Blockchain technology has a history of 16 years since Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first genesis block on January 3, 2009. After a long period of testing, it has become an indispensable technology. Excluding the gambling-like behavior of cryptocurrency speculation, this decentralized technology will certainly have widespread applications. Here is my understanding:
The future belongs to AI, this is beyond doubt; it has become a competitive arena for major technology companies.
AI needs not only algorithms but also data.
Currently, data is isolated, closed, non-circulating, and difficult to verify | or can be tampered with, such as medical data, research and development data, personal data, etc.
Data is valuable and should be preserved, processed, or circulated. Of course, no one would do this for free.
Currently, blockchain can facilitate these applications for data.
1) Finance and Payments
Financial applications refer to DeFi, and payments refer to cross-border transactions. Although both are currently difficult to gain government support (after all, they have a significant impact on the stock market and its derivative industries, as well as the foreign exchange field, and are difficult to regulate), this is an inevitable trend. I believe that in the future, the government will think of appropriate solutions.
2) Judicial Evidence Preservation
Because blockchain is limited to the network and it is difficult to derive its characteristics to real-world items ('RWA | Real World Assets'), the most feasible place to showcase the advantages of blockchain is still the network. How should this be understood? For example, when someone talks about the 'product traceability' industry, it also belongs to the RWA field. Below I analyze the infeasibility of using blockchain for 'product traceability'.
The following is the general process of 'product traceability':
1. Linking product manufacturing processes to the chain
After manufacturing is complete,generate a unique identity ID for each luxury item (e.g., serial number, RFID, NFC, QR code, etc.).
Record key information (such as production date, factory information, source of raw materials, process flow, etc.) on the blockchain.
Automatically generateproduct birth certificates (e.g., NFT, digital certificate).
2. Supply Chain Tracking
With each step (e.g., warehousing, transportation, distribution, stores), relevant information is uploaded to the chain by the corresponding responsible party.
Every logistics, quality inspection, or transaction record will serve asa new transaction on the chainadded to the history of the product.
3. Consumer Verification
Users can check the product'scomplete traceability chain:
Production factory and time
Circulation records
Time and location of arrival at the store
If information is missing or forged, the on-chain data will reveal the truth.
Does anyone see any problems with this process?
The problem arises in the first step; all subsequent steps can be traced, but the first step cannot. For instance, if you receive a luxury item with a unique identity ID and check the traceability information after receiving it, it may seem fine, but can you guarantee that this ID corresponds to this luxury item? Do you remember the fake Moutai case? The Moutai bottles and various anti-counterfeiting codes are real, but the liquor was replaced. Similarly, the ID must be real; as long as I know one ID, I can forge countless luxury items tagged with that ID. This is also the root of why RWA is difficult to implement.
So why can 'judicial evidence preservation' work? Because the evidence is a scanned document, which is an electronic version that can be stored as virtual content on the network, making it suitable for preservation and traceability on the blockchain. Currently, public security in China can already collect evidence (public security uses blockchain for evidence collection).
3) Digital Identity, Digital Copyright, and Digital Assets
Since it is digital, there is no problem, the reasoning is the same as above. Here, 'digital assets' refer to virtual valuable assets, such as NFT equipment in games, NFT images issued on the BTC chain, and certificate-style NFTs; even Jay Chou has released NFT collectibles.
4) Voting and Governance
Essentially, it's mining under the POS mechanism, but what's mined is the result of the vote. It specifies how many tokens count as one vote; the more tokens you hold, the more votes you have. Specific details can be found in the content of blockchain's autonomous management 'DAO'.
5) Medical Health Data on the Chain
The most intuitive application is to upload all personal health data (including testing and treatment data) to the chain since birth, which can be accessed anywhere and anytime for physician reference. Such data is significant for individuals, research institutions, and pharmaceutical companies.
Other applications won't be listed one by one; currently, the widely applicable ones are DeFi and payments.
6. AI can become smarter only after receiving data feeding; the blockchain incentive mechanism can reward data-sharing suppliers.
7. Data can also interact with each other, which accelerates the development of the Internet of Things.
So to summarize:
Blockchain enables the circulation of data, and circulating data promotes the development of IoT and AI. In the future, this will certainly achieve the interconnection of all things, with each item being a separate AI, thus realizing a humanoid society network of AI-to-AI (A2A). When AI analyzes problems, it can also obtain assistance from other AIs through certain protocols (such as MCP), similar to the coordinated work of various departments in a company. Ultimately, it will form a virtual world of the metaverse, where blockchain can not only act as a data-driven master but also as a form of universal currency. The future is immeasurable, and the tide of history cannot be reversed. The development of blockchain is a shock and an opportunity for any industry; we must learn and transform.
Finally, I want to tell everyone that blockchain is an emerging industry, still in a very early stage. We should learn about it and not hold biases, as any new thing initially develops in a rough manner; various mixed and uneven application phenomena will occur. We should also not focus on speculative behavior in cryptocurrency trading, as it may lead you astray. In the future, I will continue to learn and share discussions with everyone on Zhihu and X (Twitter) platforms to make progress together.
Welcome to follow and communicate.
