— — Interview with the senior researcher of Nebulas Research Institute Dr. Yulong Zeng

This article was originally published in Chinese and has been translated from its original source.

Introduction:

Name: Yulong Zeng Education: Ph.D — Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Tsinghua University Research field: Game Theory and Mechanism Design in blockchain Title: Senior Researcher of Nebulas Research Institute Contribution: The main author of “Mauve Paper: Developer Incentive Protocol”

There is a English saying “Birds of a feather flock together.” It is particularly true with excellent people. Excellence is not only about attraction, but also about spurring each other to progress together. Today our hero is such a person, “Dr. Yulong Zeng”.

Excellence Is a Habit

Compared with his previous successful experiences, Dr. Zeng has a fresh memory of his own failures.

Dr. Zeng graduated from Yali Middle School of Changsha City, one of the best middle schools of Hunan province, and he primarily focused on mathematics competition. Before attending high school, Dr. Zeng excelled in computer competition. When he became a high school student, he put even more focus into mathematics competition out of his own interest. However, when he first changed his focus, he didn’t receive good grades and at that time, only the first prize winner would be recommended to Tsinghua University, which brought him a lot of pressure.

Dr. Zeng believed that the greatest enemy was himself. Therefore, after the failure in a mathematics competition, he summarized his faults and found out that unstable mentality was his biggest enemy. He also knew that he must overcome this deficit if he wanted to win and have a chance to be recommended. After that, Dr. Zeng won many awards, including the first prize of NOIP and CMO, and he successfully received the opportunity to be recommended to the Yao Class of Tsinghua University.

The Analects of Confucius has a saying that, when you meet with an excellent person, you will regard him as your teacher and want to become a person like him, when you meet someone with similar shortcomings, you will reflect on your own. When Dr. Zeng came to Yao Class, he found that almost everyone was excellent and had a impressive history in national mathematics competition. For him, this was a good chance to learn from others and he was willing to do so. This positive quality laid a solid foundation for Dr. Zeng in his future study and research.

If I am a Swift Horse, then My Mentor is My Horse Trainer

Like many others, Dr. Zeng began to know blockchain from friends who bought a lot of cryptocurrency. However, he was lucky because he had a future-oriented mentor, Professor Zhongping Tang.

During his graduate years, Dr. Zeng majored in game theory and computational economics. After the rise of bitcoin, professor Tang was aware that blockchain technology was about to become a hot topic. Several years ago, in the course of computation economics, Professor Tang had introduced bitcoin and its operation principle in the class, which was enlightening for Dr. Zeng. Nowadays, with the development of blockchain technology, the term blockchain has become a familiar word to the public.

Hero’s are still in need. Through systematic study, Dr. Zeng has found that blockchain is a profound topic that has many subjects worth studying. After learning about Zeng’s idea, professor Zhongping Tang recommended him to Nebulas. At the time, Nebulas was in need of game theorists. Dr. Zeng became a true gift to Nebulas.

At Nebulas, I Have a Great Sense of Belonging and Sense of Identity

After truly integrating into the team, Dr. Zeng believes that he has made the greatest decision in his life.

“TGIF”(thank god it’s Friday)is a routine agenda every week at Nebulas. Every Friday, the team members gather together, to further communicate. What impressed people is that the first TGIF Dr. Zeng took part in, his mother came to the Nebulas office to visit him and had a great time with the Nebulas team which further supported Dr. Zeng’s decision to join Nebulas.

Dr. Zeng is doing presentation about Game Theory

Dr. Zeng felt very glad to join Nebulas because his colleagues are all outstanding people with approachable character. Even if all of them graduated from the top universities and have rich work experience, they are modest, warmhearted, hard-working, and also enterprising, which made Dr. Zeng have a feeling of belonging and a sense of identity.

The Common Aspiration: Let Nebulas Become a Pioneer in the Blockchain World

Several months ago, the Nebulas team published the Nebulas Rank Yellow Paper. The Nebulas Rank Yellow Paper demonstrates a multi-dimensional measurement standard of data value on a blockchain, which is a significant milestone in the public blockchain filed. However, the Nebulas team is never satisfied with past achievements and never stops moving forward. On October 31st, the Mauve Paper which pertains to the Developer Incentive Protocol (DIP) will be published and Dr. Zeng is the author of the Mauve Paper.

Dr. Zeng and the team are discussing about Mauve Paper

It’s an opportunity and also a challenge for Dr. Zeng to compose the Mauve Paper since the core theory of Nebulas Incentive is game theory, which is also the major study of Dr. Zeng. There are many details needed to think about in the process of designing DIP. This is not an easy task. Fortunately Dr. Zeng didn’t have to fight this battle alone. He’s had great support from the members of the Nebulas Research Institute and there are many excellent members working with him to achieve the Nebulas mission.

In the blockchain industry, although many public blockchains have emerged, there still lacks a leading pioneer project. Therefore, everyone on the Nebulas team shares a desire to have Nebulas take it’s a place in the blockchain world, and become the quintessential project in the post-Ethereum era.

In addition, for Dr. Zeng, Nebulas is not only a stage for valuable DApps, but also a stage for people who have a desire to change the world. Dr. Zeng is obviously one of them, and he has the confidence to be one of the brightest stars at Nebulas.

This article was originally published in Chinese and has been translated from its original source.