Text | Zhao Huanxin
Editor | Bin Meng
A few days ago, the headline Luo Yonghao said that blockchain mobile phones will definitely be made hit the headlines of many media.
In addition to Lao Luo, who has long been accustomed to being on the cusp of the storm, there are indeed many blockchain + hardware storytellers.
As big as blockchain routers, online game accelerators, as small as air purifiers, speakers, watches, toothbrushes, most of the stories can be condensed into a dream:Everything is mining。
As a complex technology, the underlying development of the blockchain is driven by a small group of people. Ordinary people often become Monk Zhang Er when trying to understand the basic technical concepts of blockchain.
Therefore, if the blockchain wants to cross the complex technical language barriers and truly have a wide-ranging social impact, it must find traffic entrances, combine application scenarios, and bridge the gap between technology and business.
These blockchain hardware are being placed in front of the eyes of ordinary users at a faster speed than the invisible and intangible underlying technology itself.It was entrusted with the mission of becoming the next entry point of the blockchain.
In fact, mobile Internet companies have proved that the combination of hardware + cooperation is the best.
Unlike platform-level public chains and traffic-based exchanges, blockchain hardware itself has higher barriers. The rapid response of large companies and the preemption of innovative companies have warmed up the blockchain hardware arena.
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The ultimate goal of this big world is to promote shared resources and quantify the value of data
The blockchain is eyeing the consumer market, and idle hardware and smart devices that control the traffic entrance have become new bargaining chips.
In simple terms, blockchain hardware can be divided into the following categories:
coin producer: That is to add the mining function to various hardware devices close to life scenes; such as mining routers, accelerators, watches, toothbrushes, air purifiers, speakers, etc. mentioned above.
On a deeper level, using the principle of the Internet of Things + blockchain, this tells a story of everything is a mining machine. Once all IoT devices are connected to the IONChain network, they can obtain mining rewards through the ionization algorithm.
Rewards will be accurately measured according to device functions, data volume, time and space. The time dimension refers to the duration of terminal control, data collection time, etc.; the spatial dimension refers to the area covered by the terminal or terminal cluster.
coin safe: That is, a device for storing encrypted currency designed for the security requirements of digital assets, which can effectively prevent hackers from stealing digital assets by using secure storage solutions.
Minting and depositing coins: Changhong, Candy, Lenovo, and HTC have successively launched their own blockchain phones. There have also been recent reports that Huawei is considering developing a phone using Sirin Labs operating system, which will be able to run blockchain applications alongside Android. Triangle Computer, which laid out this track very early, also opened offline flagship stores in South Korea and Seoul.
In general, the basic functions of hardware correspond to the production, circulation and storage of tokens. The ecological value of hardware links is the big world for these blockchain mining manufacturers to deploy.
And the ultimate goal of this big world is:Promote shared resources, such as computing power, hard disk, and bandwidth; at the same time, quantify the value of data.
Take the triangle mining computer as an example: the triangle computer can join the Acute Angle Chain, and the idle resources provided can provide comprehensive and stable CDN services (broadband acceleration services) for Internet business, and get rewards. This process means mining. The digital asset AAC (official token) obtained from mining can be used to obtain the services of Acute Angle Cloud (acute angle cloud). The triangle computer is the private mining machine of this acute angle cloud.
According to CEO Gao Shengli, the first generation of mining hosts has been online for half a year, with a shipment volume of nearly 20,000 units; like Xunleis Wankeyun, Triangle also talks about shared computing power, CDN acceleration, and a globally distributed IaaS service platform. story.
Let’s talk about the possibility of using Token to motivate users who use hardware to contribute data.
For example, the mining bracelet GymChain, the official token GCC is called GymChainCoin, the total circulation of GCC is 1.5 billion, and will never be issued. GymChain can cooperate with the blockchain rules to allow every user to earn GCC. Individuals and institutions can access the platform to share their own skills, venues, equipment, data and other resources, while improving the overall value of the fitness chain system and the benefits of participants.
On the issue of blockchain commercialization logic, the founder Zhang Jianyi told Odaily, The current market demand for fitness is strong, but it is often accompanied by boring repetitions, and few people can persist. Using the attributes of blockchain technology can The user’s exercise data collected by the wristband can be used to reward users and add value to sports and fitness, while the value of hardware lies in the ability to better generate strong links with users and generate better stickiness.”
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Mining hardware and Bitcoin mining are two different things
The commercial value prospect of blockchain is difficult to estimate. Consensus mechanisms such as POW, POS, DPOS, and PBFT have their own advantages and disadvantages, but none of them have been verified by large-scale commercial scenarios.
Currently,
Currently,Blockchain + hardware is the closest to commercialization is the mining machine。
On May 15, Canaan, the second largest mining machine manufacturer in China, released the prospectus. In 2017, Canaan’s operating income reached 1.3 billion yuan, and its net profit was 360 million yuan. In 2015, this figure was only 2.24 million yuan. In two years, the profit of this mining machine manufacturer has increased by 125 times; Bitmain needless to say.
In addition, according to FinancialBuzzs research report, the global cryptocurrency mining market reached 610 million US dollars in 2016, and is expected to reach a market size of 3.8 billion US dollars in 2025; Revenue has reached $100 million.
The ever-increasing demand for computing power has indeed enlarged the market space, and the daily wealth of gold is also encouraging more users to join the mining ecology. Although the story of shared computing power is supported by scenarios, this kind of variant mining seems to violate the original intention of blockchain design.
These floods of mining are fundamentally different from Bitcoin mining。
In the Bitcoin world, a data block is recorded approximately every 10 minutes. All mining computers are trying to package this data block and submit it, and those who finally successfully generate this data block can get a reward.
Now the so-called mining is just resource sharing. For example, router mining collects the bandwidth, storage and computing resources shared by all users to solve third-party problems in a centralized manner, and finally calculates the users contribution value and rewards accordingly.
In addition, blockchain hardware products usually belong to the scope of private chains. The advantages of the private chain are fewer nodes, fast transaction speed, and better privacy. Completely free or very cheap transactions can be carried out on the private chain. However, from the source design, it is not completely decentralized.
But first-rate manufacturers are looking for selling points, and third-rate manufacturers are chasing the heat.
Not all hardware has on-chain scenarios and on-chain value.
Odaily has doubts about whether household appliances are worth chaining.
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The blockchain promotes the sharing economy through token appreciation expectations and incentive effects
The decentralization envisioned by the blockchain has great similarities with the sharing economy.
The essence of the sharing economy is the reuse of idle resources. For example, a car drives for 2 hours a day and spends the rest of the time in the parking lot. This is a waste. The goal of the sharing economy is to build platforms, get what they need, and save costs.
The Token economy in the blockchain, because of its appreciation expectations and incentive effects, may help the development of the sharing economy break through the bottleneck.
For example, video services require more and more bandwidth due to user explosion and definition requirements.
In order to increase the speed of video transmission as much as possible, video companies such as Xunlei and Youku have introduced CDN distribution technology to connect all users together, realize bandwidth sharing and nearby distribution functions for users, and improve bandwidth usage efficiency.
CDN itself is a decentralized technology, which coincides with the idea of blockchain technology. Many shared CDN projects have begun to integrate blockchain, such as Xiaobao AI Audio, Nuggets, and Oneke Cloud.
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If token incentives = burning money to acquire customers, can small companies afford it?
The centralized nature of private blockchains makes them controversial. Some people think that if an organization controls most of the nodes of the private chain, then there is no difference between the private chain and the database.
Therefore, the contradiction that hardware manufacturers have to face is: how to open the centralized closed loop and form a sustainable blockchain ecosystem.
The feedback system of the current blockchain hardware products is more like credit card points, user consumption and bandwidth contribution, manufacturers give back gifts, both parties want to get more benefits.
The price of blockchain hardware products is high, and a router with mining is worth 500-1000 yuan, which does not meet the users consumption awareness and needs.However, these products were sold out as soon as they were released, which only shows that consumers now buy blockchain hardware more as an investment behavior.
After the initial Wankeyun tasted the sweetness, some people were very concerned about hardware products that could mining, and snapping up blockchain hardware was just for better wool. But such subsidies are not sustainable without long-term sustainable sources of income.
Therefore, the customer acquisition model of blockchain hardware has also returned to the money burning battle of the sharing economysecondary title
The positive incentive brought by blockchain hardware to the ecology can be extended to more fields
The token mechanism can bring a large number of users to the blockchain hardware, which also means that once the token reward is stopped, the number of users will decrease immediately. Therefore, what the blockchain hardware needs to solve is how to provide users with long-term token incentives so that the users contribution value and income can reach a balance.
For example, the idea of router mining and triangular computer mining is that users contribute a certain amount of idle bandwidth and hard disks to provide acceleration services for other surrounding users, and users who use acceleration services pay a certain fee to users who provide services, forming a closed loop.
When the number of user nodes reaches a certain scale, blockchain hardware can even provide cloud computing services for large companies.
Due to its distributed structure, the advantages of large-scale cloud computing formed by blockchain nodes are lower in cost and better in security than Alibaba Cloud.
Blockchain + hardware allows users to change from simple consumers to participants. We can let go of our thinking, and blockchain hardware may be able to expand into more fields。
For example, shared bicycles: the main problem of shared bicycles now is that the operating costs are too high, and a large amount of manpower is required to dispatch vehicles and maintain vehicles.
Through blockchain technology, users may become operators of shared bicycles, encouraging users to purchase bicycles by themselves, and the profits belong to users. Then, through a model similar to Mobikes red-envelope car, users can actively look for bicycles in remote locations without the need to hire special personnel to dispatch vehicles.
For example, the digital product leasing industry: For electronic products with low frequency of use, such as drones, GoPro, SLR cameras and other products, they can be leased through blockchain technology, making each product a blockchain node. Users can also rent it out after using it, without the need for a centralized platform, saving transaction costs.
in conclusion,
in conclusion,Blockchain hardware may bring positive incentives to the entire ecology in the future：
Save operating costs;
Realize the protection of security and privacy;
Create a data trading market.
But nowadays, blockchain + hardware is still at the level of gimmicks, and the core elements for users to decide to buy hardware are still product functions and user experience. Users are more concerned about the actual filtering capacity of the air purifier than mining revenue.
Generally speaking, this market is like a parade float moving forward among the noisy crowd, the people on the car perform freely, and the onlookers clap their hands and applaud.
(I am Zhao Huanxin, a reporter from Odaily. I am exploring the real blockchain. Please add WeChat 17778170972 for breaking news and communication. Please note your name, unit, position and reason.)
(I am Zhao Huanxin, a reporter from Odaily. I am exploring the real blockchain. Please add WeChat 17778170972 for breaking news and communication. Please note your name, unit, position and reason.)
