（Picture Source:Sogou）
Generally speaking, the development of blockchain technology is mainly divided into four stages. The first stage is the era of laying the groundwork for blockchain, which is Peer-to-peer network. P2P is known as the father and technical basis of blockchain. P2P is another kind of Internet infrastructure corresponding to C/S (B/S). Its characteristic is that multiple computers connected to each other are in a peer-to-peer position, there is no master-slave distinction, a computer can be used not only as a server, but also as a workstation. Block chain is a software application of peer-to-peer network architecture. Hash algorithm can transform arbitrary length numbers into fixed length values by hash function, and it produces token (General Certificate). The key to it. The process of block chain and its application token to generate new token is to use the function of hash algorithm to carry on the operation. Therefore, peer-to-peer network P2P and hash algorithm and other technologies pave the way for the birth of bitbi. The second stage is blockchain 1.0 era. 1.0 era is mainly bitcoin as the core of many businesses and surrounding services, such as wallets, tools, exchanges, mining, mining machine business and so on. In the 1.0 era, people focused too much on virtual currencies based on blockchain technology, focusing on how much they were worth, how to dig, how to buy, and how to sell them. Phase III For the blockchain 2.0 era. This phase is the development and application of intelligent contracts, which is to create a broader protocol based on block chain technology or to build another set of broader protocols based on block chain technology by bifurcation bitcoin block chain or building another set of broader protocols based on block chain technology. The representative of the 2.0 era is Ethernet Square, which has established a more flexible and general framework system. Innovation at the protocol and application levels makes it easy for developers to create new protocols on a new application set, using smart contracts to build new token. on top of their blockchains. Finally, there is the 3.0 era of blockchain. In the era of blockchain 1.0 and blockchain 2.0, blocks Chains are confined to monetary and financial industries, while blockchain 3.0 will open up a larger and wider world. The future blockchain 3.0 may be more than one chain one coin, is an ecological, multi-chain network, covering all aspects of human social life, including in the judicial, medical, logistics and other fields. There were no typical representatives of blockchain 3.0, such as Bitcoin and Ethernet Square, and the core technologies of the 3.0 era were different in the industry. There are many industry insiders mentioned that DAG, feels that DAG has the advantages that DAG does not now have in blockchain technology.
Now, banks, financial services and insurance departments are beginning to engage with public block chains to simplify their functional environments through private block chains and consortium block chains. Technavio, a market research expert, forecasts that the industry will grow at a compound annual rate of more than 60 per cent from 2018 to 2022, with exponential growth expected. The future has come. Let's witness the advent of the era of blockchain technology.
The most striking blockchain projects today are Facebook's Libra and the central bank's digital currency. On June 18, 2019, Facebook launched the Libra website and released a white paper. According to the white paper, Libra's mission is to build a simple, borderless digital currency and a set of financial infrastructure projects for billions of people. Facebook has 2.7 billion users around the world who may be able to use Libra to transfer money and pay in the future. As Facebook founder Zuckerberg envisioned, through Li Bra transfers can be as easy as sending messages, turning capital flows into an information flow that breaks down barriers to cross-border payments. However, Libra is not going well. Since the first day of the white paper, Libra has been heavily regulated and vigilant in American politics. Both Zuckerberg and Marcus, head of the Libra program, are questioned in parliament every once in a while and defend their projects. To this day, regulation and doubts from the US government still exist, and the United States is worried that the emergence of Libra will challenge the global hegemony of the dollar. Fortunately, Libra. The emergence of the mainstream society, especially the mainstream Internet to rethink blockchain technology. Chinese Internet tycoons, including Ma Huateng and Wang Xing, have begun to talk publicly about Libra, talking about blockchains. This is rare at the height of the hustle and bustle of the currency circle, where they were once questioned for fear of "touching" the blockchain. The people's Bank of China's research on digital currency is earlier than that of Libra.. As early as January 2017, the central bank set up a special digital monetary research institute. Earlier in 2016, a number of central bank experts wrote a series of papers on block chains and digital currencies. According to the currency circle, the central bank is against the digital currency. " An attitude of hostility. It was not until later that the currency circle realized that central bank regulation was in preparation for the healthy and orderly development of digital money. If the industry is controlled by speculators, the central bank's digital currency is also likely to become a hype tool. In the second half of 2019, the hustle and bustle of the currency circle has been effectively curbed, and the central bank has gradually introduced the research progress of its digital currency. On July 8, Wang Xin, director of the Central Bank Research Bureau, revealed that the State Council had formally approved the research and development of the central bank's digital currency. The central bank shall engage in the corresponding work in organizing the market institutions; In August, the central bank intensively announced digital currency Huang Qifan, vice chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchange, also made it clear in a speech that the people's Bank of China is likely to take the lead in launching digital money around the world. It can be seen that Internet giants such as Facebook, Tencent and Ali, as well as regulators such as the people's Bank of China, are setting off a blockchain of technology craze.
In 2008, Dorian S. Nakamoto published a paper called
