Author: Lawyer Liu Honglin

My understanding of blockchain is somewhat different.

We have been envisioning blockchain as the infrastructure of the next generation of the internet, discussing it as a technology or application that changes production relations. But I think this might be too grand. From a time perspective, the implementation of this thing might be measured in decades or even centuries; each generation has its own goals, and we should not be dealing with things meant for future generations every day.

I. Cognitive Misalignment: The Long Cycle of Technological Evolution and Short-Term Anxiety

At this moment, blockchain technology has only been around for a little more than a decade—since the release of the white paper, it has been just from 2008 to now. We are doubting, questioning, and worrying about the application value of blockchain; I personally feel that this concern is not very significant.

The reason is that, within the entire time cycle of our generation, the application value and popularity of blockchain is unlikely to progress as quickly as we imagine. It is similar to when the internet or computers first emerged; the first generation of entrepreneurs and internet professionals found it hard to imagine that today we could use the internet to hail a cab, watch videos, or make instant payments. At that time, everyone just felt that the internet was a cutting-edge technology capable of sending and receiving information, browsing news, and reading e-books.

So, it is not about doubting the real value of blockchain, but rather from a historical and temporal dimension, the application of blockchain into the lives of ordinary people, or achieving large-scale application, still has a long way to go. Many people's anxiety about blockchain today essentially compresses a technological evolution of ten years, or even longer, into a three to five year expectation, which itself creates cognitive misalignment and anxiety.

II. Good Steel Used at the Right Blade: Focus on Technology Finance

The application of blockchain technology, at this stage, is definitely good steel used at the right blade.

Some characteristics of blockchain technology, such as tamper-proof, decentralized accounting, traceability, and its inherently financial attributes, I believe that for the next ten or even twenty years, it may be limited to the field of technology finance. For instance:

• Currency Payment: Whether it is stablecoin payments or large value transfer tools represented by Bitcoin.

• On-chainization of Traditional Financial Markets: Including the on-chainization of assets such as securities, funds, and bonds (RWA).

I have worked for a few years in internet products, led product research teams, and could be considered an entrepreneur in mobile internet. This experience allows me to have an intuitive judgment: If a technology or application does not achieve a tenfold speed improvement compared to traditional methods, it is not a breakthrough or disruptive innovation. In the past year, I experienced two things that make me believe blockchain in the financial field could potentially achieve improvements of tenfold or even a hundredfold.

1. The Efficiency Gap in Cross-Border Payments

The first experience is when I previously transferred money from a mainland bank card to foreign accounts.

• Traditional Method: Subject to currency management restrictions; must go to an offline bank counter to submit personal materials; handling fees up to hundreds of RMB; extremely high time costs. This is a result of the SWIFT network and the multi-tiered agent mechanism—each layer of institutions adds time and costs.

• Blockchain Method: In the current crypto payments of 2026, using USDT or other stablecoins, the handling fee is basically between 0.01 to 0.1 USD, with funds arriving in just a few seconds to a minute.

Cross-border fund transfers within a legal and compliant framework have increased efficiency tenfold to a hundredfold. This improvement is not theoretical but can be directly felt by any real user.

2. The Slowness of Securities Trading Settlements

The second experience just happened last night. The Nasdaq index (QQQ) has recently skyrocketed, and I opened my securities account on Saturday to sell:

• Traditional Method: The system shows that I have to wait until next Wednesday to know how much I sold for. And coincidentally, due to the May Day holiday, I can earliest withdraw the money by May 8. It takes over ten days for funds to return after trading. For users accustomed to instant feedback from the internet, this delay is very counterintuitive.

• Blockchain Method (RWA): The on-chain US stocks or RWA assets that exploded significantly starting in 2025 can be traded 7×24 hours and can theoretically realize on-chain settlements and synchronous asset deliveries.

Although on-chain anti-money laundering, KYC, and regulatory issues have not been fully resolved yet, from the perspective of compliant business, these can be confirmed and resolved through technology and systems. The tokenization of US stocks or global financial assets is an inevitable trend in the blockchain world.

III. Blockchain: The Elephant in the Room

The inefficiency of traditional financial institutions is limited due to the existence of numerous intermediaries, centralized service organizations, and the data transaction processes requiring repeated review, reconciliation, and confirmation through technology and manpower.

Blockchain, referred to as the "Internet of Value," can enable value transfer, rights confirmation, and financial settlements to be completed within a unified ledger system, thereby significantly reducing intermediaries and increasing efficiency and transparency.

From this perspective:

1. Tangible Value: Blockchain has practical social value application scenarios and demands within technology finance, creating efficiencies over tenfold.

2. Future Trends: The application of this technology should not be limited by national borders. Whoever can quickly embrace blockchain, put traditional financial securities on-chain, significantly enhance trading and settlement efficiency, and achieve high-frequency trading capabilities 7×24 hours in the future, will be the highly certain future.

In the current still relatively inefficient traditional financial system, blockchain is no longer a "concept for storytelling," but a tool that is truly creating efficiency and genuinely changing user experiences.

We may not care whether blockchain can become the infrastructure of the next generation of the internet, but it is evident that at this stage, in the financial field, it has become a visible and continually amplifying "elephant in the room."