire business activity. Third, all blockchain applications must adopt a decentralized governance mechanism. Fourth, NFT is not just a proof of rights for digital products. NFT will become the proof of ability, proof of behavior, proof of workload, proof of contribution, and proof of activity of each blockchain application participant. Based on these proofs, the blockchain application will use Token as an incentive tool to establish a very effective Token-based incentive mechanism, so that all participants and related parties can get what they want and get sufficient and effective incentives.
In addition, the application protocol of the blockchain must be open source and open to collaboration. Open collaboration means that the application protocols of all blockchains can enable participants to come and go as they want without obtaining anyone's permission. This is the characteristic of the blockchain application protocol that I have summarized. I believe this feature can also be used to analyze Web3, and it can also be used to analyze DAO (Distributed Self-Organization). DAO will become a very important form of business organization during the explosion of blockchain applications in the future.
Looking at DAO from the perspective of the business organization form of blockchain application, I think it has four characteristics.
First, DAO is a trustless network. To avoid trust, it must be based on blockchain, smart contracts and digital wallets.
Second, DAO is a transparent network, and the whole process is on the blockchain. Therefore, the operation data of DAO is completely open and transparent on the whole network. From the perspective of information disclosure, DAO has an order of magnitude improvement compared with traditional business in terms of transparency, timeliness, authenticity and comprehensiveness of information disclosure.
Third, DAO is a network of usage rights. There is no founder in this usage rights network, which means that DAO has no owner. DAO has promoters, and the promoters may have certain influence on the network and the appeal of the community, but they do not own the network.
Fourth, DAO is a permissionless network. It is up to individuals to decide whether to join or withdraw from DAO. No application is required. No one person or organization can decide who can join DAO and who cannot join DAO.
Fifth, there are two value markers in the business model of DAO, which I think are both indispensable and equally important. One is NFT. I said earlier that NFT is actually a proof tool. Use NFT to record your behavior, contribution, ability, and property rights. After the information is recorded, DAO can issue tokens based on a set of models to provide economic incentives for these behaviors, so tokens are economic models and incentive models. At the same time, because of the sharing and standardization of Token, it is also the value exchange of all DAOs, so the business model of the entire DAO should be said to be "Play NFT to Earn Token", which is the business model of DAO in my opinion.
Finally, let me summarize, whether it is the Internet protocol stack or the blockchain protocol stack, the lower the protocol, the more globally unified it is. The more unified the underlying protocols, the more the application layer protocols will flourish. For example, there are hundreds of application layer protocols on the Internet. I believe that there will be hundreds of protocols in the application layer of blockchain in the future. The explosion of application protocols is actually the explosion of applications and the explosion of blockchain business, so I am very much looking forward to the arrival of blockchain in 2025.
My sharing is here, thank you all.
Alex
Joy
Brian
Kikyo