The Global Blockchain G3 Summit was held at Tsinghua University Future Internet Technology Building on January 4, 2018, featuring representatives from NEO, Elastos, Bitmain and Tsinghua University. G3 is a co-operation between NEO, Elastos and Bitmain who share a vision of a decentralised economy and smart web. Key features of the smart web include the virtual machine, runtime environments and trust zone, provided by Elastos and Bitmain, consensus provided by NEO and KYC provided by Ontology. G3 are inviting other organisations to join them in their vision, so that G3 can become G4, G5, G6 and so on.

The first speaker of the day was Han Feng, co-founder of Elastos, who spoke on the future of the global smart economy. He elaborated briefly on his journey of involvement with Bitcoin, his return to Tsinghua University in 2013, and finally the Elastos project. Moving on, he asserts that economic fundamentals that resulted in the trade and e-commerce revolution will lead to the adoption of blockchain technologies. In this new distributed smart economy, Big Data will become the new “Gold Rush” of this technological era, as projects become more efficient in harnessing the power of Big Data on the blockchain. These digital data will be the latest wealth generation mechanism of the 21st Century.

The second speaker of the day was Chen Rong, founder of Elastos, who presented on the Computational Thinking behind the Elastos Operating System. Chen Rong started off by describing the problems with the Internet, plagued by frequent DDoS and man-in-the-middle attacks. Elaborating on the vision of Elastos, he described a future where the Smart Web is a future Web that is able to run dApps, with end-to-end security of data and privacy from one’s device to the respective servers. Similar to how thumbprints and FaceID data is not stored on the device itself, but within an isolated Trust Zone, Elastos blockchain is the Trust Zone of the Smart Web, through the Elastos P2P network. In the future, Elastos aims to make it possible to trade digital and physical goods in a P2P manner, which in itself is a cultural, economic and technological revolution.

Following that, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Professor, Ma Zhihao, gave a speech on Quantum Technology, starting off by illustrating that quantum technology and communications is advancing at a rapid pace. He believes that advanced research into quantum technology will allow the Elastos team to be sure that their blockchain is 100% secure and quantum-proof, as both teams are at the forefront of their respective fields.

Afterwards, Huawei Central Research Institute Applications Lab’s representative introduced Huawei Central Research Institute vision of “Innovating the future”. Supply chain finance is a key field that Huawei is looking to dominate, through the joint research of blockchain, AI, Big Data and IoT technology to integrate logistics, information and capital flow. Within China alone, supply chain finance is a 15 trillion RMB market opportunity. The Application Lab team is looking forward to future cooperation with the Elastos team, which they believe to be at the forefront in the research of blockchain technologies.

The Global Blockchain G3 Summit closed off with a Q&A session, and key points from various thought leaders are highlighted below.

Da Hongfei believes that an interoperable standard is required for the whole blockchain ecosystem to scale to a point where it will be able to support the entire world’s data and trading volume. In terms of consensus upgrades, he asserts that any infant network will benefit from a centralized governance mechanism which will allow rapid protocol upgrades, such as scaling solutions. Speaking on G3, Da Hongfei feels that it consists of projects which are distinctive in nature and are well-known worldwide.

Han Feng sees the advent of the blockchain as an upcoming paradigm shift for the future smart economy. The world will shift from an economy that is backed by the government and institutional trust, to the future smart economy that is backed by cryptography and encryption, powered by digital data. In this world, the power is gradually being transferred from the seller to the consumer, where fungibility of the transaction should be a fundamental right for every consumer.

Chen Rong believes that a cyber world is the new frontier for the human race. Being able to execute P2P trade of physical and digital through Elastos will revolutionize the world. Unlike first-generation blockchains that focused on security (Bitcoin), and second-generation blockchains that focused on programmability (Ethereum), Elastos is a third-generation blockchain that allows dApps to run on local devices, which then interface with the blockchain. Speaking on G3, Chen Rong hopes to see the addition of other top-tier blockchain projects to this ecosystem.

– Written by Jeremy Lim who attended the event on behalf of NEO News Today, and live tweeted the proceedings – https://twitter.com/jlqe_

To learn more about G3, Rong Chen discusses the co-operation between Elastos, NEO and Bitmain, along with the vision of G3 in episode two of the NEO News Today Podcast found here.