“Public chain projects have their own characteristics and can learn from one another.”

On November 10, the Public Chain Technology Alliance (PCTA) held its release conference in Shanghai, China. PCTA was initiated by Bitsclub Vision Program (BVP), aiming to form an open, cooperative and inclusive alliance to break the vicious competition among various public chains, with the goal of opening their isolated ecosystem to new users and developers.

After the release conference, Mars Finance, the renowned media focused on blockchain and financial services, interviewed Hitters Xu, the initiator of Bitsclub Vision Program (BVP). Key points from the interview include:

Public chain technology development is rather difficult, and requires theoretical guidance. Not everyone has the capacity to build a public chain. PCTA aims to unite all public blockchains, to share the underlying technology and experience, build a pool for resource-sharing, and ultimately create a compatible and open ecosystem. To introduce 100 million users to the blockchain world is just a small goal, which stems from our belief in the potential of blockchain. What we need to do is to build the environment to accommodate 100 million users, including blockchain technology, talent, and business applications.

Below is a detailed interview between Mars Finance and Hitters Xu.

“Building a pool for resource sharing.”

Q: What is the current state of the public chain industry? Why launch the Public Chain Technology Alliance (PCTA)?

A: First of all, we need to face the reality that the development of the public chain is rather difficult, and requires certain theoretical guidance. This means not all people have the capacity to build the public chain. Starting from the first half of this year, many people chose to build public blockchains, mainly because of their high valuations. However, many projects today cannot meet their delivery and development goals. There is a gap between the pursuit market and the actual delivery.

In the one and a half years since Nebulas was founded, we’ve found that the existing public chain ecosystem lacks compatibility, meaning various public blockchains are not integrated. This is harmful to the ecosystem of public chain as a whole. The majority of public chains want to lock Dapp developers into their ecosystems, which is not in the best interest of the latter since Dapp developers simply want the best, most mature ecosystem, and the most users.

Therefore, if we approach developers with such an attitude, the public chain ecosystem will become more and more narrow.

From the perspective of the market, some projects chose to build public chains because of the fickleness of the market. Although they encountered a lot of difficulties, their projects still have strong features and can play an important role in bringing new users to the space. We hope that these projects can continue to develop themselves. Furthermore, some famous existing public chain projects also encountered problems, and their ecosystems have become more and more narrow. We hope to break the current situation of competition and closed development.

PCTA hopes to truly unite everyone, share the underlying technology and experience, and build a pool for resource-sharing. This is also the original aspiration of Bitsclub and Bitsclub Vision Program.

Q: Was it a smooth process to set up PCTA? What are some things worth mentioning in this process?

A: The whole thing went very well. We prepared for about one month. Actually, it originates from the vision of BVP, to introduce 100 million incremental users to the blockchain world. When we communicated with the other members, they showed great enthusiasm and willingness to contribute to this goal. After the press conference, there are now about a dozen blockchain projects applying to join.

If what we’re doing is right, many projects will be willing to join. I have deep impression about two things:

1. Fred Wang’s strong support for the PCTA. Fred and I have known each other for about only one month. He was very interested when I first mentioned the Bitsclub Vision Program (BVP) and the Public Chain Technology Alliance (PCTA). Not long after that, we made an appointment in Beijing for further communication. He is very interested in greater collaboration, and I feel his mission and commitment to this industry.

2. Ruby, who is in charge of the BVP and left me with a great impression. She has only been in this industry for 4 to 5 months, but she acted as the owner of BVP. This makes me feel that the potential of young people is very great. We should believe in young people.

“Help others to avoid detours.”

Q: At the release conference of PCTA, Fred Wang, the CEO of Mars Finance was invited as the special guest and delivered the keynote speech. Why did you invite Fred to join BVP, and what impact will this have on the further development of PCTA?

A: Fred Wang represents the influencers of the Internet. I admire him very much for his “All in” attitude: No matter what the external environment is, as long as he feels positive, he will be “all in”.

We met each other in Nebulas Beijing office, where spoke over a meal. That feeling can be much better than eating out, and Fred’s attitude also touched me very much.

At the same time, Mars Finance is a blockchain portal, which can promote positive and healthy values in the industry and boost the growth of blockchain. Therefore, I’m full of expectation for the collaboration with Mars Finance.

Q: Apart from Fred Wang, Dr. Songtao Pu, who studied computer science at Peking University, also joined BVP as a mentor and PCTA as a technical advisor. How did you persuade Dr. Pu to join?

A: Actually, I didn’t really persuade him. Dr. Pu himself has a strong technical background, and he has long been concerned about and recognized the importance of developing the public chain industry. We saw many areas worthy of improvement in the blockchain industry and believed that China should have a good technology community. We share the same viewpoints, and he acknowledged the positive role of the PCTA in promoting the whole public chain industry.

Q: Who are the first partners of the PCTA? Why did they choose to join?

A: The first partners of PCTA include Nebulas, Bytom, PCHAIN, HPB, NULS, XMAX, YouDeal and Atlas Protocol.

These projects have their own characteristics, some of are good at community operation and some focus on the underlying technologies. Everyone can learn from each other.

When I talk to them, I can feel their powerless in the current market. At first, they were focused on the technology, however, suddenly tokens went on the market. If a project focuses on increasing their market valuation and PR, there won’t be a lot of energy to make real technical breakthroughs and innovations. In this case, they can hand over some work to the PCTA, to focus on what they really want to accomplish.

Q: As the initiator of PCTA and senior practitioner of blockchain industry, what specific fields do you think the PCTA can play its role?

A: It’s hard to define several specific areas. PCTA is like a platform. Will it excel in a particular respect? This is not necessarily the case. But the Alliance can build standards and processes in many areas to enable everyone to work together efficiently and avoid detours.

For example, in a bear market, the Alliance can advocate open-source development and cutting expenditure: each project has its own technical ability, and can spread out its technology through going open-source. Alliance partners can also come together for blockchain marketing, define the standards of users and interaction, and share in the benefits. There are innumerable ways partners can further integrate and share resources and talent.

“To introduce 100 million users is just a small goal.”

Q: The goal of the Alliance is to introduce 100 million high-quality incremental users to the blockchain world. This goal is not easy to achieve. What efforts will be made to achieve this goal next?

A: This process will not be very long, because “a single spark can start a forest fire.”

One hundred million users will not be introduced through the Alliance, but through our joint efforts in the industry to create an environment that can accommodate 100 million users and build related infrastructure. For example, if Facebook wants to build a blockchain project, the goal of reaching 100 million users will be easily achieved so long as a minority of the social platform’s users are on it.

One hundred million users is really a small goal, which originates from our belief in the power blockchain. What we need to do is to make better preparation for the environment of 100 million users, improving technology, talent, and business applications.

This depends on the development of the industry. But it needs to be stressed that we cannot wait for the industry dividends. Instead, we must act as participants to jointly promote the progress of the industry.

Q: What do you think of the future of public chains? When will killer applications appear and become popular like the Internet?

A: I think the killer app may take another 3 years or so.

Any technology has a cycle of adaptation. Back to the year of 2000, not many people used the internet at the very beginning. The popularity of the Internet was largely due to the SARS outbreak, BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) and the efforts of VC firms. Yet the initial infrastructure of the Internet was also lacking and there were few users.

What the Internet does is connect data, and everyone uses this established form to connect the data. Blockchain provides a better variation of this system via the interaction of incentives and the guarantee of the certainty of data. Only with the certainty of data, can the interaction with incentives be possible.

There will certainly be new use cases enabled by blockchain. The development cannot simply follow the path of the Internet.

But in terms of the maturity of the space, we are now probably somewhere comparable to the year 2000 of the Internet, after the Dot-Com crash and when users were not fully embracing the then-new technology. We must continue through the short-term trend, and recognize the general trend of technology development, focusing on the cultivation of user behavior and the introduction of compelling use cases.