Blockchain Technology: The Rise and Challenges of Trust Machines

Blockchain technology contains enormous transformative potential, and is currently or will soon change the development prospects of multiple industries, with the potential to become an important component of the digital economy's information infrastructure. Although the industry is welcoming new opportunities, the large-scale application of blockchain technology in the real economy still faces many challenges, requiring long-term efforts.

Recently, a forum themed "Blockchain New Economic Era: A Breakthrough for Changing Lanes and Overtaking" has attracted widespread attention. At the forum, a blockchain expert provided a detailed introduction to the basic concepts, historical evolution, and application development of blockchain.

The expert first reviewed the origins and development of Blockchain. Blockchain technology originated from the Bitcoin white paper published by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008, and the launch of the Bitcoin network in 2009 marked the first stage of Blockchain technology. The publication of the Ethereum white paper in 2014 and the launch of its network in 2015 represented the second stage of Blockchain technology, introducing smart contracts that made more industry applications possible. In October 2015, a well-known economic magazine discussed in a cover article how Blockchain technology could change the world, causing a sensation; this was the first time mainstream media paid such attention to Blockchain technology.

Blockchain is essentially a storage technology for transaction records. It provides permanent storage of transactions that cannot be deleted, allowing new transactions to be added sequentially, thus continuously recording all transaction history. This seemingly simple function has far-reaching implications, prompting people to rethink how to create transactions, store data, and exchange assets, marking the starting point of a massive transformation.

The core of blockchain technology lies in solving the problem of trust costs. In traditional models, trust is concentrated in various central institutions, such as banks, governments, and large corporations. Blockchain allows people to no longer be constrained by these central nodes; for example, both parties in a transaction can directly authenticate transactions on the blockchain without the need for a clearinghouse. Blockchain replaces the original third-party trust intermediaries with mathematical algorithms and code to establish trust at a lower cost, thus being regarded as a "trust machine."

Regarding the issue of quantum computing potentially breaking the underlying encryption of blockchain, the expert believes that, from the perspective of human development and the evolution of cryptography, computational speed is continuously iterating. Although quantum computing is evolving, cryptography is also developing in parallel.

Experts emphasize that blockchain is not a panacea and can only exert its advantages in specific scenarios. In recent years, the value and development potential of blockchain technology have received increasing attention, and the industry is developing rapidly. Some companies have made large-scale investments and layouts in the blockchain field, including establishing research institutions, participating in standard formulation, investing in projects, and developing enterprise-level solutions.

With the continuous advancement of technology and the expansion of application scenarios, Blockchain is expected to play a greater role in the future, but its large-scale application in the real economy will still take time. Industry participants need to continue innovating and overcome challenges in technology and application in order to fully realize the potential of Blockchain technology.