OKX Blockchain 60 Lectures | Episode 47: The 2017 "Blockchain Revolution"
Hello everyone, I'm Xiao K Jun. Today we're going to talk about: "The 2017 'Blockchain Revolution'".
In the last lesson, we talked about how in June 2015, with the birth of Ethereum, the mindset that blockchain could only be applied to cryptocurrency was broken. However, early Ethereum had a major flaw - the first version was not stable, which meant many concepts mentioned in the "Ethereum Whitepaper" could not be implemented.
It wasn't until May 14, 2016, with the official launch of Ethereum's second phase "Homestead" version, that the stability issues were completely resolved, attracting a large number of developers to build Ethereum's smart contract ecosystem. Since then, the public chain power represented by Ethereum has gradually moved to center stage.
In addition, on July 20th of that year, Bitcoin welcomed its second mining halving, with mining rewards dropping from 25 Bitcoin to 12.5 Bitcoin. The largest bull market in Bitcoin history arrived as expected. With the boost of rising prices, mainstream institutions finally discovered the power of blockchain, and a blockchain revolution quietly arrived.
In 2017, the Ethereum ecosystem began to show results. Products from thousands of developers and projects were designed based on Ethereum's underlying infrastructure. Its decentralized applications covered areas including crowdfunding, IoT, gambling, social networks, insurance, data storage, wallets, decentralized trading, and more. Everyone realized that blockchain could not only be applied to cryptocurrency, but could be applied to all industries. The potential of blockchain technology is sufficient to disrupt the existing internet world.
As a result, major foreign banks began trying to develop smart contracts on Ethereum's public chain to solve trust issues in financial services. Meanwhile, China wasn't idle either. The four major state-owned banks - Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, and China Construction Bank - successively formed strategic partnerships with financial technology companies to establish laboratories for researching blockchain technology applications. China Merchants Bank, China Minsheng Bank, and other joint-stock banks went even further, choosing to try combining blockchain with cross-border payment settlements and bills to research practical applications.
In addition, major companies like Tencent, Baidu, and Alibaba also began laying out their blockchain businesses. Ant Financial, Baidu Finance, and JD Finance attempted to use blockchain for transformations in supply chain finance, asset securitization, and other fields.
As for traditional forces in the blockchain industry, star public chains like NEO and Qtum emerged, hoping to surpass Ethereum and open the door to Blockchain 3.0.
For a time, mainstream tech media were all discussing blockchain content, hoping blockchain could bring a revolution to the existing internet world, create a truly decentralized network, and nurture the next BAT-level company.
By the end of 2017, this revolution reached its climax. Bitcoin's market cap exceeded 2 trillion RMB, reaching nearly $20,000 per coin.
In January 2018, Xu Xiaoping, founder of ZhenFund, once said in an internal group: "The blockchain revolution has arrived. This is a great technological revolution where those who follow it will prosper and those who go against it will perish. Its disruption of tradition will be even more rapid and thorough than the internet and mobile internet."
But just like the internet in 2000, great things must go through a process of "emergence - bubble - de-bubbling - implementation - prosperity" before arriving, and blockchain is no exception. A blockchain de-bubbling implementation movement is about to arrive. As for how the blockchain industry completes the de-bubbling process, let Xiao K Jun keep you in suspense - we'll talk about it in the next lesson.
Thanks to Brother Ma for his help and guidance with this episode's content.
Sina Weibo: @布劳克臣小马叔
"OKX Blockchain 60 Lectures" is a blockchain science animation video co-produced by OKX & Sina Tech. Targeting blockchain beginners, through series articles, science animations, and other forms, from perspectives of concepts, technology, and applications, through 5 major sections and 60 knowledge points, it vividly explains blockchain concepts.
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