Seven must-have known blockchain world events in 2020
【Published by: BLOCKTEMPO | Editor: Candy Her | Translator: Statecraft 】
After the Chinese New Year, we officially entered 2020. Blockchain and cryptocurrencies have also firmly established their position; in the past few years, more and more large enterprises, government units and central banks have begun to embrace blockchain, even considering the launch of the “Central Bank Digital Currency” (CBDC). Cryptocurrencies that have been scorned a few years ago have begun to become popular investment targets, deriving a variety of commodities such as futures and funds. In the new year, how should we look at the growth and expected future of cryptocurrencies?
Looking ahead to 2020, Bitcoin has successfully established itself for more than 10 years, and the cryptocurrency field has also created its own ecosystem and established a strong and stable community. This year, there are seven major events worth our attention. From Ethereum 2.0 to the Tokyo Olympics, countries set out to implement central bank digital currency (CBDC) and supervision, covering applications, technology, and legal aspects.
According to Satoshi Nakamoto’s design, the Bitcoin reward halving mechanism is to match the programming limit of the Bitcoin protocol limit of 21 million. According to the current block generation rate estimate, Bitcoin mining rewards will be from 12.5 BTC (Approximately $ 90,000) fell to 6.25 BTC (approximately $ 45,000) around May.
Why is this important? There are several reasons, the first and most obvious is that this will generate fewer bitcoins in the future, which will reduce the overall inflation rate of the entire network.
The inflation rate will drop from 4% to 2%, making it similar to some fiat currencies in the world. Although many people do not think that this will have any drastic impact on prices, it does mean that as mining motivation is cut directly in half, miners’ influence on the network will diminish.
In addition, many people are hoping that the reward will be halved, thinking that this will bring Bitcoin back to the bull market.
They believe that after halving Bitcoin mining rewards in the past (occurring in 2012 and 2016, respectively), although not immediately, the price has risen significantly shortly; after Bitcoin’s poor performance in 2019, many people hope for 2020 The year will be different.
In 2019, countries around the world are rumored to be building their own digital currencies, and this year it seems that this situation will accelerate progress. Countries from the UAE, Japan, Sweden, Russia to France have announced their own digital currency project. China, which is fully promoting the implementation of blockchain applications, has already listed its clear architecture and planning in 2019 and is ready to go.
Although the United States is still cautious about cryptocurrencies, government officials have also called for and started to study the possibility of digital dollars. The former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has said frankly that “the US dollar should be sent to cyberspace.” In order to maintain the hegemony of the US dollar, the United States may also turn to join the ranks of digital currencies.
Why are these countries suddenly asking for cryptocurrency? Pradeep Goel, CEO of Solve.Care, a healthcare platform that uses blockchain technology, believes:
“Although governments around the world are mostly centralized, there are still opportunities to decentralize in some areas; in 2020, we will of course see further government integration of blockchain technology in order to process large amounts of data between institutions from all walks of life.”
JP Morgan, Wal-Mart, Tencent, Samsung and other leaders in various fields have begun to explore digital assets and application blockchains, and large banks such as Société Générale also launched “Security Token” on the public blockchain Ethereum in April , 2019. In the form of bonds, bonds with a value of about 100 million euros were issued, which became a pioneering move of bond tokenization in large banks.
“As blockchain technology shifts to enterprise production, we are likely to see huge expansion.” Said Greg Forst, director of marketing for the Factom protocol.
Because the blockchain is transparent and traceable, and cannot be tampered with, the company began to use the blockchain to solve pain points such as traceability, food history, and trade conditions, and also accelerate internal processes and efficiency.
When Bitcoin faces a halving of rewards, Ethereum is also entering the second phase of its large roadmap. The next iteration of Ethereum has two broad goals: the introduction of the Proof-Of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism and the end of energy-intensive Proof-of-Work (PoW); and the introduction of high-profile sharding＊ to help coordinate network speed and throughput.
＊Sharding: Divide the database into shards of different sizes. Each network only needs to process a small number of transactions, and simultaneously process with other network nodes. Use division of labor to speed up.
However, with the difficulty bomb being continuously postponed, it may take some time to introduce the PoS consensus mechanism. According to the original plan, Ethereum 2.0 will be divided into seven stages for deployment and testing in a few years, although many products are still in their early stages Phase, but Phase 0 (also known as Beacon Chain) will be released in the first quarter of this year.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) performed well in 2019. Decrypt pointed out that the amount locked in decentralized financial applications has exceeded $ 400 million, and the number of DeFi registered addresses has increased by more than 1600% in the past year. Startups like Compound are also aggressively raising funds from well-known companies such as Andreesen Horowitz.
Many people set 2020 as an important year for building financial software based on blockchain. However, if DeFi is to be accepted by the mainstream and become more popular, it still needs to have more convenient and easy-to-use facilities and interfaces. Make it easier for people with little knowledge of cryptocurrencies to buy digital assets and participate in decentralized financial services.
As Tokyo takes over to host the next Summer Olympics, the blockchain will also attract more world attention because of the Olympics.
Mitsubishi Estate, which manages nearly one-third of all buildings in Tokyo’s business district, has partnered with electronics giant Fujitsu to provide blockchain-based, secure, restaurant-, hotel-, and other-company-based services during a month-long sports event Data sharing.
In a situation of 37 million residents and facing overpopulation, the city’s ability to conduct business is gradually declining; being able to use blockchain to accelerate the inspection of people’s reservations at restaurants, hotels, and other information can effectively reduce waiting times and improve effectiveness. In addition, according to Decrypt, Mitsubishi Estate is also working with a multibank conglomerate Softbank to help process data on the blockchain.
In addition, Paris has been discussing the possibility of its blockchain landing before the 2024 Olympics; Jean Pierre Landau, head of the French cryptocurrency task force, revealed that he might use tokens to help in the Olympics eliminate scalper ticket, and adjusting ticket prices in time to meet demand, etc., even help to avoid assigning the wrong medicine to athletes.
According to a report from blockchain venture capital company Outlier Ventures, the biggest focus in 2020 will be “Reckoning”. Although the bear market has continued for a long time, the total market value of all crypto assets is at the highest level in January 2018 Compared with the decrease of 88%, the single valuation of most projects still cannot reflect the network activity or development progress.
The report expects:
“As exchanges are forced to become more specialized, zombie tokens will be delisted more frequently, investors will gradually move towards high quality, and assessments will no longer be maintained by a single vision and concept. Usage rate. “
The regulatory power will also become stronger with the development of cryptocurrencies; taking the United States as an example, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) stated that for any transaction exceeding $ 3,000, all currency services businesses (including cryptocurrency businesses) must submit Customer information, this requirement will come into effect this June.
According to a report released by the UK jurisdiction taskforce of the LawTech Delivery Panel in November 2019, cryptocurrencies “can be regarded as property in principle”, which defines the legal status of cryptocurrencies in more detail.
Simon Davis, president of the Law Society of England and Wales, also said:
“This will increase the confidence of law firms to adopt new technologies and encourage investors to invest.”
2019 is a year of vigorous development of blockchain technology. Although the currency price performance is not as good as expected and has not been out of the bear market, but in all walks of life, even the government and central bank, you can slowly find the application of blockchain.
With the popularization of the blockchain, the public will have more confidence in cryptocurrencies and DeFi. In the face of the new 2020, continuing to master the pulse of the blockchain industry is also a way for the generations in the digital trend to keep up with the development of the world.
Published at Thu, 30 Jan 2020 10:08:35 +0000
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