Research Report: Global Blockchain Industry Development Panorama (2019-2020) (Part 1)

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Summary:

Industry status: In 2019, global blockchain spending was about US$2.9 billion, ranking first in the United States (39%), followed by Western Europe (24.4%), China (11.2%), Asia Pacific (8.1%), and Central and Eastern Europe (5.2%); The banking industry accounted for the first place, followed by discrete manufacturing, retail, professional services and process manufacturing. The five major industries accounted for 73%. Global investment and financing tend to be rational. The number of investments in the year has not changed much from last year, but the scale ($3.7 billion) has dropped by 27.9%; the United States has the largest share (40%), followed by China (15%). The global patent application index has grown, with 22,000 existing patents, with China accounting for a significant 63% lead. The importance of domestic blockchain continues to rise, and more than 30 provinces and cities have issued policies to develop blockchain layout; 38 blockchain industrial parks have been established in various places; nearly 28,000 Chinese blockchain enterprises (mostly small and medium-sized enterprises), However, the proportion of investment in production is only 3.6%.

Blockchain industry: 1) Underlying infrastructure: Fabric, Corda, Quorum, BCOS and other open source enterprise-level underlays are relatively mature and laid the foundation of the architecture; public infrastructure emerged at the historic moment, such as China’s BSN blockchain service network, Reduce the application barriers of enterprises and accelerate the landing. 2) Solution service providers: Large enterprises with built-in scenarios have entered the market in large numbers, and some of the solutions have reached the level of large-scale application; the head effect of independent service providers has emerged. In the long run, they are subject to scenario resources and may be eliminated in the last place. ; It is expected that under the dual support of policies and funds, the demand for applications will rise significantly in the short term, and some of the demand will be falsified. 3) Peripheral service parties: Security services have matured and escorted the application; alliance associations have emerged to integrate industry technologies, scenarios, patents and other resources; the work of setting up standards for international standards organizations is proceeding in an orderly manner, and more standards organizations are being formed; blockchain Education has gone from non-governmental to colleges and universities, and the compilation of teaching materials has been included in the national plan.

Industrial application: Blockchain has the characteristics of openness, transparency, non-tampering, traceability, etc. It will play a role in promoting data sharing, optimizing business processes, reducing operating costs, improving collaboration efficiency, and establishing a trusted system. At present, blockchain has been applied in a large scale in the fields of finance, supply chain, government affairs, intellectual property rights, electronic certificate storage, medical treatment, etc. We have combined more than 40 cases to analyze the blockchain empowerment methods in 11 fields.

Landing challenges and responses: 1) How to ensure the authenticity of the information on the chain: Multi-party authentication and shortening the time window for the chain can be adopted, such as due diligence on the chain, certification of the notary nodes on the chain, or the use of IoT to collect information to shorten the information transmission window, etc. . At the same time, the non-tampering after the chain will increase the cost of tampering with the information before the chain, resulting in constraints; 2) How to ensure that the data is shared under the premise of ensuring privacy: various privacy encryption technologies can be adopted, such as multiple signatures Restrict the information reading, or complete the encryption calculation through secure multi-party calculations and TEE without leaking data; 3) How to realize the data communication between the alliance chain: a notary can be set up, and a trusted intermediary can carry out information transmission ; It can be actively compatible with cross-chain platforms for existing blockchain systems, and the lower layer systems are actively compatible with the upper layers; it can also be passively compatible with undeveloped systems, build the underlying cross-chain platform and open it to other systems. 4) How to achieve a cold start of the project: the initial application is driven by authority, and the scenarios related to the safety of residents require government endorsement, the requirements for data comprehensiveness need to be promoted by a joint industry alliance, and the strong dependency between upstream and downstream is promoted by core companies; 5) How to realize the sustainable development of the project: it is necessary to establish a virtuous circle of business models, a reasonable reward and punishment system, and a multi-point governance structure.

Global key digital assets: The stablecoin Libra white paper jointly operated and managed by 20 giants such as Facebook is released, hoping to create a new payment system based on blockchain to build a trusted infrastructure for global inclusive finance, but also for sovereign currency, traditional finance and Internet payment has a huge impact. Many similar payment and settlement tools such as JPMCoin and USC were released in the same period. Countries such as China and the European Union have also announced that they will launch legal digital currencies. Blockchain payment began to explode.

New global trends: 2020 is the year when the industrial blockchain erupts. During this process, 1) many global blockchain standards will be implemented to speed up the application and implementation; 2) the publishing of blockchain college courses and teaching materials has entered a rapid development At this stage, the demand for technology and popular science training will also increase, which will explode the content of independent training institutions; 3) Blockchain payment will enter the landing stage, and there will be strong endorsement of payment tools such as regional stable currency and legal digital currency; 4) Applications in vertical fields such as finance, certificate deposit, and government affairs will be prioritized for large-scale implementation; 5) Convenient cross-chain will be realized between alliance chains; 6) Blockchain will also be deeply integrated with cutting-edge technologies such as IoT, AI, and 5G.

Author:

[Huobi Research Institute] Yuan Yuming, Xiao Xiao, Wang Rui, Chi Wenting, Ma Tianyuan, Sun Hangtian, Chen Shenghua, Weng Yiming, Chen Le, Li Hui [Tsinghua SEM Business Model Research Center] Xia Li [Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications Blockchain Joint Lab] Ma Zhaofeng [Shaanxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Blockchain and Security Computing, Xidian University] Pei Qingqi [Blockchain Research Center, Harbin Institute of Technology] Xu Zhifeng

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text:

1. The current status of the blockchain industry
1.1 Global blockchain application
1.1.1 The scale of global blockchain spending has grown strongly, and the proportion of banking spending tops the list
The scale of global blockchain expenditures grows, and the scale of the United States ranks first in the world: According to the latest "Global Semiannual Blockchain Expenditure Guide" released by IDC, global blockchain expenditures will reach nearly US$2.9 billion in 2019, compared with 15% in 2018 Expenditure of 100 million US dollars is expected to increase by 88.7%. The United States is still the region with the largest blockchain investment in the world, accounting for 39% of global spending. This is followed by Western Europe, China, Asia Pacific (excluding China and Japan) and Central and Eastern Europe, accounting for 24.4%, 11.2%, 8.1% and 5.2%, respectively.

 

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As China's emerging blockchain market, it is expected that the market expenditure in 2023 will reach USD 2 billion: According to IDC statistics, my country's total blockchain expenditure in 2018 was USD 160 million. In 2019, with the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping emphasizing "taking blockchain as an important breakthrough in independent innovation of core technology and accelerating the development of blockchain technology and industrial innovation" during the 18th collective study of the Politburo, China The blockchain market will usher in new opportunities. It is expected to reach US$293 million in 2019, and will continue to grow in the next four years, and is expected to exceed US$2 billion by 2023.

 

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In recent years, the investment in blockchain in various industries has gradually dispersed, but the investment in the banking industry has always ranked first: followed by discrete manufacturing, retail, professional services, and process manufacturing industries. Blockchain expenditures in the top five industries accounted for all expenditures. The proportion reached 73.0%.

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1.1.2 Global blockchain investment and financing tend to be rational, leading the scale of investment and financing in the United States
At the level of blockchain investment and financing, the market in 2019 tends to be more rational: According to CB insights data, the number of global blockchain investment and financing in 2019 was 806, which is not much changed from 822 in 2018; but the scale of investment and financing is Significant decline. In 2019, the scale of global investment and financing was about US$3.07 billion, a decrease of 27.9% compared to US$4.26 billion in 2018.

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Regionally, data for the first two quarters of 2019 show that 40% of investment and financing flows to the United States. China accounted for the second place with 15%.

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1.1.3 The number of global blockchain patents grows exponentially, leading China
With the vigorous development of blockchain technology, the application of blockchain technology has extended to digital finance, Internet of Things, intelligent manufacturing, supply chain management, digital asset transactions and other fields. In order to obtain a favorable competitive position in technology and the market, the number of global patent applications has increased year by year.

According to the database of Baiteng.com, as of the end of 2019, patent applications related to "blockchain", "smart contract", "distributed ledger", "Blockchain", "Smart Contract", and "Distributed Ledger" have been published globally. It reached 22,293 cases, a 45% increase from the end of 2018. It can be seen from the data over the years that patent applications have shown an accelerated growth trend from the end of 2013 to a compound annual growth rate of 98% by the end of 2019.

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From the perspective of patent distribution, China's blockchain patent layout is the world's leading: Baiteng data shows that as of the end of 2019, China's patents accounted for 63% of the global blockchain patent distribution, far ahead of other countries and area. The second place is the United States, with patents accounting for 18%.

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In addition, the statistical reports of IPRdaily and IncoPat also show that as of the first half of 2019, the top 10 enterprises in the global blockchain technology invention patent applications include Alibaba, Ping An, NChain and so on. Among them, Alibaba topped the list for three consecutive years.

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From the perspective of patent application, according to Clarivate's Themescape patent text clustering analysis based on Derwent Innovation, the popular areas of blockchain patent layout include application areas such as: digital currency, payment, identity authentication, transactions, smart contracts, Credit loans, etc.; and technical areas such as encryption security such as public and private keys, learning models, hashing algorithms, network technologies, etc.

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1.2 China's blockchain application

1.2.1 National and local policies help the development of the blockchain industry
During the two sessions in the first half of 2019, there were more than 30 proposals and opinions related to blockchain proposed by representatives from various regions, showing the interest of blockchain technology across the country. On October 24, Xi Jinping emphasized the use of blockchain as an important breakthrough in independent innovation of core technology during the eighteenth collective study of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, and accelerated the development of blockchain technology and industrial innovation. Local governments have also successively proposed policies or guidance plans to support the development of the blockchain. At present, more than 30 provinces and cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guizhou, and Shandong have issued policy guidance documents to develop the layout of the blockchain industry chain. .

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1.2.2 Blockchain Industrial Park is everywhere
Since China's first application blockchain incubation base was settled in Shanghai Baoshan in November 2016, blockchain industrial parks in Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Qingdao, Wuhan and other cities have also sprung up. In addition, after the eighteenth collective study on the current status and trends of blockchain technology by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on October 24, 2019, the blockchain industry ushered in new opportunities for development in China, and local governments began to attach importance to the block The cultivation and development of chain technology have successively launched support policies, and the construction of blockchain industrial parks is in full swing.

According to the statistics of Zero One Think Tank, as of the end of November 2019, a total of 38 blockchain industrial parks have been established nationwide, of which 18 are led or promoted by the government. From the perspective of geographical division, over 60% of the blockchain industrial parks are concentrated in cities such as Hangzhou, Guangdong, and Shanghai.

 

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1.2.3 There are many blockchain enterprises in China, but the proportion of investment in production links is low, and mainly small and medium-sized companies
According to the disclosure of "Blockchain Blue Book: China Blockchain Development Report (2019)", there are nearly 28,000 blockchain companies nationwide. Among them, there are about 1,000 blockchain enterprises in production, accounting for only 3.6%, mainly concentrated in eastern developed regions such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, and Zhejiang.

The application of my country's blockchain industry is mainly distributed in finance, supply chain, traceability and hardware, accounting for nearly 65%.

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In addition, the scale of Chinese blockchain enterprise teams is generally small, and startups are the main force. According to the statistics of CCID Blockchain Research Institute, the number of blockchain enterprises in my country is mainly concentrated between 15-50, accounting for 53.3%. We expect that domestic technology giants such as Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com, Ping An Group, and Thunder have launched the application of blockchain, which will stimulate more large enterprises to step into the ranks of blockchain layout.

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2. Interpretation of blockchain industry structure

2.1 Underlying infrastructure
The infrastructure of the blockchain includes the underlying platform and the operational network. The construction of the blockchain architecture needs to be based on the underlying platform, and the operation needs to rely on the operation network composed of nodes and their servers.

2.1.1 Open source underlying platform

As we all know, there is an "impossible triangle" in the blockchain world, that is, the "distribution degree", "scalability", and "security" can only meet two of them at the same time. The requirements of enterprise-level applications are much higher than those of C-side applications in terms of timeliness and certainty. Under the premise of ensuring security, "efficiency" is the primary requirement of enterprise-level blockchain applications. Under such a premise, making some sacrifices on the distributed level may be a compromise that enterprises need to make at present. Therefore, the infrastructure master of enterprise-level blockchain

Please read the Chinese version for the details.