In-depth Interview | Insight Chain CTO Ji Jianxun: A Big-data Public Blockchain Needed Before the Birth of Killer Applications
Abstract: There are many Public Blockchains but only a few of them were remembered by people. And Insight Chain Public Blockchain is one of the impressive ones.
Recently, Insight Chain (INB) CTO Ji Jianxun (Jason) received an exclusive interview with BiShiJie. The following is the full text of the interview.
Ji Jianxun – INB CTO
It is the third time to enter the office building of Insight Chain (INB) located in Shangdi, Beijing. There have been two simple exchanges of ideas with CTO Mr. Jason before. His peace and composure can create nameless trust. Recently, Jason hopes to have some in-depth communication with us soon after the INB Public Blockchain test network went live. He said: It's the perfect timing to tell the market that INB is definitely not limited to survey. The focus of INB Public Blockchain is far-reaching. What we will do is to build the Internet big data ecology.
Entering the INB again, first I saw a INB Patent Wall full of the sense of science and technology. The corridor was still covered with numerous sticky notes with development tasks written on them. The countdown card for Test Network launching has not been taken off yet. I came to Jason's office and sat down. I saw INB Strategic Plan (2019), Catalogue of Insight Chain Block Chain Related Technology Invention Patents and Insight Chain Technology White Paper (2019) stacked on the table. I have a feeling that INB will exert its power this year and is obviously ready to do so.
Jason and I then looked through the 200-page catalogue of patents together, and he said, "We have applied for 200 patents now, and by August the number will increase to 260 patents." By the end of this year, about 230 can be found in the State Intellectual Property Office. The number of patents of INB ranks the first in the Block Chain circle, and by the end of this year it will be ranked in the top three among domestic companies following the first "Alibaba" and the second "China Unicom". The patents of Ali and Unicom mostly focus on "the application of block chain technology in supply chain finance, evidence preserving and other fields"; Patents of INB are all related to "block chain, Internet big data and finance", which involves both block chain technology and application scenarios, with the latter accounting for 2/3 or so.
While marveling at INB's strength accumulation during its silent period, I urgently wants to solve the question in my heart: INB used to appear in the name of "Survey chain", which must be a narrow meaning for it now. At present, what’s the strategy of the INB team? And Jason answered me about this from the team's thinking of positioning.
The existing Public Blockchain environment is not good enough to boom the applications
Before 2015, Jason and Lisa (Yang Hui, CEO of INB) had been deeply engaged in their respective fields of expertise for nearly 10 years.
Jason focuses on "big data and algorithms" and worked for Samsung group. He has gradually grown into as an industry expert after experiencing the roles of big data engineer, data algorithm trainer and big data researcher, and has always been seeking higher self-value. Lisa specializes in "market research and data analysis" and provides one-stop data solutions for multinational companies such as Standard Chartered Bank, McKinsey, Nomura Securities and Yum Brands. During the ten-year data research process, Lisa deeply realized that the data markets such as survey and consultation always have the problems of "low data accuracy, high cost and low efficiency", which are usually endorsed by experienced brand companies but lack the basis of technical guarantee. Both of them realize that the demand of the data market will grow exponentially in the future. Especially in the context of the outbreak of Internet big data and the rigid demand for precise marketing, data traceability, data intelligence, and on-chain big data will fundamentally solve these problems and even disrupt the big data industry.
At the end of 2014, the two hit it off and decided to jointly participate in the Insight Chain project to improve traditional survey by using block chain technology. Jason focuses on technology and products, and Lisa is responsible for market development. It can be said that INB was originally an "application chain". Since most project shareholders have traditional financial backgrounds, INB has focused its application scenario on the financial field in the first place, that is, moving the logic of traditional secondary financial market to the coin circle.
The team has designed the following token economy model: The project side regularly discloses project information on the chain; analysts issue investment and research reports based on the above information; analysts can initiate survey to users and reward INB; users can purchase reports and pay INB; users can reward high-quality reports to promote the survival of the fittest among analysts ... The model has been publicly affirmed by Meng Yan, who thinks it is a very good practice of the token economy model. By July 2019, INB had been joined by 151 analysts and issued more than 80 reports. In Jason's view, such achievements can be described as "beginning to take shape and gaining momentum for growth".
Jason said that the above logic is reasonable, but in actual operation, all the data’s storage onto blockchain of the project side is still facing technical obstacles. The hash’s storage onto blockchain of project information and analyst reports alone cannot truly realize the trusted closed loop of the above financial logic. This made the INB team finally realize that it will not reach far by only focusing on one scenario without involving itself in building Public Blockchain infrastructures.
Shift to Public Blockchain to build a foundation for killer applications
After spending three months, Jason made a detailed comparison and study of various Public Blockchains on the market, and believed that there are two common problems in the current Public Blockchain: First, the TPS is small; second, the data’s structural storage onto blockchain is not supported. And for the latter, it is only the hash’s storage onto blockchain not the data itself. Therefore, it can only ensure that the data will not be tampered with, the users cannot know how the data is generated and how the data are related.
To be precise, the so-called de-centralized application in the market only realized the transaction data’s storage onto blockchain. However, in daily life, people spend most of their time reading and processing data, and little time trading. Therefore, if killer applications are to be born, there must be a real big data Public Blockchain.
INB's strategy is gradually taking shape. Based on the above judgment, they proposed that the key word of Block Chain 3.0 is "Data Ecological Model". At this stage, the block chain must have the ability to store three-dimensional data, including Coin Transaction Data, Token Transaction Data and Business Data. In this way, the double credibility of transaction and business data can be guaranteed.
"Block Chain Evolution History" Predicted by INB
If BTC and ETH represent Block Chain 1.0 and Block Chain 2.0 respectively. INB believes that it will represent Block Chain 3.0. What exactly does Insight Chain want to do?
Jason took APP of with comment feature as an example. He explained that if a product has 100 comments, the INB Public Blockchain will store the product's original information and the 100 comments. Every time a new comment is added, it will simultaneously be stored onto the blockchain and the number of comments will be “+1” accordingly. INB engages in the process data’s storage onto blockchain for users to see the comprehensive information of commodities on the chain, not just the hash data, so as to truly realize the double credibility and non-tampering of the data process and data results.
Thanks to open source of code, data fraud is also more easily identified. Take voting as an example, if the act of vote rigging - the number of votes increases rapidly in a certain period of time and the increment in subsequent periods decreases significantly - occurs, the smart contract can easily capture it. Those who are willing to analyze the authenticity of the data can write such smart contracts, and users who want to know the authenticity of the data can pay to call the contracts.
Data from many industries can be stored onto blockchain. Jason said: INB starts with the Internet industry. First, this field requires high data credibility. Second, the focus of the Internet industry will shift from "how to get customers" to "what users like". After the Internet big data ecology based on INB Public Blockchain is put into operation, it can well conform to this trend. There are a lot of data types in the Internet field. Apart from comments and votes, they also involve lottery, search, survey, advertising, prediction, e-commerce, knowledge payment, credit, we-media, etc. ...
The ecological landscape sketched by Insight Chain is that to form a shared big data ecology by storing the data of comments, votes, e-commerce, we-media, etc. onto blockchain. Then you can see what a user has bought, what articles he/she has read, what contents he/she has searched as well as his/her comment to a certain product within a certain period of time. Thus, the accurate portrait of the user is depicted, becoming the basis for the accurate marketing of merchants. Jason also revealed to me that INB is currently developing a DApp with a progress of 80%, which includes e-commerce data, microblog data, short video data, etc. We can know the user's preferences, the quality of the data, and show the user the different contents they prefer. The name of the DApp has not been nailed yet, so call it "All in One" for the time being.
In addition, INB is also developing supporting tools for Public Blockchain including BaaS, Wallet, Public Blockchain SDK, Block Browser, as well as self-developed Public Blockchain ecology. Jason described the positioning of INB's products and business lines with the following sentences:
INB Public Blockchain: The World's First Public Blockchain Supporting Business Data‘s Storage onto Blockchain;
Insight: Practitioner in Token Economy - The World's First Fully Decentralized Application;
Mine Cat: The World's First Native Fully Decentralized Application;
WeWish: The World's First Decentralized Transformation of an Internet Application;
Research Institute: The World's Leading Block Chain + Consulting Service Organization;
Block Chain Patent Alliance: The World's First Block Chain Patent Alliance that Promotes the Innovation and Application of Block Chain Technology through Patents.
When talking about this, I can't help but think of Ji Qi's words, "The flexibility, continuous exploration and innovative spirit of the entrepreneurial team are very important. If we stick to the original unrealistic ideal model, these start-up enterprises may all die in the cradle. When the ideal model is tested in practice, we need to be able to find a realistic and feasible path keenly, and then continue to move forward and expand the results to achieve great things." Ji Qi has founded Ctrip, Home Inn and Hanting Hotel, three Nasdaq listed companies, with market value exceeding 1 billion US dollars.
The business logic makes sense, and the market space is large enough. The INB already has the necessary conditions for a good project. So, as a Public Blockchain project, has INB found a realistic and feasible way, and possessed the technical strength to carry the above ideas?
Three innovations to build a moat of technology
In the Insight Chain Technology White Paper (2019) written by Jason, it is described as follows: In 2017 and 2018, more and more Public Blockchains have made technological explorations to improve TPS. For example, EOS uses DPoS consensus algorithm to improve TPS to thousands of orders of magnitude, but to some extent, it weakens the decentration attribute. At the same time, the existing Public Blockchain does not realize the business data’s structural storage onto blockchain, which makes it very difficult for the Internet and traditional business scenario to launch. Therefore, we set the core goal of Insight Chain as: on the premise of satisfying decentralization and security, improve scalability, meet the requirements of business data’s storage onto blockchain of more applications, and realize the transaction data processing capacity of more than 100,000 levels per second (100,000+TPS) and the business data processing capacity of more than 1 million levels per second (1,000,000+TPS).
Abiding by the plan of Insight Chain roadmap, INB Test Network has been launched as scheduled on June 30, 2019. According to the INB Block Browser, currently the INB Public Blockchain generates blocks once every 1 second, the block height has reached 2.6 million, and the implementation of the Public Blockchain of Golang version has also been opened source on GitHub. Jason said: Compared with the existing Public Blockchain, INB Public Blockchain has great technological innovation and has already taken the lead in the world in terms of technology. Its core lies in the three first innovations globally: The world's first VRF-based VDPoS (Validated DPoS) consensus, the world's first sharding of DPoS consensus, and the world's first three-dimensional data’s storage onto blockchain. INB has applied for more than 30 invention patents focusing on these three core innovations.
According to Jason, INB also plans to set up a Block Chain Patent Alliance to authorize enterprises within the alliance for free use of more than 200 block chain patents that have already been applied, thus inheriting the blockchain spirit of openness and sharing. The purpose of the Block Chain Patent Alliance is to promote the technological innovation and application of the block chain globally, and to call on companies inside and outside the industry, as well as individuals with technological innovation strength, to participate in the Block Chain Patent Alliance, to invent, innovate and share block chain related patents, and to form an infinitely expanded patent pool within the alliance.
The Internet data’s structural storage onto blockchain is still a blank in the market. INB has taken a big step forward. It is not excluded that there will be competitors to join later, but Jason said confidently: INB has a deep foundation in block chain technology and Internet background, as well as supported by many patent technologies, which have built a very solid moat for us.
The Public Blockchain test network has realized the smallest feasible version of INB technology concept. In Q4 of 2019, INB Public Blockchain will really undertake the mission of business data’s structural storage onto blockchain. At present, the team has overcome the technical difficulties. By the end of 2020, the Public Blockchain will realize all functions including V-DPos consensus and sharding. At present, INB has a scale of more than 50 people, of which 15 belong to Public Blockchain team, 30 belong to ecological team and nearly 10 belong to research institute, and it plans to expand to about 100 people by the end of the year, focusing on the R&D of the underlying technologies of the block chain and the construction of Internet ecology.
As a buyer, if there is a DApp with comment feature, on which the product comments may be less than 1/10 of that of Little Red Book but the authenticity of information is absolutely guaranteed, would you like to use it? As an Internet company, facing the strong competitive pressure from other giants, are you willing to impress investors with the highlight of "Block chain technology make data more reliable"? As a DApp developer, are you willing to join INB ecology and share all INB’s patented technologies?
Starting from common sense, the affirmative answer should be cumulative and will force traditional enterprises to transform. I am willing to believe that INB ecology can be realized if everything can be steadily advanced. We will keep an eye on INB's trend all the time, and we will wait and see its performance in the stage of Block Chain 3.0!
Contact Us
Official Website: http://www.insightchain.io
WeChat Official Account: InsightChain
BiYong (Chinese Community): http://0.plus/InsightChain_CN
BiYong (Global Community): http://0.plus/InsightChain
Sina Weibo: @InsightChain
https://weibo.com/u/6394744395
Twitter: @Insight Chain
https://twitter.com/InsightChain
Facebook: @InsightChain
https://www.facebook.com/InsightChain-339432310287132/
Medium: https://medium.com/@insightchain
Steemit: https://steemulant.com/@insightchain
Source: BiShiJie
Author: Zhuang Wenting
Original: https://www.bishijie.com/shendu_49126