Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, Protocol Lab founder Juan Benet, and Polkadot founder Gavin Wood discussed topics such as public chain expansion, privacy protection, and DeFi.
At the 6th Blockchain Global Summit hosted by Wanxiang Blockchain Lab, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, Protocol Lab founder Juan Benet, and Polkadot founder Gavin Wood launched a seminar on public chain technology innovation. The peak online dialogue of the road. This forum invited Qu Junjie, Chief Technology Officer of PlatON as the moderator. The following is a wonderful speech.
Qu Junjie: I am very happy to have the opportunity to discuss public chain technology today. Everyone knows that this round table is a very luxurious Panel. All Panel guests are very famous. I won’t introduce them to the topic.
The three of them have given us a very wonderful speech. First of all, I will introduce myself. I am Qu Junjie, the chief technology officer of PlatON. PlatON is a public chain blockchain and was released on October 24, 2004. I hope that the three of you can come up with three main points. For example, Vitalik is a block, Gavin Wood is a block, and Juan Benet is a block.
Vitalik: Blockchain and encryption technology systems are the development of the ecosystem, and we need to work together to create a win-win ecosystem. Value does not only come from a single application, but from the connections between applications. Looking forward to seeing the interaction between different blockchains and different applications, and finally reaching a more harmonious and win-win ecosystem.
Juan Benet: A few points. Everyone is looking forward to the development of the blockchain ecosystem. There are many applications on the system. You can see that there are different blockchain creations and different applications on the system. More and more developers have joined the platform, and now Web3 is also developing very fast, making great progress in smart contracts, computing models, cloud computing, and data storage. The interaction and connection between all chains can further promote the generation of next-generation applications. We need to prepare for the new era.
Gavin Wood: Three points.
First, we discussed for several years that “data will become a very important element.”
Second, economic sovereignty has been developed on smart contracts and different platforms in 2014 and 2015, but in many cases sovereignty is full-time rather than very economical sovereignty. Hopefully, sovereignty will be diluted in the future.
Third, regarding the future development of the blockchain, we hope to deliver solutions, but due to constant changes, there is no very large and comprehensive solution. I believe that we still need to continue to develop. If we want to provide better applications and better systems, we also need to change our attitude.
Qu Junjie: The three of you are very famous, and you represent three different “universes.” Vitalik is Ethereum; Gavin Wood is Polkadot; Juan Benet is Filecoin. Blockchain is a deep water area, and many applications continue to expand into traditional business areas. The public chain is very hot now, and different applications have been established on it, such as DeFi and other ecosystems. Many things are happening on the Filecoin platform.
My first question is about the upgradeability and scalability of the public chain, and how to make the blockchain face the ever-evolving industry trend.
This time you can start with Gavin.
Gavin Wood: Solving the consensus problem is not so easy in a decentralized world, mainly due to two points:
- How to change the system;
- How to implement changes.
First-generation systems may not answer these questions well, so this is why sometimes we find it difficult to make decisions when implementing changes. Unlike a centralized system, if it is a centralized system, the implementation of changes will be easier. There are many things to consider in a decentralized system.
More consideration is needed at the governance level. Polkadot has a multi-chain protocol that can better implement changes.
Qu Junjie: Let Vitalik answer the questions next.
Vitalik: I think my answer is mainly focused on the protocol, because the underlying protocol takes time to develop. At the same time, the performance of other different layers needs to be optimized. There are different protocols and different programming languages. Sometimes the programming language will change in less than ten years. We need to make some changes through technology integration.
At present, there have been some changes in the Bitcoin ecosystem, the use of different networks, the continuous upgrading of languages, and the different problems encountered by new technologies in different periods.
We need a way to keep an eye on and respond to changes.
Juan Benet: I very much agree with both of them. First, we must develop a future-oriented community with very good governance principles. At different levels, there may be some technological advances over time.
Blockchain is still a very complex technology, combining smart contracts and consensus layer properties. I hope that blockchain technology can gradually become simpler. For higher layers on the chain, a very important point is how to develop more concise and better applications. With economic development, very good applications are required to adapt to the economic situation. When deploying next-generation blockchains in the future, simplicity needs to be taken into consideration.
Qu Junjie: Thank you very much. The future of blockchain may be complicated, and the behavior of traditional industries is not the same. No matter from the government level or from the basic level, it will be different and full of challenges.
Vitalik just mentioned privacy protection. Privacy protection is very important. Europe has GDPR legislation to protect customer privacy. Blockchain will encounter privacy protection barriers when applied to other traditional industries. The blockchain system itself is contradictory. The blockchain is based on trust, but privacy protection involves the tampering of data. If GDPR is taken into consideration, what is the definition of privacy protection for blockchain? How to view the blockchain world in the future and how to protect user data privacy.
Vitalik: Very powerful technology is now becoming more and more mature, combining personal privacy with identity verification. Just as zero-knowledge proof allows us to have the freedom to verify the validity of transactions, it cannot be said that all privacy needs to be protected and all information can be disclosed, and specific issues should be treated in detail. Some information may be disclosed, but some information may require privacy protection. Through zero-knowledge proof and other encryption algorithms, I believe that evidence can be verified and data can be protected. We will see more and more technologies in this area in the next few years.
Juan Benet: We must ensure that the public chain can protect private information. Privacy protection is the same as data security. While ensuring privacy, you can publish some public information. A balance must be reached between the two. All technologies know no borders and are interlinked. Users need to be considered when developing a blockchain, and users need to follow the rules of the blockchain to perform related transactions. Building more and more applications on the blockchain also needs to take privacy protection into consideration.
Qu Junjie: I quite agree with you that privacy protection can be verified and protected, and some information can also be made public.
Gavin Wood: I really think there is nothing to add. The most important tool is zero-knowledge proof, which has gradually matured. Although it hasn’t fully arrived yet, the efficiency is still a bit low, and it is slower now, especially the computational complexity is too high. But no matter what, it is slowly developing.
At the same time, we have complete transparency and may lose a certain degree of security. While there is transparency, there is also a certain degree of security, just like spectrum. There may be some trustworthy verifiers with very high reputation. Verifiers are randomly selected for verification. Other mechanisms can also be used. Of course, if you encounter an attack, it may not be very applicable, but it may have its own application scenarios. For example, the tools can be used in less important scenarios. In addition, zero-knowledge proofs will definitely come in the near future, and transparency and privacy issues will be greatly resolved.
Qu Junjie: Yes, it sounds like zero knowledge proves to be the best technology choice. Considering the recent vigorous development of decentralized finance, this is the most complicated DAPP, logic implementation, and the exception for Ethereum. If we want traditional financial services to be moved to decentralized finance, they usually will not allow customer transactions The details of the leaked out will definitely be fully protected. Customer ID, transaction behavior, transaction volume, etc. will all be fully protected.
How to migrate traditional financial services to the public chain?
Vitalik: How to migrate traditional financial services and financial systems to the public chain. There have been several obstacles in the past:
- Privacy, many applications certainly cannot accept real-time broadcast of customer data to the world, so zero-knowledge proof can solve this problem.
- Expansion and scalability. If you want the system to be developed globally, say 50, 100, 1000 per second, public chains rarely do this.
- safety. The main problem from the security perspective is that the system needs to withstand the test of time, and people need to be convinced that their security model is reasonable and people can trust. But this may take time.
Juan Benet: Related to privacy and security, zero-knowledge proof can solve this problem. We must have a faster chain, especially in terms of throughput and confirmation time. It must be within one second, and it will take several years to achieve. We have been talking about partition tolerance, but we have not reached it yet. It is very important for the financial business to make the system confirm faster. If the features such as security, privacy, and faster confirmation time can be satisfied, most financial services can be moved to the chain.
Gavin Wood: Vitalik and Juan discussed a lot of technical factors, and I agree. At the same time, we must consider social factors. This is a social problem that we have to overcome. For example, GDPR, GDPR is notorious, because it is too difficult. Europe is already breaking this law, because the law cannot be realized and implemented. How to achieve the crazy all-inclusive law? How to implement specific laws? No solution is thought of now. Lawyers are needed, politicians need to be persuaded to accept the idea, and before then no one will think about how to migrate financial services. The privacy of technology is not as important as social factors. If society does not accept it, there is no way to proceed.
Qu Junjie: Yes, it reminds me that the blockchain public chain is the same technology that can change the world. GDPR wants to protect the traditional world, so we have to break the norm and think about how to implement drastic reforms. Recently, Teacher Ma has a video.
What aspects will change your approach when creating the universe platform? If there is a time machine, at which point in time do you want to go back to and start again from there, what is your focus of work at that point in time, can you give me three key points of work back in time?
Juan Benet: If I had a time machine, I might do all kinds of things. To travel to the past, travel to the future, and see what kind of technology the future will be.
For the blockchain system, specifically, I may have to go back to two or three years ago, put scalability on the focus of work at the time, and build a faster chain as soon as possible.
Earlier, IPFS will be pushed into the mainstream, focusing on the blockchain space, so as to carry out faster large-scale video distribution. Now I have done this slowly, but it is better to be faster. To establish stronger connectivity, we are a highly collaborative team, and cooperate very well with other blockchains. I hope we can increase the collaboration and connection with other blockchains, which is good for us.
Vitalik: There is a challenge to answer this question. There is a dividing line. It is the line between technology and wisdom. If you want to bring technology back, you seem to be deceiving yourself. Going back to 2015 can tell them how evil the world will be, etc.
For the encryption space, the dividing line between wisdom and technology is too blurred. The most important thing is to develop technology. There needs to be a lot of wisdom in technology development, so wisdom and technology can’t be separated. I can’t tell myself how technology should be. How do you do and how the data availability is. The honest answer is to tell yourself more that the simpler the technology, the better, and let yourself understand more deeply that adding one more line of code is evil, and delete as much code as possible. During the development process, we made the system too complicated, which brought many sequelae. I hope to understand the importance of streamlining technology from the beginning. We should be more pragmatic and think about what functions are useful to people.
Qu Junjie: Vitalik, you are the youngest of us, so you don’t need a time machine, you have a lot of time.
Gavin Wood: I totally agree with Vitalik’s opinion, it is better to delete a few more lines of code. This question is difficult to answer, you can go back to the time when the technology was discovered, but this may really be deceiving yourself. I don’t know. I think I’m quite satisfied with the sense of accomplishment I have achieved in my universe. If I want to go back in time and tell myself some wisdom, then maybe it’s just to hurry up, start quickly, don’t think about the past, and start doing it. , In the past two or three years, I have experienced this in particular. Back on January 1, 2016, I might have to tell myself not to think too much, don’t think about what it will be like, just do it and see if it works, and if it’s feasible. In terms of technology, only by seeing my own work. Innovation.
Qu Junjie: Let’s talk about the decision-making process in governance. I read Vitalik’s speculations. Physical laws, codes, predictions, etc., please talk about how the DAO should be governed. Which one is the real governing law?
Vitalik: I think governance is a very complicated thing, because you have to weigh and balance. Different laws adapt to different scenarios, such as basic governance, high-level governance, and governance of different companies. These governances are more suitable for a small group of people. people. Different groups have different needs. The more important the basic level, the more important you have to meet people’s expectations, or adjust their expectations to make them satisfied. If you go to the top, you may want to emphasize flexibility and adaptability.
It is inevitable that there will be a trade-off, and it is impossible to say that one direction is 100%, the code is the law. Sometimes people may be more willing to change the code to solve a problem, but on the other hand, if you say that we will make any decisions based on cost-effectiveness, you may face other problems. If there is no way to provide stability, it will become a big problem. It depends on what you are governing. Sometimes you have to weigh efficiency and predictability, or even flexibility and stability. It really depends on what you want to govern. .
Juan Benet: I think this requires different layers for different applications. For example, the lower layer is a relatively basic transaction processing layer, which must be close to physics, to ensure stability, and cannot be changed randomly in the future. It is necessary to establish a good governance mechanism to trade at the economic level, so that the system can decide whether the transaction should be rolled back or further promoted. The more you go up, the less you can incorporate smart contracts into the code system, and there must be a good governance system. There should be a multi-layer system. The lower the level, the more stable it is, the higher the level is. The user decides where to place the contract and the application. The application is placed in the lower layer to assure the user that the transaction has occurred. If the transaction, the contract If you put it at the upper level, you must ensure a good governance mechanism and decision-making mechanism.
We have now seen the emergence of online courts, but it is not the mainstream, and it will eventually be like this. Once every major human system involves interactions between different groups, it will eventually need the court system to mediate to resolve disputes and unusual things.
Gavin Wood: In general, I agree with two points:
First, the lower layer always needs anticipation law, and the lower layer is anticipation that is code.
Second, the current low-level system is very high-level. The first-level platform still has the concept of attributes and tokens. Holding tokens, tokens belong to an account, and accounts can send tokens. This is a high-level concept. It belongs to the concept of TCPIP, because we are talking about things that ordinary people will use. There needs to be a certain expectation that is the law, not code that is the law. Usually this is determined by the court, the government or other human mechanisms.
In the future, we may have to go further to the lower layers. For example, the original Polkadot protocol does have a Web3 basic layer, but there is no concept of attributes, tokens, and transfers. s Choice.
Qu Junjie: We hope to create a new universe, join the public chain ecosystem, and make our own contributions. Quickly ask a few very simple questions, such as what will the next wave of blockchain applications be? What will be the next application in the mid-term? What will be the long-term blockchain application?
Juan Benet: Now that we have cloud computing and cloud storage capabilities, we finally have the ability to carry out large-scale consumer applications. This was not the case for most applications before, and now it is finally able to deploy full-stack applications and mobile applications through the blockchain. In the mid-term, the next wave of applications will have social networks, information systems, and information transmission systems, which can transmit videos, pictures, etc., and we can see a new wave of applications entering the consumer field.
In the next few years, there will be important developments in the gaming industry. This is a very important turning point for blockchain and Web3. Psychological reality and games will allow the token economy system to be substituted into the mainstream economy, which is the main factor for large-scale promotion. Consumer applications, games, virtual reality, etc. should be realized in 2-3 years.
Gavin Wood: I don’t think there will be much changes in the applications people will play next. I think we may see more enterprise-level systems, such as using the same technology, but it may be more convenient to use, and Can provide public services, which will become part of the future changes in blockchain technology.
Not everyone has to develop a killer application, but in the next year or two, we will see more and more applications appear at the application level, just like the current DeFi field, there are more and more differences Application, and it’s a better application.
Vitalik: In the medium term, some applications may have matured, but there are still some applications that require further optimization. Based on blockchain, great applications can be developed, which may be more mature in the field of open finance, and development opportunities in other fields are worth looking forward to. For example, predictions, predictions, etc., and data based on blockchain will also provide credit protection services. In this regard, more and more applications will appear, and after the application has grown to a certain extent, there will be a certain degree of decline.
Qu Junjie: The blockchain field is developing very fast, and it is very open, mainly because of good technology, everyone, every company, every enterprise can learn it and apply it. One day in the future, in the blockchain world, it is equivalent to one hundred years of the entire human race, and every change will be very fast. In the long run, what are the very important technologies for the public chain in 5-10 years?
Gavin Wood: From a technical perspective, security is very important. It is necessary to ensure that the blockchain can achieve different functions. But in the field of technology, there will always be some changes and developments. For example, related technologies such as cryptoeconomics, zero-knowledge proof, and government governance systems will continue to develop rapidly, and there will be rapid progress.
I believe that the future must be full of infinite possibilities.
Juan Benet: Regarding the blockchain technology, better technology is needed to operate the blockchain system more effectively. On the other hand, all applications and transactions need to be operated in a scalable manner. If you have basic components, you can achieve scalability and efficiency, and further speed up transactions. Web3 has seen a large degree of development, which has had an impact on the world, and then virtual reality will be developed. The picture quality of virtual reality has improved a lot, and the price has been reduced a lot. I believe that virtual reality will be a very important technology. This is a very important technology for blockchain. Virtual reality can be treated like a blockchain, open source and public-facing without permission.
Vitalik: Zero-knowledge proof is a pivotal technology for blockchain . Zero-knowledge proof can protect privacy and make blockchain applications more secure. Scalability is also a very important aspect. In an ever-evolving world, there will be many innovations and developments in Internet technology, all of which will not only benefit users, but also application creators themselves.
Qu Junjie: Thank you very much. I am very happy to hear that zero-knowledge proof will become the future technology prospect, because Polkadot is focused on this technology. This is all the content of Panel today. I am very honored to be the host. Thank you for your tolerance of my Chinese and English. I look forward to seeing you come to the scene at the meeting next year.
