The embarrassment of the “bad end” of a local blockchain project: enthusiasm can hardly hide the shortcomings
Now, Zhang Desheng (pseudonym) has rarely mentioned the blockchain project he has been involved in for three years, and he even "will not think of it."
Three years ago, when blockchain was rarely known in China, Zhang Desheng ’s local government made a bold attempt to use blockchain technology to build a blockchain management platform to improve local Administrative management and social governance capabilities. However, less than two years after the project was promoted, it halted its flag.
This is almost a microcosm of the current development of blockchain in various places.
Since 2019, the blockchain industry has been intensively deployed across the country and a series of planning measures have been introduced. During the just-concluded “two sessions”, blockchain-related proposals, speeches, and opinions also appeared frequently. The content was mainly divided into three categories: promoting the integration of blockchain technology with actual scenarios, including the physical industry and the financial industry; Related to the implementation of digital currencies; suggestions on strengthening industry supervision, establishing regulations, and investing in industry development. But the reality is that the progress of blockchain projects in most places is slow, and some have even been "bad ends".
Zhang Desheng said: "Blockchain is indeed a good technology, but to implement it, enthusiasm and ideas are not enough, and policy sustainability is also required."
In an interview with the First Financial Journalist, professor Zhao Yongxin and other senior blockchain experts from Hebei University of Finance stated that the development of the blockchain industry is still in its infancy, and realizing large-scale scene applications requires continuous exploration and perfect.
The beginning and end of a project
In 2017, the local government where Zhang Desheng was based decided to build a new type of management platform based on blockchain technology to improve local administrative and social governance capabilities.
At that time, the reason why this project was established was largely because of the local leaders' understanding of blockchain technology at the time; similarly, the project finally fell on their departments because of the leadership of the department on blockchain technology. Understand, even love.
The two leaders at different levels believe that improving administrative management and social governance capabilities is a major advantage of blockchain technology. Because, blockchain can improve social governance through a technical means and technical constraints, thereby making administrative management more effective.
Regarding the application of social governance, one of the most obvious characteristics of the blockchain is that it can reduce or even eliminate dependence on people. Although in many social governance processes, regulations, laws and legal principles are relatively perfect, in practice, they often produce various deviations. This kind of deviation is often caused by people.
The role of blockchain is precisely that it provides a trust mechanism in an untrusted environment. In other words, blockchain is to reduce the influence of human factors as much as possible. Let a person do what is done by many people to verify together, to achieve transparency throughout the process.
Zhang Desheng's blockchain management platform that they want to build, hopes to conduct demonstration applications mainly in the fields of justice and law enforcement, and solves the "difficulty in obtaining evidence, difficulty in demonstrating evidence, difficulty in certification, and difficulty in depositing evidence" by using blockchain electronic certificate deposit And other issues.
For example, by deeply integrating blockchain technology and execution work, and embedding blockchain smart contracts into referee documents, the background can automatically generate non-performance reports, execution applications, extract party information, automatically execute filings, and generate execution notices, etc. Completing the execution filing procedure and importing into the execution system will help to crack the execution difficulty.
For this project, Zhang Desheng ’s department also invited experts from well-known domestic universities to come to demonstrate and guide. However, a series of problems emerged, and some problems could not be solved by experts.
The blockchain itself is a database, which means that the blockchain management platform needs to have sufficient data support in order to become a real database to achieve landing operation. However, due to the lack of a clear policy at the government level, Zhang Desheng ’s department encountered obstacles in the process of communicating with other departments and institutions.
Zhang Desheng introduced that the entire blockchain management platform requires data related to local banks, insurance, telecommunications, public railway systems, commercial platforms, employers, and various departments of local governments. Among them, some departments are willing to provide, and some are not willing to provide.
"There are 10,000 reasons for reluctance to provide." Zhang Desheng said.
Because there is not enough data to support, once, when the leaders of the relevant government departments of the higher level visited the local government to investigate the blockchain platform project, the platform also showed that the screen could not appear during the demonstration. "It was so embarrassing at the time." He said.
But this is not the last straw that overwhelms the project.
"With the departure of supervisors who attach great importance to the project, new leaders are not interested in the project." Zhang Desheng said, "In this case, the following people can only go with the leadership's preferences, although at the time each Individuals have paid a lot. "
"The success of the blockchain project is largely related to the sustainability of the policy and the understanding of the local government leaders on the blockchain." Zhao Yongxin, a professor at the Hebei Institute of Finance, said in an interview with the first financial reporter, "Yes There are more and more leaders with more comprehensive knowledge of blockchain, but due to the complexity of blockchain technology, most leaders still do n’t really understand it, some have a half-knowledge, and some may have misunderstandings, which will inevitably affect blockchain projects in The continuity of ongoing policy support. "
Zhao Yongxin, who has participated in multiple blockchain management platform projects, introduced to the first financial reporter that he is currently working with a municipal government on a government blockchain integrated financing platform project. Before the project was built, the municipal government introduced In accordance with relevant policies, it is clear that the city government ’s Development and Reform Commission will provide data support.
In Zhao Yongxin's view, only with the government's leadership and policy support can the data of various departments be successfully linked and shared. Otherwise, the data sharing under the Internet centralized structure of each department will be difficult.
Zhang Desheng's project is the "sustainability" of policy support. This project, which was used for demonstration and application in 2018 and aroused great concern in the industry, ended in a finale.
High enthusiasm, short board
All regions still maintain a high level of enthusiasm for blockchain projects.
According to public information, as of now, at least 22 provinces and cities nationwide have written the blockchain in the 2020 government work report.
Regarding why the local government is deploying the blockchain industry, Chen Xiaohua, chairman and chief digital economist of the Blockchain Professional Committee of the China Mobile Communications Association, told the First Financial Reporter: "The reason is very simple. The first is to actively respond to the call of the central government. At the same time, he believes that to develop the blockchain industry, local governments must first clearly understand what blockchain can bring to the local community. At the same time, every place needs to develop the blockchain industry in accordance with its own actual situation.
Judging from the content of the public work reports of various governments that have been published, most local governments regard blockchain as a technical assistance for the optimization and upgrading of local industries and a new growth point for the digital economy industry, and propose more specific developments for local blockchains. Refined goals. Among them, Beijing, Guangdong, Shandong and other 7 provinces and cities also mentioned the direction of local blockchain application scenarios, of which e-government has become a common appeal.
Zhao Yongxin told the First Financial Reporter that the local government is actively planning and developing the blockchain industry, the purpose is to get through the data between the government, finance, and enterprises, to achieve cross-regional, cross-sector, and cross-domain data guidance, so that the entire data It will flow, thereby promoting the speed of economic development and enhancing the government's ability to govern.
However, "data flow" is the main crux of the current domestic blockchain development.
Summing up the experience of the past three years, Zhang Desheng said that at present, there is no unified legislation on data protection in China, which makes them and other departments and related agencies appear to be unjustified when they get the data, so the other side has more reasons Refuse to cooperate. The obstacles don't stop there.
Zhao Yongxin told the First Financial Reporter, "The problem in the blockchain industry is that there are too few relevant talents, fewer companies with technical strength, and few companies that can form application transformation. In this case, it is necessary The government conducts orderly guidance. "
Taking talents as an example, in May 2020, at the launching ceremony of the Luanxiang Project, the first domestic blockchain talent pool, Sun Pengfa, project director of the Talent Exchange Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the current industry development is still in the growth stage and there is a structural shortage of talents It is still one of the main obstacles restricting the development of the current blockchain industry.
In addition, Zhao Yongxin believes that due to the huge differences in the level of informatization among provinces and cities, this requires the central government to issue more specific policies to guide it. "For example, for first-tier cities to do a good job in guiding the technology industry, local governments should play a leading role in organizing, implementing policy guarantees and financial support and other related services." At the same time, relevant universities and research institutes should play a top role in the blockchain The innovative role of technology.
On May 6, 2020, the "Implementation Opinions on Guangzhou's Promotion of the Innovation and Development of the Blockchain Industry (2020-2022)" issued by the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology proposed: Strive to achieve 2022 Industrial innovation and development, blockchain and economic and social integration are at the forefront of the country.
In Zhao Yongxin's view, although the relevant departments such as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the People's Bank of China, and the Internet Information Office have already issued relevant guidance and plans, they still need to issue a general development plan and guidance from a higher level in the country to let the block The chain industry realizes a scientific layout of different regions, characteristics and levels. "Blockchain is being widely used in various scenarios in various fields such as governments, Internet giants, financial institutions, and the real economy. I hope we can seize the new track of blockchain to promote the healthy development of China's economy and society." He said.