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Bitcoin China Technology

Chinese President Xi Jinping Calls Blockchain a 'Breakthrough' Technology (cnbc.com) 82

Even as cryptocurrencies continue to draw skepticism from some, at least the underlying technology, blockchain, has found yet another high-profile admirer: Chinese President. Xi Jinping said in a speech this week that blockchain has "breakthrough" applications. From a report: "A new generation of technology represented by artificial intelligence, quantum information, mobile communications, internet of things and blockchain is accelerating breakthrough applications," he said Monday, according to a translation of his remarks. Xi also emphasized the need for China to focus on technological development and become the global center of science and innovation.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping Calls Blockchain a 'Breakthrough' Technology

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  • His control.

    And Block Chain is all about decentralized control. So an odd pick.

    I suspect he was just rattling of technological buzzwords that sounded trendy. Looks he forgot "Deep Learning".

    • No. Just... no. One of the things you can do with blockchain technology is decentralize something. However that is not remotely the only application. China is interested in it for it's tracking capabilities, and the advanced control it gives over its citizens actions.

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Nope. Clearly the government of China is impressed by developments in Russia and are themselves going to pursue changing China to a technocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. Democratic at the mid to high level and the rest are taught to vote the right way. It is in line with current trends, it provides significant developmental and economic advantages. The US kakistocracy is rapidly consuming itself, a snake eating it's own tale, being eaten alive by corruption and trying to compete with technocracies

      • by Anonymous Coward

        In the USA, it means money lobbies government to reduce to impact of the voters.

        In China there are no voters, totally corrupt in that sense. And "Corruption" means princelings putting public money directly into their own pockets -- that type of direct corruption is extremely rare in the USA. (It is done indirectly, e.g. the general getting the job in the arms factory upon retirement, but not directly.)

        There is no comparison.

        Sure, there is trouble in the USA. But they are chalk and cheese.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Not odd at all. Perhaps he just doesn't want the US dollar to remain the main reserve currency that everyone must hold to do business. US basically can blackball/blackmail any country at any time, just like they are trying to do right now with businesses that may want to do business with Iran. Maybe Xi thinks that blockchain tech can change that.

  • Ideal for the State! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Thursday May 31, 2018 @07:07PM (#56707780) Journal
    You can track EVERYTHING with Blockchain. Make the one-time association between user and hash, and you have everything they ever do. Perfect for an all-controlling State!
    • by ModelX ( 182441 )

      You can track EVERYTHING with Blockchain. Make the one-time association between user and hash, and you have everything they ever do. Perfect for an all-controlling State!

      That's true, but how is that different from using a credit or debit card or any bank account that's associated to real person identity?

      • This isn't just about cash - this is about everything. Follow phones, cars, homes, etc. For financial, cash is still king in China, and this would eliminate it. Remember, you're talking about a country where you have to ensure you have the proper paperwork to live or work outside your home town, and takes photos of all faces and cars all over the place with the intent of tracking everyone, all the time. Anything that guarantees everything is traceable is going to be supported...
      • I've no doubt all that's tracked on some server somewhere. But if it were a blockchain, the intermediaries couldn't fuck with it. It would let top China party members trust the regional bosses to collect lists of all the phone logs, money transfers, lists of people they black-bagged. Their underlings couldn't just pencil in whatever value they wanted, or run a SQL script to DELETE FROM TaxRecords WHERE name=${myNephew}.

        It ALSO means they can't fuck with it, which isn't the sort of loss of control I'

  • by hackingbear ( 988354 ) on Thursday May 31, 2018 @07:09PM (#56707800)

    If the translation is right, he said "breakthrough applications" and not "breakthrough technology". See the difference?

  • Blockchain is commonly defined by investment folks as such, sure - but it's just a database oriented to ensure uniqueness and carefully tracking user access.

    Here's a gaming-oriented view on how Blockchain can be used more generally, and not just to ask for money:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    Perhaps in the end, it will all be a dead-end, since those same ideas can be mixed better in something not called 'Blockchain' - but as it is, it is nicely well-tested set of code you can use for lots of other stuff. It seem a waste to not use it as a basic toolset, when it's so relatively well-tested.

    Ryan Fenton

  • by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) on Thursday May 31, 2018 @07:26PM (#56707866)
    I wonder what it's like to have a leader who understands things.
  • Sounds like he threw out some random tech buzzwords to me. Big deal.

  • Time to call a top.

    ,br>
    One Japenese band, one Chinese Poo-bah, several people I work with who bought into ICO's, way too much money.

    Time to call a top.

  • According to the translation he's saying "A new generation of technology ... is accelerating breakthrough applications". You know what this means? Party time! Blockchain mentioned! Actually, it's called one of many new generation technologies. I also agree with comments noting it sounds basically a list of buzzwords with no specific meaning, although if you look at the list, they're all immensely useful technologies for ubiquitous surveillance. But he said "breakthrough applications", that can only mean one

  • Despite all the hype, I still haven't seen much to convince me blockchain has any sort of really new applications other than the original intent to support cryptocurrency. All the other pie in the sky speculation boils down to applications we are already supporting with existing technologies like good old databases.
    • well yeah. But with the added twist of "you don't have to trust the people holding onto the database." Like how email let you "send mail... but on a computer", all the crazy blockchain ideas are just old tasks done on a distributed ledger that's secure from people fucking with it. Right now you have to trust your bank to keep the right number next to your account. You have to trust the DMV to have the right picture and birth year and name associated with your driver's license. And they generally do a

      • The problem is that very immutability. That works great for cryptocurrency ledgers, not so great when the bank or credit agency gets something wrong. (And yelp is already full of garbage reviews.) Since you need to be able to edit the information in every case, it isn't adding anything we don't already have. Unless you can guarantee it will be right the first time and will never need to be changed.
        • Oooooor fix it, and note that you fixed it. It's not like anything in a git repo "never needs to be changed". The values in the ledger change all the time. It's actually their defining feature keeping track of a value that goes up and down.

          • As you say, this is a problem that has already been solved. There is stll no problem mentioned that benefits from an append only distributed ledger where additions are made by consensus. Except cryptocurrency designed to have no central management. We already have digital signatures and other solutions if we need to implement an integrity control.
  • Quite a novel idea, having intelligent politicians, like scientists, engineers etc Wonder what Trump thinks of blockchain? Apparently he struggled with the difference between HPV and HIV as a health concern, despite extensive explanation.

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