From fire and madness to being cut across the board, China's ICO Ban's quick and accurate fire has panicked countless people in China, and it has also become a hot topic abroad.
In the public opinion, the wall is pushed down by the crowd, the drum is beaten by thousands of people, and there are many people who "bragging about how chaotic ICOs are and then conclude that Bitcoin is a scam", but they really care about the blockchain that can shake the essence of banking, currency and business contracts. There are very few technical people.
In fact, at present, blockchain has begun to be applied in many fields. From a domestic point of view, on August 28, the first domestic blockchain e-commerce "media shopping" was launched, which is also the world's first blockchain e-commerce; The first phase of the “Asset Support Special Plan” was approved by the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Baidu Finance, as its technical service provider, built a blockchain server BaaS. The architecture solves the trust problem between multiple weak trust institutions and builds a trust mechanism.
At the same time, as a decentralized, immutable, uniquely trusted, anonymous blockchain technology, it can be used to create some kind of digital bill, through which the transaction process of goods can be tracked, who owns what items and even objects ( such as diamonds) to avoid conflict. Unlike a centralized database (such as a bank), the statement exists in multiple versions and is stored distributed across computers around the world, making it difficult to crack and change. Furthermore, it brings security and trust, thereby eliminating the need for middlemen to verify transactions.
It is also because of so many features that blockchain technology has many applications around the world, including positive ones, such as finance, anti-counterfeiting traceability, copyright protection, etc., and some negative ones. For example, the following three very typical aspects:
Currency : The most famous blockchain case so far is the digital currency Bitcoin. From catching up with over 30,000 in the limelight to the rapid decline caused by regulation, aside from other factors, in terms of purely technical applications, Bitcoin transactions are recorded on a blockchain, which means that Bitcoin has been separated from the market. Controlled by any national government or bank, therefore, it is seen as a cheaper and free way to transfer money.
Banking : In a way, blockchain technology could be a huge threat to banks as it removes the need for a trusted middleman to process transactions, which is one of the key roles of a bank. For example, people who do not accept bank accounts can still use currencies like bitcoin for digital transactions. However, banks have taken a keen interest in this new technology and hope to take advantage of it as well. Earlier this year, IBM announced it would build a blockchain system for a consortium of seven banks to help small businesses transact internationally more easily. Others hope to reduce the cost of sending money online through blockchain, which will allow micropayments, allowing readers to pay a few cents to read a newspaper article.
Crime : Blockchain also allows users to buy things anonymously using Bitcoin, which means it is associated with cybercriminal activity, which is also a way for users to buy drugs from Silk Road. Others, on the other hand, argue that blockchain is a helpful tool in the fight against money laundering because it creates a public, permanent record of transactions that regulators can investigate with relative ease.
On the other hand, in terms of education, many scholars and institutions at home and abroad have already tried the application of blockchain technology in higher education, for example, to reduce administrative overhead costs, ensure that degree records are more secure, and whether it can be directly verified students' knowledge level. Times Higher shared with us the current attempts of university scholars in this regard. The following is the translation:
John Domingue, Director of the Knowledge Media Institute at the Open University, UK, focuses on distance learning and is passionate about spreading the word about the impact blockchain could have on higher education in the future. One idea, he said, would be to use the technology to create a secure, public ledger of academic qualifications that universities award blockchain graduate degrees, which would theoretically free every company from having to check their new Whether the employee is not lying on the resume.
“Every university has a small team that handles the needs from the employer, but if the employer checks the degree on the blockchain, that team is no longer needed,” explains Professor Domingue.
The UK already has a centralized system for checking whether people have a certain degree - the Higher Education Degree Data Checking Service. Recent figures from the service suggest that fraud is rampant, with about a quarter of resumes containing false information about degrees.
While this is hilarious than checking each university individually, each survey not only costs employers £12, but also requires a seven-day processing cycle. But if the blockchain is used to solve this problem, it becomes timely and free.
Blockchain advocates say that if people build more and more educational resources across institutions, the cost of checking qualifications will only keep increasing. Employers need to check not just someone's undergraduate university, but maybe five to 10 different educational institutions, Professor Domingue pointed out.
Blockchain can also come into play if a university goes bankrupt or incapacitated for some reason. Such phenomena are possible, such as war. Syrian refugees want to revive their education in Europe, a testimonial among conflict-torn Almama people.
Phillip Long, associate provost for learning sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, is very passionate about blockchain technology. He said that due to the unique way of setting up the blockchain, even if a local disaster occurs somewhere, the records of the blockchain are still very likely to exist, so by looking up the records in the blockchain, in the blockchain environment Authenticate so that there is no need to go back to the originator of the record itself.
Professor Domingue pointed out that blockchain can also help identify politicians or other public figures who have faked their credentials. For example, the qualifications of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have been repeatedly questioned, and his opponents say his qualifications are fake, but his supporters are convinced. Putting all credentials on the blockchain, in theory, would resolve these disputes immediately and unambiguously.
One might be skeptical about the privacy concerns of such an open system - would you wish that your diploma in BDSM would be visible to everyone on the blockchain? Professor Domingue said there were solutions, your qualifications could be encrypted and there were also time limits for your employer to review your information.
Professor Domingue is a firm believer that blockchain can do much more than make it easier for employers to confirm degrees for new hires. He believes this could change the entire hiring process, at least in some areas where certain requisites are clearly specified — like data science.
If enough people put their qualifications on the blockchain, the employer can easily filter which candidates have researched his desired target field, which candidates have attended some large online public class, and put the They are really further marked as desired candidates. The traditional recruitment process is to post job requirements online, and then search for suitable candidates in the massive resumes, which usually takes HR several days, but if the blockchain is adopted, this is no longer needed. process.
In a way, the system is a bit like LinkedIn, where companies can find potential candidates by filtering their qualifications and skills. Professor John Domin said that while making CVs public could help reduce fraud, blockchain hopes to eliminate this problem entirely.
Dr. Phillip Long, however, takes a cautious view of the prospect of blockchain disrupting traditional recruitment, saying that it will take a long time for resumes to disappear completely, but the prospect of historical data on formal education recorded by blockchain is indeed likely to increase .
Professor Domingue believes that blockchain can fundamentally change higher education beyond the current structure of universities. Blockchain can eliminate the middleman - the university. Without the need for a university, an individual scholar can determine on the blockchain whether a student has passed an online module — a situation he calls “a university.” What does it mean if someone completes a Tim Berners-Lee course on the Internet? Alternatively, one academic could complete the teaching and another academic (or possibly a private firm) take the exam, the professor suggested.
Of course, this is technically without blockchain, and there are already some signs that this model is taking off. But Professor Domingue believes the new technology's greatest strength is that it "enables trust". Instead of relying on a particular institution to store that data, he said, everyone in the system can check what students have learned -- which credentials they've accumulated.
So who is actually using blockchain in higher education? Last year, Sony announced that it had developed a system that uses blockchain technology to track and share educational progress records. But the company currently offers only a handful of robotics and math courses online, mostly for children.
Last October, the MIT Media Lab released Blockcerts, a software it hopes will help issue blockchain academic certificates. The lab is grappling with technical issues like how to disclose only some of the qualifications relevant to the jobs people are applying for.
In the meantime, Professor Domingue is on a mission to get all UK universities to put their qualifications on the blockchain. So far, he says, he has spoken to UCL and Imperial College London, both of which have expressed interest.
It could also be the private sector that has made blockchain-based qualifications mainstream. Gradbase, a London-based start-up, provides graduates with a QR code to store their resumes, which employers simply scan to view their resumes to verify the graduates' qualifications. The company stores degree records on the blockchain, which means "no downtime, nor any single point of failure in the network."
Dr Phillip Long said: "It's still early days, but it's very exciting to document your lifelong learning experience on a portable device that you carry around with you."
