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Source: Island of All Things ThreeDAO
Recently, in the graduation class of S4 of All Things Creation Camp,Dr. Xiao Feng, founder of Wanxiang Blockchain, Chairman of HashKey Group and Initiator of All Things IslandIt brought a very powerful sharing – “Blockchain: Starting from the Origin”.He talked about new trends such as RWA and PayFi, and also shared his thoughts after face-to-face communication with Vitalik.He did not sell anxiety or pile up technology, but tried to take everyone back to the original sense of blockchain and talk about whether this industry can be done and how else can it be done?
Hello everyone, Yingmu told me that because of the bad market cycle and environment, everyone started to think: “Is it time to change careers?” She hopes to recharge everyone with “faith”.Of course I think it’s OK.I have believed in this industry since 2014 and have been possessed by this day.
Before starting, I would like to say happiness first – this is my second time to come to Dongyin Center. Last year, S3 of All Things Creation Camp S3 was here to share with you.This time I visited the old place again and saw familiar faces again. I was particularly kind and welcomed our leaders in Changning District.
I just returned from Hong Kong yesterday and this time I went to attend the four-day Blockchain summit.The first group in the Mainland to participate in the Hong Kong Summit: The signal is of great significance.The biggest difference between this meeting isThe Shanghai Municipal Government organized two official delegations, with nearly 50 peopleGo to Hong Kong.This is a local government in the mainlandThe first group formationParticipate in such crypto summits.
We have held the blockchain summit in Shanghai for 10 consecutive years, while Hong Kong is in its third year.Why separate?Because it is indeed difficult to develop in the mainland for the contents of “public chain”, “Crypto” and “Token Economy”.We were afraid that the speaker would not dare to speak, so we put the core content in Hong Kong.This year, by scanning the QR code statistics, the four-day summit attracted more than8,000 independent participantsThere are tens of thousands of people.
Application explosion period is approaching
Many people ask, is it an industry crisis now?I don’t think so.I think:The blockchain industry has moved from the infrastructure stage to the second growth curve – the application stage.You can clearly feel at this year’s summit:Discussions on protocols and infrastructure are decreasing,andRWA, PayFi, USDT PaymentThe topics such as the application have become the focus of the audience.I believe that this is not a crisis, but a turning point, and the next period of accumulation of outbreaks.This means thatThe era of “building a framework” and “talking about agreements” has passed.A new opportunity lies inWho can build a real problem-solving application on this distributed ledger system.
On the last day of the summit, I had a conversation with Ethereum founder Vitalik.There was no communication outline in advance, but I wanted him to talk about decentralization. He indeed said the key sentence: “The application layer cannot achieve complete decentralization, and Layer1 must adhere to decentralization.”
Why?The core of decentralization is “de-trust” and “de-mediation”, that isReduce costs and improve efficiency.If the cost of Web3 is higher than the original and the efficiency is lower than that of Web2, why do you need to redo it?So what we often sayEverything is worth refactoring in Web3”, the premise is: the trust cost is reduced, the system efficiency is higher, and the business model can be established.
Don’t think that blockchain is metaphysics, it has long entered the real world.Why?Because cross-border e-commerce is shifting from B2B and B2C toC2C.The customer is no longer a foreign trade company, but an American consumer who places an order for $50 on your website and wants to receive the goods within a week.He pays, you ships the goods, and then it can be run.The best way to pay isScan the USDT QR code——Accounts in seconds, stocks are prepared in seconds, and air freight is delivered in one week.This payment method does not require a bank or a clearing system, and it solves the problems of trust and efficiency in one second.In 2023, China will issue it all year round18 billion international parcels.
There is no blockchain settlement system based on USDT.The biggest victim is China.So you’ll seeWhy does Hong Kong promote stablecoin legislation?Because it realizes that if it does not actively embrace the new payment system, Hong Kong will be out of the competition for settlement centers of global trade.
Many people are still staring at “Can I make a deal, issue a coin, and get rich?”I tell you, this era is over.The era of public chains is over, I have always advised entrepreneurs who are still thinking of becoming public chains. It’s not that you are not good at technology, but thatThe air outlet has passed.The next key is: Can you really use this system to make real “applications” and serve real world needs.This is the original intention of the title of my speech – “Blockchain: Starting from the Origin”.What was the original intention of the birth of blockchain?It makes system trust computable, verifiable, and low-cost implementation.
I want to talk about the source of “faith”.One Nobel Prize winner in Economics John Hicks once said:The Industrial Revolution has to wait for a financial revolution.”The evolution of human society cannot be separated from the changes of three elements:Matter, energy, information.Every industrial revolution is a synchronous revolution of these three.andFinancial revolution is often the pioneer.
The First Industrial Revolution: Steam engine, a bank lending system has emerged;
The second time: electrification, supporting the capital market and joint-stock company system;
The third time: Internet revolution, China inserts from the middle section;
The fourth time: AI + blockchain, This time China and the United States are jointly leading.
The blockchain you see now is the new generation of financial system that supports the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
In an interview, I bluntly made suggestions to the Ethereum Foundation: “Ethereum has fallen to this point today because you have lost China.” From 2014 to 2016, China was the most solid basic base for Ethereum developers and users.At that time, Vitalik would come to Shanghai to attend the blockchain conference every year, and the first seven sessions were never absent.However, since seven Chinese ministries and commissions issued relevant regulatory documents in 2017, lawyers of the Ethereum Foundation have formulated a regulation based on “compliance risks”: Foundation members are not allowed to travel to China on business trips.Therefore, Vitalik “absented” China from then on, not even if he was unwilling to come, but because he was “not afraid to come”.
Until 2023, we held the first conference in Hong Kong, and he still did not attend.Last year he finally nodded and expressed his willingness to participate, and I invite him every year.I told him: It’s time to return to China.Wanxiang Blockchain Lab is also willing to accompany you to continue to promote workshop, hackathon and various technology promotion activities in China.If you lose China, it is equivalent to losing a large piece of global developer resources.Blockchain developers mainly focus on two language families: the English world and the Chinese world.
I asked him: How many developers are there in Europe for the Ethereum Foundation?He thought about it and said, “There are a small number of people who do underlying technology in Berlin.” But he also admitted that Ethereum’s underlying technology has matured, and there is only room for optimization and no longer has the opportunity to reconstruct.You are looking forward to the explosion of applications, so how can you rely solely on Berlin’s technical strength?Can you rely solely on European developers?Of course not.
So I suggest that the Ethereum Foundation isEstablish an office in Hong Kong, and half-jokingly said: “We have the 11th Blockchain Conference in Shanghai in October. If you are arrested, I will accompany you to jail.” This is of course a joke – in fact, China’s technology departments, government agencies, and developer groups respect Ethereum’s technology.Your foundation should no longer stay away from China.The legal team you set up in Europe does not understand China at all, but is making random regulations here, which will only make you go further and further.This is my private exchange with Vitalik.
Behind the Industrial Revolution, there is always a financial revolution
Now let’s look at it from a larger perspective: the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the supporting financial revolution is taking place.
The First Industrial Revolution: Leaded by banks, credit and bonds are the main axes of financing, and there is no capital market yet.
The Second Industrial Revolution: Leading by the US capital market, investment banks, Wall Street, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and others rose, supporting the electrification wave.
The Third Industrial Revolution: Venture Capital (VC) was born in the 1960s and Silicon Valley rose.As a Nobel Prize winner in Economics said: “Behind every industrial revolution, there is a financial revolution.”
Today,The Fourth Industrial Revolution, If you deny token and crypto, you will miss the new financial paradigm and even miss the opportunity for the entire revolution.
Over the past year, I have discussed the relationship between Web3 and AI with four top AI experts: Shen Xiangyang, Kai-Fu Lee, Zhou Ming, and Dean of the School of Artificial Intelligence of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.They believe thatWeb3 and AI are two-sided issues, and will eventually come together.There are also two typical representatives in the United States:
1) Sam Altman: Dominates Worldcoin, with 10 million users worldwide, and sends three coins every quarter. Even if each coin is less than one dollar, it is a huge expense.He represents the path of “AI+Crypto+Software”.
2) Elon Musk: Support Dogecoin, and at the same time promotes autonomous driving and Optimus Prime robots, representing the direction of “AI+hardware+Crypto”.
Both directions are “left-handed AI and right-handed Crypto”.This is not accidental, but an inevitable result of historical development.evenPresident TrumpA response was made.He originally planned to establish an AI committee and a Crypto committee, but later, at the suggestion of his staff, he simply merged into a “AI + Crypto Presidential Committee”.I learned from one of his crypto consultants about the thoughts behind this decision: AI and Crypto should not be divided and conquered, but should be coordinated and coordinated.
The financial revolution in the digital age is based onDistributed ledgers and crypto capitalThe revolution.If you don’t admit this, it will be difficult to keep up with the United States in the digital age.Why?becauseBlockchain is a new accounting system, payment and clearing system, and global ledger system.The digital world has no borders, it spans space, time, organization, and borders.It requires a new registration, accounting and settlement system.Traditional finance cannot meet this demand.
There are only three major changes in the accounting method of human society so far:
1) Ancient single-item accounting
2) Duplex accounting after the Renaissance (to be used today)
3) The distributed accounting system created by Bitcoin in 2009
This third accounting revolution has brought us from bank accounts to the era of encrypted accounts.Look at why small commodity merchants in Yiwu today are willing to accept USDT payments?Because there is no need for a bank account, you can complete the payment by encrypting the account.The total settlement amount of US dollar stablecoins in 2023 is$16 trillion, which has exceeded the sum of VISA and Mastercard.Of course banks will be nervous, and the government will certainly pay attention to it.Therefore, today, CEOs and chairman of major banks around the world have admitted that blockchain is a revolutionary system, and it represents a leap in efficiency.
I remember in 2012, I debated with famous bankers at a conference on “whether blockchain can change finance.”They said, “The essence of finance will not change.” I said right-The essence of finance has always been: wanting to borrow money, wanting to receive money as soon as possible.This is a constant demand for three thousand years.Do you think banks are the ultimate model of finance?The banking system has only a hundred years of history, and the central bank has only 400 years.In the early days, China had piaohao and silver dealers, and the escort agency gave away silver.They can all change, why can’t banks?
Now you see,CeFi(Centralized Finance) is a traditional system.DeFi(Decentralized Finance) is the new system.When I talked about DeFi, banks felt that the risks were high.But I asked them, “From the perspective of lending behavior, is it the bank’s risk high or the DeFi risk high?” The bank’s capital adequacy ratio is only 12%, which is equivalent to 7 to 8 times the leverage.Relying on high leverage to maintain profits, once the model is wrong, such as the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, the entire system collapses instantly.In contrast, DeFi’s risks are transparent, quantifiable, and tracked on-chain.
What is DeFi?DeFi (decentralized finance) does not lend through leverage, but achieves profits by improving the turnover efficiency of funds.For example, you stake a $100,000 worth of Bitcoin into the DeFi protocol, and at the current mortgage rate of about 50%, you can lend up to $50,000.In other words, DeFi is an over-mortgage loan, not a high leverage.
A typical representative of the highest efficiency in DeFi is “Flash Loan”, which is characterized by the completion of loans and return within a block, and the entire process takes only a few seconds.Although not all scenarios are suitable for Lightning Loan, this demonstrates DeFi’s efficient turnaround ability.Overall, DeFi’s annual capital turnover speed is 10 times that of traditional banks, and its returns come from high-frequency accumulation of small profits, rather than amplification through leverage.This is a more advanced financial system with strong vitality.Currently, more than half of this “new financial infrastructure” has been built, which is a critical stage for accelerating the implementation of applications.
Application and impact of new financial infrastructure
With the popularity of this infrastructure, payment applications such as PayFi have been born.In 2024, the total payment and clearing amount of stablecoins-based payments and clearings reached US$16.16 trillion, completely bypassing the traditional banking system and SWIFT network.In this regard, China is one of the biggest beneficiaries.In our cross-border trade, more and more payment settlements have turned to this new system to help commodity sales go global.
Financial infrastructure refers to a complete set of institutional arrangements, including laws, accounting standards, etc., aiming to maintain financial stability and serve the public interests.Its technical level involves hardware and system security.”Financial Market Infrastructure” is a subset of its main components, including fundsPayment, clearing, settlementThree major links.
Pay:If you swipe a bank card, first verify whether the account has a balance.
Clearing:If there is a balance, the amount to be paid is frozen.
Settlement:Complete the actual transfer of funds between different banks or accounts.
Ethereum’s security accident in 2016 was caused by the failure of smart contracts to properly handle the liquidation process, which caused users to repeatedly withdraw assets, causing losses of approximately US$60 million.This incident highlights the importance of the liquidation mechanism.China’s foreign exchange trading centers, clearing houses, settlement centers and other institutions are representatives of traditional financial market infrastructure.They guarantee payment and settlement of different types of transactions.
Compared with traditional financial systems, the new financial infrastructure has undergone significant changes in the technical architecture, participants and settlement units.Its core is based on blockchain, using Bitcoin, ETH and stablecoins as trading media, completely removing intermediaries to achieve trustless and peer-to-peer efficient transactions.
In the old system, it may take days or even weeks to send money from Shanghai to the United States; and through blockchain stablecoins, it can be received in seconds.For example, the author recently remitted money from Hong Kong to Shanghai, but it was confirmed that it failed one month later. If you use a stablecoin, it may be completed in ten seconds.
Isn’t such a gap in efficiency and cost worth rethinking the direction of change of the financial system?Although the decentralized blockchain system bypasses SWIFT, the US government still chooses to support the development of the US dollar stablecoin.Trump has clearly asked Congress to pass legislation related to the US dollar stablecoin by August 2025.The bottom line of the United States is: SWIFT can be bypassed, but not the US dollar.If this new system is bypassed by the US dollar, the United States will completely lose global financial dominance.
Trump’s presidential adviser once said that what the U.S. government wants to advance most at the moment is not the strategic reserve of Bitcoin, although the latter is equally important.The priority is to promote legislation to stabilize the dollar.The United States must ensure that the US dollar remains the main payment and settlement tool in the next generation of financial infrastructure.If the US dollar loses this position, the United States will face fundamental risks.
Looking back on history, in order to make the world accept the US dollar, the United States pegs the US dollar to gold through the Bretton Woods system after World War II, and the currencies of other countries are pegged to the US dollar, thus establishing the US dollar’s global monetary status.As the system collapsed, the United States promoted the formation of the European dollar market and the “petroleum dollar” system, making the commodity settlement currency unified into the US dollar, creating a global application scenario for the US dollar.Now, the US dollar is entering its third phase of evolution: tokenization.The U.S. government is trying to ensure that the “tokenized dollar” occupies a central position in the future global financial infrastructure, which means far more to national interests than Bitcoin reserves.
At present, the digital currency system is developing rapidly, including native cryptocurrencies (such as Bitcoin), digital twin stablecoins (such as USDT, USDC), etc., which represent the evolution of currency forms from precious metals, paper money, and electronic currencies to crypto assets.
Cryptocurrencies can be divided into two categories: one is CBDC (central bank digital currency) promoted by the central bank, which belongs to M0 (base currency); the other is a market-led stablecoin, which belongs to M2 (broad currency), which is a currency created by institutions after credit expansion based on the central bank’s base currency.The bank deposits, wealth management products, money funds, etc. we use daily are all in the M2 category and belong to bank liabilities, not central bank assets.For example, in China, banks only guarantee deposits of less than 500,000 yuan; in the United States, the limit is US$500,000.If the deposit exceeds the part, the bank will not be able to guarantee it if it goes bankrupt.
In the financial system, M0, M1, and M2 each assume different functions and are irreplaceable to each other.It is difficult for central bank digital currency to replace M2-level currencies and is not suitable for all consumption scenarios.The United States is well aware of this and therefore makes it clear that it will not issue CBDC.Trump promised during his campaign that the Fed would not be allowed to issue central bank digital currencies during his term.The Federal Reserve has also publicly stated that it does not consider issuing such currencies.
The reason is clear: the central bank’s digital currency may lead to the country’s overall control of payment data and damage user privacy.For example, if the US dollar digital currency is used for payments in Hong Kong, Singapore or Japan, the Fed may obtain transaction data, which is difficult to accept internationally.Unless it is implemented through compulsory means, it will be difficult to implement.The United States is aware of its limitations and therefore turns to support stablecoins issued by the market and anchored to the US dollar.
RWA (real world asset) tokenization also falls within the M2 category, such as the US dollar money fund token issued in Hong Kong.Its essence is based on the credit creation of sovereign currency, issued by banks and other financial institutions, and is still a bank liability.
The core of the new generation of payment and settlement systems is not only the innovation of monetary forms, but also the evolution of asset issuance models.From the “golden dollar” to the “petroleum dollar” to today’s “tokenized dollar”, each round of evolution has strengthened the global influence of the dollar.
It is worth mentioning that China once held 70% of the global Bitcoin mining share, which means that Bitcoin was once the currency of “Made in China”.However, due to regulatory reasons, China voluntarily gave up this strategic resource and gave way to the United States.From an industry perspective, it may not be a bad thing, but from the perspective of national interests, this is a major loss.
The development of AI also provides clear needs for the new financial system.If tens of billions of devices around the world can create GDP without human participation in the future, payments and settlements between them will depend on programmable currencies.Traditional banking systems are difficult to support automatic payments from machines to machines, and systems based on blockchain and smart contracts have this capability, and there is currently no better solution.On this basis, a new asset issuance system is also being built.The new generation of industrial revolution calls for a matching financial revolution, namely, the comprehensive upgrade of payment and settlement systems and asset tokenization.The five major token assets currently include:
Payment tokens:Such as USDT and USDC, anchored fiat currency, used for daily payment and settlement.In the future, stablecoins such as Hong Kong dollar, Japanese yen, and euro will also appear.
Reserve tokens:For example, Bitcoin is transforming from risky assets to strategic reserve assets.Several states in the United States have already legislated legislation to include Bitcoin in state government asset reserves, from household assets and corporate cash management, which is evolving into national strategic reserves.
The book “The Pyramid of Currency” predicts that Bitcoin will become a reserve asset for central banks in various countries in the future.The reason is simple: Bitcoin has become more attractive than gold for the digital native generation under the age of 30.This book tells the central bank governor and finance minister who are now in their seventies or eighties that you will eventually withdraw from the stage of history, and those young people who have been exposed to the digital world since childhood will eventually take over your position, and they are more likely to include Bitcoin in the national reserves.The trend is irreversible, and personal will cannot compete with the torrent of the times.
Surprisingly, the starter of this trend is not the digital native generation, but an 80-year-old man, Trump.This reality actually confirms the judgment that “the situation is stronger than that of others.”I thought that only young people would promote change, but an old man took the lead in practice.
At present, the trend of Bitcoin as a reserve asset has begun to emerge.In recent market volatility, the vast majority of crypto assets have fallen sharply, but Bitcoin has fallen relatively small.The reason is that most cryptocurrencies are still regarded as “risk assets”, while Bitcoin is gradually transforming from risky assets to “credit assets”.
The core role of credit assets is to hedge against the excessive issuance of fiat currency.For example, gold has long been regarded as a means of storage of value worldwide, and its prices have risen against the trend in recent years.US stocks and US bonds have fallen one after another, while gold and Bitcoin have performed strongly, indicating that Bitcoin is gradually possessing the characteristics of credit assets.It is expected that Bitcoin will complete a comprehensive transformation from risky assets to credit assets within the next year.
Bitcoin’s current market value is less than $2 trillion, while gold exceeds $20 trillion.If Bitcoin eventually reaches the market capitalization level of gold, it will be a huge opportunity for investors whether it is five or ten years.
As for Ethereum (ETH), it is still a functional token.Its value depends on its practical application in its ecosystem. Only when applications explode on a large scale will ETH have room for significant growth.Unlike Bitcoin that is expected to become “digital gold”, ETH cannot become a credit asset, but as a functional asset, its prospects are still broad.
Regarding the growth path of functional assets, you can refer to Silicon Valley’s classic book “Browsing the Gaps” 30 years ago.The book points out that the user growth path of all high-tech products can be divided into five stages:
Technical geek stage: Create products by tech geeks.Taking Satoshi Nakamoto and Vitalik as examples, Bitcoin and Ethereum were originally created by them from scratch.
Technology enthusiast stage:Early users did not pursue immediate practical applications because they loved new technologies.For example, when Vitalik came to Shanghai in 2015, although the Ethereum main network had not yet been launched, Wanxiang Blockchain still invested $500,000.
Pragmatist stage:Volkswagen users are beginning to pay attention to whether technology can truly bring value and whether it solves practical problems.This is a “gaps” period that is life-and-death for products, and 80% of projects will fail at this stage.
The stage of late-knowing:It only follows up to use it after seeing others benefit, accounting for the majority of the user group.The threshold for this stage is low, but the premise is that you must cross the “pragmatist gap”.
Rejection stage:The “traditional school” that always rejects new technologies.They prefer a stable and nostalgic lifestyle, do not accept new things, and do not have to force transformation.
Projects that can acquire users and cash out from the third and fourth stages have a foundation for sustainable development.In addition, there are two types of assets worth paying attention to:
Securities token:For example, RWA (real-world asset tokenization) is essentially the digitization of securities investment tools and must follow securities regulatory rules.Ignoring supervision will eventually face legal risks.
Meme Coin:For example, the Meme coin launched by Trump is aimed at speculators with entertainment purposes, similar to the casinos in Las Vegas.Although it is mainly about “playing”, there are also real users and market demands, and it belongs to an independent asset category.
In summary, in the new generation of asset system, tokens are mainly divided into five categories: reserve type, functional type, credit type, securities type, and entertainment type.Understanding which category your project belongs will help to more accurately judge its development path and regulatory requirements.
The essence and development direction of the new generation of financial market system
The essence of finance is a cross-period mismatch of time and space values.For example, a startup company lends to banks due to expansion needs, and banks lend based on their growth potential in the next two years. This is actually the advance cashing of future value with current funds, which is a typical time value mismatch.Being able to achieve this value transfer in a more efficient and lower cost way is the core mission of “good finance”, and other superficial behaviors are secondary.
DeFi (decentralized finance) and CeFi (centralized finance) are not opposites. They can be used together to optimize the risk-return structure.The new generation of asset trading market is global and all-weather-weather-based assets are naturally accessible globally, and anyone can participate in transactions at any time and place.
Traditional exchanges such as Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange have also begun to try to extend trading hours, from the original 5 days a week and 5 hours a day to the “5×23 hours” close to the all-weather trading system.In fact, the new technology can support “7×24-hour” transactions, which can fully cover the global time zone and break the previous “anti-human” trading time settings.Since the technology is available, embracing change is a natural choice.
AI and blockchain together form the infrastructure of a new generation of wealth distribution systems.In the AGI era, a new financial system based on blockchain will become the optimal global wealth distribution mechanism.
Blockchain is not only a financial infrastructure, but also a new tool for business governance.The data on the chain has the characteristics of real-time disclosure (once per block), immutable, traceable and auditable, so that enterprises can achieve efficient and transparent information disclosure without relying on the traditional semi-annual and annual reporting systems.Compared with traditional accounting systems, the blockchain-based information disclosure mechanism is more efficient and credible.New organizational forms such as DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) are based on transparent data on the chain and can allow strangers around the world to collaborate and complete complex tasks.
The AI era is an era of large-scale collaboration between strangers around the world.Traditional corporate contracts, bank transfers and other methods can no longer support the demand for efficient collaboration.On-chain protocols, smart contracts and token incentives will become the infrastructure for new business activities.
RWA: The tokenization process of real-world assets
RWA (Real World Assets) is essentially the tokenization process of assets, that is, converting off-chain assets into standardized, share-based and securitized forms on-chain.As early as ten years ago, stablecoins such as USDT and USDC had already achieved tokenization of fiat currencies, which can be regarded as the starting point of RWA.
From the perspective of development stage, RWA is mainly divided into three phases:
Phase I (2015): Franchise tokenization represented by USDT.Since the sovereign currency itself has strong credit endorsement and is less dependent on oracles, the market can trust it by simply issuing a proof of receipt by the custodian bank.
Phase 2 (2024): Represented by BlackRock’s Build, promote the on-chainization of financial assets such as short-term treasury bond funds.Such assets provide credit guarantee through licensed financial institutions, securities supervision, custodial banks, law firm audits, etc.
Phase 3 (Future): Tokenization of physical assets.This stage is the most difficult, and the core difficulty lies in the authenticity verification and ownership proof of off-chain assets, and the oracle has become a key bottleneck.
Currently there are three main types of oracle solutions:
1) Encrypted native oracle machines such as Chainlink: The encrypted market price and data have been implemented.
2) DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network): It is the key oracle for future machine data to be carried on the linkage of machine data, such as real physical world data generated by autonomous driving, humanoid robots, etc.With the development of AI and hardware, its importance will be greatly enhanced.
3) Financial institutions oracle: The on-chain data endorsement is provided by regulated financial institutions through custody and other means.For example, as the custodian, the bank confirms the change in the number of tokens, ensuring that the on-chain assets are credible.
The on-chain mapping of physical assets still faces huge challenges. There is currently no mature and reliable credit guarantee mechanism, but the sustainable development of oracle systems in the future is expected to solve this problem.
When discussing RWA (real world assets), it must be overly ideal if you think that “everything can be RWA”.To do RWA, two core issues need to be solved first:
First, how to put it on the chain.That is, how to ensure that the data is true, tamper-proof and traceable.This usually depends on oracle systems, but the oracle itself also faces the issue of trust and accuracy.
Second, compliance issues.Certain financial products need to be approved by securities regulators before they are tokenized.For example, tokenization of money funds can only be implemented in Hong Kong after approval by the China Securities Regulatory Commission.
Furthermore, tokenization cannot be just for tokenization.For ordinary investors, the benefits obtained by purchasing a US dollar money fund are no essential difference from purchasing its tokenized version. Instead, it increases the complexity of operation such as wallet management and private key security.In reality, money funds can be bought everywhere, and there is no threshold at all.
Therefore, to be established, RWA must have itUnique uses and added value.Otherwise, the real world asset securitization is mature enough that there is no need to do another layer of tokenization.In other words, tokenization must solve problems that traditional finance cannot meet.
A typical scenario is combining DeFi.For example, the current annualized yield of US dollar money funds is between 4.5% and 4.9%.If you continue to enjoy the benefits after tokenization, and you can also get an additional 5% return through DeFi lending, this is a value-added method “without raising risks”.This type of income comes from the improvement of capital efficiency, rather than leverage, and is an innovation worthy of recognition.We are also communicating with regulators, but have not yet been approved to formally use tokenized money funds for DeFi lending.
Let me give you another example of gold RWA: People often think that gold is naturally suitable for ETFs or RWAs, but it depends on the specific execution entity.It is not feasible if a gold miner or smelting company claims to produce gold every day and hopes to tokenize it.The outside world cannot verify the ownership, purity or safety of gold.However, if a gold ETF issued by a licensed financial institution is approved by securities regulatory authorities and custodian, for example, a Hong Kong issuer deposits gold in the HSBC bank vault with HSBC as the custodian, then this gold ETF is converted into an RWA Token, which is credible.In other words, the market trusts not the miners, but HSBC.
In general, not all assets are suitable for making RWA directly.Usually requiredFirst convert into compliant financial products, and then tokenize them.This is a reality that the industry must face at this stage.The combination of AGI (General Artificial Intelligence) and blockchain
When discussing the combination of AGI (General Artificial Intelligence) and blockchain, I want to share a small episode first.Three weeks ago, I met Shen Xiangyang in Hong Kong. He also said that AI and encryption are natural adaptations, and we are jointly exploring how the two are combined.
I’ve been looking for truly valuable AI+Crypto projects over the past year.It’s not about making a chain, issuing a coin, or putting an AI label to do things, but about solving practical problems and doing real projects.for example,Distributed inference networkThis is the direction of our long-term investment.We hope to build a system that can support 200, 2,000, or even 20,000 devices to complete AI inference tasks together.This is not a slogan, but an in-depth project at the hardware level and network level.Currently, our system is expected to launch TGE (Token Generation Event) within two months.
We firmly believe that the deep integration of AI and blockchain will definitely happen, and we are actively looking for entrepreneurial projects with the ability to implement them.I know that many entrepreneurs in S5 of the World Creation Camp are making similar attempts, and everyone is welcome to discuss them together.
Actually, as early as February last year, I found the CSDN team, hoping that they can mobilize developers and run big models in a distributed way.This project has been going on for more than a year because everyone is doing things seriously and down-to-earth, which we feel is worth it.
We are also working with Shen Xiangyang’s team, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.For example, they have compressed the AI model to be able to run on the mobile phone.We are discussing: If the model cannot be preinstalled, can we cooperate with the mobile phone distribution channel, preinstall the model during the sale process, and activate it after authorization by the user.After our test, 90% of users will not uninstall actively, but are willing to keep it.
andThis decentralized edge computing node network, in the future, users can obtain token returns due to sharing computing power, thereby activating the entire ecosystem.This is not an easy task, but it is precisely because of the difficulty that means there is a chance.True valuable innovation is never something that is “doing all over the street”.
Regarding AGI, OpenAI has proposed five stages:Chat, reasoner, agent, innovator, organizer.
At present, ChatGPT has achieved its first phase; reasoners (such as DeepMind’s Alpha series or OpenAI’s O1) are also gradually taking shape.The third stage – the agent is in progress.Musk’s autonomous driving systems, humanoid robots, etc. all belong to this stage.It is expected that autonomous driving will mature within two years, and the application of humanoid robots in factories is also accelerating its implementation.As for the full application of home scenarios, it may take 5 years or even longer.The two more complex stages areInnovatorandorganizer.Innovators are creations from 0 to 1, while organizers need to standardize, systematic and scale the innovation results, which is more difficult.Once all five stages are opened, AGI will be implemented.Optimistic estimates that AGI will arrive in 2027, while conservative forecasts will be 2030.
After AGI, it will enter the ASI (super artificial intelligence) era.The key issues at this stage are:How to distribute the huge social wealth created by AI?
This raises an ancient but important proposition:National Basic Income (UBI).Economists have long proposed the UBI model to ensure that humans can still obtain reasonable distribution in the AI era.I saw a piece of news and someone asked a technology tycoon what the final destination of AGI was, and he replied:socialism.In a sense, it is right – AI does not consume or waste, the wealth it creates needs to be redistributed.The philosophy of UBI is to distribute it according to work, but rather by “people.”
The next stage is UHI (national high income), matching the exponentially growing wealth created by ASI.In the future, maybe you plan to travel to Antarctic, Arctic, and space, and systems in the AI era may support you, which is no longer a fantasy.
Do we still remember Anze Yang who ran for US President in 2020?His core platform is UBI, with each American receiving $2,000 a month.He spoke too early on about the inevitable trend in the AI era.Why does OpenAI’s Ultraman Sam do Worldcoin?It is to build a global identity authentication system (World ID) and a supersovereign monetary system to lay the foundation for future UBI.Because the wealth in the AGI era no longer belongs to a certain country, it must be distributed fairly through suprassori-sovereign currencies and multinational platforms.
Musk is also in a similar exploration.The identity authentication and economic behavior of AI machines must be based on blockchain.Otherwise we cannot verify the interaction between devices.Payment and clearing between machines naturally require smart contracts, and therefore must be based on programmable currency and decentralized ledgers.
so,The combination of AGI and blockchain will be reflected in two levels:
1) Decentralized collaborative network at computing power and task levels, such as distributed reasoning;
2) Global Identity and Settlement System at the Wealth Distribution Level, such as the UBI architecture built by Worldcoin.
This is a question that must be considered for the future-When the means of production in human society are completely taken over by agents, our value system, distribution mechanism, and incentive system must also be reconstructed.And blockchain is probably the closest infrastructure to this answer.
Okay, that’s all for my sharing today, thank you everyone!
