In November 2013, Vitalik Buterin published the first Ethereum white paper, ushering in the so-called "Blockchain 2.0" era. However, at that time, the emergence of Ethereum was just a blockchain technology that broke free from the shackles of digital currency. As an independent technology field, it should be counted from November 2013, and it has been a decade since then.

Blockchain and digital currency should be considered as two completely different industries because they have different goals and value propositions. The field of digital currency, often referred to as the "coin circle", has created an independent virtual world in which digital assets are generated, free financial markets are constructed, and transactions are profitable. The rules and values ​​of the coin circle are obviously inconsistent with the real world, so the coin circle has little or no concern for the impact on the real world or the real economy. The blockchain industry has a completely different vision. It is committed to reforming the real economy and influencing the real world. Therefore, practitioners in this industry call themselves the "chain circle" to distinguish themselves.

Once upon a time, blockchain technology was highly anticipated and was considered to be able to bring about revolutionary changes, alongside artificial intelligence. However, the reality is that, a decade later, blockchain's achievements have been disappointing, and it can be said to be a typical high-opening and low-ending. Not only has it failed to achieve remarkable results, it has also led to the dismal failure of some highly anticipated projects, such as the supply chain management system jointly developed by IBM and Maersk and the on-chain stock trading system of the Australian Stock Exchange ASX. Some well-known projects that were originally based on blockchain have also abandoned blockchain and returned to traditional architecture. These failures have undoubtedly seriously shaken people's confidence in blockchain.

What went wrong? Does blockchain still have a future? What should we do next?

Personally, I started learning and studying blockchain in 2015, and was initially a typical member of the blockchain community. However, since the end of 2017, I have gradually shifted my focus to digital assets. I agree more with the vision of the blockchain community, and hope to see the new technology of blockchain have a practical impact in the wider real world, create visible value, and gain recognition from more ordinary people. Therefore, on the tenth anniversary of the emergence of the blockchain field, I would like to share some personal views.

First of all, it should be clear that blockchain is still in its early stages. Compared with today's mainstream technologies, it is still a new thing. We must recognize that blockchain is an algorithmic solution to a long-standing problem in the field of distributed computing and social collaboration: how to establish and spread trust without relying on authoritative institutions? This problem has troubled mankind for thousands of years, but it was not until the emergence of the Bitcoin white paper in 2008 that a viable solution was suddenly provided. Therefore, the current blockchain industry is actually in the early stage of a dozen years after the theoretical breakthrough. In contrast, the theoretical breakthroughs of today's hottest technology industries such as chips, the Internet, artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and new energy occurred decades or even hundreds of years ago. When these technologies were in their teens, there may not even be any products, and there is no opportunity to summarize lessons learned. Therefore, blockchain is still in its infancy, and we must give it more patience.

Despite this, the blockchain industry has still had many unsatisfactory problems in the past decade and has taken many detours. Some of these problems are objective and cannot be solved by the blockchain industry itself, but many are subjective and it is worth summarizing the lessons learned.

The first problem is that the chain circle has too blindly adopted the technical tools and thinking methods of the currency circle, resulting in serious "rejection reactions" during application. There is no doubt that the currency circle has always been at the forefront of blockchain technology applications. However, technologies like Bitcoin and DeFi are extreme means to solve extreme problems. They exist in a "cypherpunk" libertarian digital jungle environment, which is significantly different from the real world: anonymous but open and transparent, digital identities can be easily created and discard, code is law. These rules are inconsistent with the real world today and are unlikely to be widely accepted even in the future.