On December 21, 2017, “China Blockchain Innovation Forum (Shenzhen)” was co-held by 8BTC, Bytom Blockchain and Dream Chaser Capital. The forum invited representatives from various background including venture investment institutions, financial institutions, law firms and blockchain start-ups. With the theme of “Blockchain Technology, Interconnection of Industries and Capital and Ecological outlook”, in-depth discussion was heatedly undergoing centering on venture investment in the area of domestic and foreign blockchain, legal regulation, exploration of advanced blockchain technologies, and industrial applications and implementation in keynote speeches and roundtable dialogues.

The first roundtable discussion in the afternoon was presided over by industry expert Liu, Li Xingchen (project leader with Bitmain Blockchain), Li Dawei (founder of BTCChina), Sun Zeyu (Co-Founder of Coldlar Cold-storage Wallets), He Bin (CEO of imToken), exchanged views on hot issues as centralization of mining, choice of hot and cold storage wallets, IFO and the future development of blockchain.

In fact, in the past few years, our mining related industry in China is among the world’s leaders, with numerous mining rigs distributed in different mines in China, and lots of exchanges, which gives rise to a quite flourishing and competitive Chinese market. In this context, we comparatively have a louder voice on the issue of pricing over the whole world. Some changes this have taken place this year, the role of China in the global industrial chain has undergone quite big changes.

Talking of changes this year and forecast of the near future, Li Dawei stated,

“As we’ve already seen, due to the domestic policies, almost all of the domestic exchanges have gone oversea. And I believe we’ll see more Chinese exchanges in countries of mainstream or economically open in the future, or Sino-foreign joint venture. Going abroad, we can do business in South Korea, the United States and Japan, etc, isn’t it a much better choice?”

Li Xingchen (project leader with Bitmain Blockchain),

“In fact, I think all industries are in steady progress. Take wallets as an example, wallets by 2017 may be a very professional application known by a small mass, this year’s outbreak of digital assets gives rise to the improvement of such applications with users increasing, experience enhancing and thus influence growing. It is a big move forward for blockchain-related-application developers.”

He Bin (CEO of imToken),

“I am here to see the entire ecological changes according to a stream of data. First is the scale of digital assets, we have recently exceeded 600 billion US dollars, a very thrilling number, which has exceeded the silver market value. The next is Bitcoin accounting for less than 50% of the digital asset share, currently around 45%, indicating that the ecology is more balanced and it is playing an increasingly important role in the overall digital asset.”

Liu: Imagine the scenario of the future, a foreigner is using a mining rig from China with wallets developed in China on the platform of Chinese, with all related services provided by Chinese. So actually China is still a very important role. But this time, some people may say that mining is too centralized in China, and why a decentralized stuff be so centralized?

Li Xingchen (project leader with Bitmain Blockchain),

“In fact, mining rigs with Bitmain are scattered in more than 100 countries over the whole world. It may occur that some may gather in the same place, which is a rational market behavior. It is also a spontaneous customer behavior because it is common to see large-scale operations in the hardware industry. This is good for their capital return, so I don’t think the so-called ‘centralization’ can be easily guided and controlled by one person or a certain power, but a completely customer-spontaneous behavior. And for another, mining pool of BTC.com with Bitmain is the earliest entrant in the industry, and its code is for public. We hope to contribute to the course of decentralization with the thought of making such an open source community.”

Regarding the issues of regulation, what’s your forecast of next year?

Li Dawei (founder of BTCChina):

“The Central Government has been conscious of the need to grasp the stability of the financial sector before issuing regulations. I remember that President Xi had two or three days’ financial meetings in a row, stressing that finance should serve the real industry, and put it bluntly, the state thinks this industry is quite virtual at the regulatory level, with little help for the real industry to any extent. I think 90% of people fail to imagine the fast development of this industry, for the rest 10%, they are certainly not expecting such a big change within six months. Looking back at the policy, I do not want to make too much comment on it. If asked any further views on the policy, it is hard to predict. As we know now the United States, Germany, and many countries Japan included, are beginning to carry out business license for digital currency exchanges, I’m here calling on our domestic policy be more loose, we can first have a regional pilot, maybe in Shenzhen or other places, if it turns out to be good, we do it boldly, if not, just forget it. This would be a good try.”

Bitcoin price with other cryptocurrency is going crazy recently, if newbies want to purchase some, where shall they put it? Cold-storage wallet or hot wallet?

Sun Zeyu (Co-Founder of Coldlar Cold-storage Wallets):

“Personally, I use imToken myself and Coldlar. Coldlar hope to help users manage their digital assets in the most secure way by the separation of hot and cold storage wallet, never leaving hackers a chance. Many exchanges have been hacked recently, and some wallet developed by foreign teams are not that reliable. We develop Coldlar wallet because we made a big fortune in 2016 when making speculation on cryptocurrency, therefore we have the need to store it, but the trouble came when we synchronize it on the computer, it always took a long time and very inconvenient, then we started to develop Coldlar Cold-storage Wallet, but back then we did not expect it soaring up so crazy.”

Regarding IFO, what’s your views upon it?

He Bin (CEO of imToken):

“The question is what you want. To improve the technology, to make innovation, or simply to make money? I think in terms of forking, a technical team must meet two conditions before getting to do it: 1. You are really engaged in solving the problem, and you’re sure you have the ability to solve this problem; 2. Your technical strength enables you to improve the infrastructure, stably operate the nodes and anti-attack, instead of seizing the initiative or make a quick fortune by it. We should encourage good forking, and resist industries with bad motives.”

As for the crazy increase of cryptocurrency prices, some people may compare it to the Tulip Bubble. Liu and Sun think it is not a bad thing to have bubbles. Bubbles in an industry exactly mean it is a flourishing market and it is developing in a fast speed. What matters is not when the bubble will burst or whether it will burst, but it develops in the right way.