The Silicon Valley of China recently held its main annual technology conference and this year the focus was Blockchain.
Some of the key speakers including LoveBlock CEO Raffael Krause
The event was huge, including sponsors such as Sina — the Chinese equivalent of Twitter and the financial website Meirijinrong which is partnered with the likes of Huawei and Baidu.
As a result, projects from across China and beyond flew into Chengdu for a weekend full of discussion and networking on all things blockchain.
There was an immense variety of projects on display from the revolutionary forward thinkers to the downright wacky and weird.
BitPig — Blockchain Project based on… Pigs?
Bit猪 (zhū) or known as BitPig in English was the standout candidate for strangest Blockchain offering. Claiming to revolutionize the Pig farming industry and generate 6 Billion RMB profit in just 2 years’ time, without any product live as of today. This is a hugely ambitious number even for any of today’s tech giants - if you convert this to USD the equivalent figure is well over $850 million, so to achieve that feat in only 2 years would be unheard of!
Talk by the BitPig CEO
BitPig is based around tracking pork from table back to its exact source. This will include being able to find out the exact pig a cut of meat came from, what that pig was fed, which farm it came from and more.
This all sounds very promising, but who will realistically pay for any of this?! Because I know most consumers won’t be paying per piece of meat to see if the quality of pig feed was up to their preferred standard — and there definitely aren’t enough hipsters to fund over $850 million in 2 years just on pig identifiers…
Then there is the issue of why use the blockchain? Of course the information will be more secure once uploaded to the BitPig blockchain, but this information is still only as good as the person who uploads it. Farmers or distributors can still just as easily upload this information and say that a pig wasn’t fed antibiotics when it was if they want to. Overall, the project doesn’t utilize blockchain effectively and it especially seems unusual with the very high profitability figures that they are quoting.
Moving on from the wacky to the wonderful – there were some great projects on show and some really forward-thinking discussions on the possibilities of Blockchain for the future, that actually made sense!
The engaged crowd at the Global Center — The world’s largest building by floor area
At the event was Professor Li Taifu from the Chinese government technology 863 program that looks at how innovative technology can be used to generate wealth within the country. There were also esteemed University Professors from across the continent attending too.
Li Taifu gave a speech stating how Blockchain is the next true digital industry set to take over. Professor Li Taifu asserted the belief that the underlying blockchain system will increase efficiency, change existing social relationships, and form new ways of business.
Jin Huija — Blockhain Project on Mutual Insurance
Jin Huija CEO Lihui Chen spoke at the event and detailed the mutual insurance project the firm is working on. Their aim is to change the mutual insurance landscape whereby policyholders are already the owners of the company.
By using blockchain technology, Jin Huija will be able to cut out the middle players and improve security of insurance documentation. The hope is that by combining Blockchain systems with insurance, funds can be accurately and easily distributed in the event of a claim. By having policy-holder information indefinitely on the blockchain it can also be much more easily verified how long someone has been no claims for example, and what their appropriate discount should be.
Talk by Jin Huija CEO Lihui Chen
This will all be combined with their existing community platforms to serve their users and make use of the masses of data they already have access to. According to Chen this will allow them to split the mutual insurance project into multiple divisions depending on the type of insurance, i.e. home insurance or vehicle insurance.
Thus, allowing them to provide an individualized service to the consumer targeting their needs.
The firm Jin Huija already has a solid backing to build off, with 1 million insurance users and 10 million community users – as a result they already have a good understanding of the marketplace they are entering.
The blockchain platform itself will be open and decentralized, with multiple insurance companies operating from their blockchain according to Chen. This is very promising and shows some of he true potential of blockchain for the future.
LoveBlock — Blockchain Project on Decentralized Dating
Discussion panel led by LoveBlock CEO Raffael Krause
Also at the conference was LoveBlock CEO Raffael Krause, who came over from Singapore to discuss the future potential of blockchain and the exciting offering at his firm. Krause detailed the proposal of LoveBlock, in which they are creating a decentralized database for dating that will eradicate many of the problems associated with online dating today.
He stated how LoveBlock will eradicate problems such as fraudulent behavior through a cross-platform blockchain network consisting of multiple dating DApps. Here individual user behavior can be securely linked back to the same individual for the purpose of removing negative behavior. For example, if a ‘love scammer’ is detected, Krause stated that this person can be eliminated across all dating platforms on LoveBlock in order to prevent them from causing more harm. He mentioned how the Apps will be incentivized to do this by the use of their newly formed cryptocurrency DDD, so that the user experience is improved across the industry.
The LoveBlock CEO also noted that users themselves will be incentivized for positive behavior, such as helping other find a suitable match or flagging a potential fraudster in order to earn LoveBlock tokens. He hopes this will create a longer-lasting more meaningful platform that users can use to find real matches as opposed to the apps of today that are mainly interested in short term relationships.
LoveBlock CEO Raffael Krause speaking to the panel
Krause also mentioned that as all of this will be on the Blockchain user data will be much more secure. This will result in a much safer environment where users can be sure the kind of hacks that have plagued dating platforms such as Ashley Madison will be a thing of the past.
Another interesting point as to why LoveBlock may have a better blockchain outlook than its competitors is the tie up they have with luxury dating platform Luxy. Krause stated the fact that Luxy has a userbase of over 2 Million and already is the first dating platform to use the LoveBlock token.
This bodes well for their future and shows some real future potential in the platform LoveBlock are building.