Author: Liu Honglin
This week, I drove through the Hexi Corridor, traveling from Wuwei, Zhangye, Jiuquan to Dunhuang. Crossing the sandstorm pass at the foot of the Qilian Mountains, I realized that the "Silk Road" is not a romantic term; it is a vast expanse of sand, continuous relay stations, and the sound of camel bells echoing through the millennia. Standing by the Han Great Wall watching the sunset, a thought crossed my mind: does this intangible thing called cryptocurrency have any connection to the trade route that once supported Eurasian civilization?
Upon reflection, it is indeed quite interesting.
The Silk Road is essentially a conduit of trust and payment. On the thousands of miles of trade routes, a merchant could conduct business in Chang'an and various countries along the way with a Han dynasty relay stamp and a few rolls of silk; today, in the Web3 world, a single Ethereum address can facilitate value transfer across borders. In the past, silk was currency; today, tokens are digital silk. The medium has changed, but the logic remains the same: both aim to bypass geographical and power boundaries to achieve transactions, consensus, and trust.
From Camel Team Silver Coins to On-Chain Tokens: The Journey of Payment and Trust
When we take photos at the foot of Jiayuguan today, we think of it as the end of the Great Wall. However, during the Tang dynasty, it was the starting point for Central Asian caravans entering China. The route opened by Zhang Qian to the Western Regions later supported the entire Han and Tang dynasties' "barter" and "silk diplomacy." Every transaction on the Silk Road had to solve a fundamental question: what do you use as "money"?
In an era of non-unified currency systems, the essence of currency was a certificate of credit. A merchant departing from Zhangye might use Han Wuzhu coins, but upon reaching Samarkand, silver coins, gold, or even camels themselves could become mediums of exchange. What truly facilitated the flow of transactions was cross-language, cross-culture "payment negotiation" and trust in each other's identities. The circulation of currency was actually built on a very primitive yet efficient "decentralized" consensus system.
In fact, "silk" itself in ancient times was not just a commodity; it was a form of currency.
As early as the Han dynasty, the court explicitly used silk as wages for the military and officials in border regions. The "Book of Han: Treatise on Food and Money" states: "Rewards and salaries are all given in silk, which can replace currency." This means that in certain situations, silk was not just a "commodity" for trade but could directly replace copper coins and gold and silver as an "official payment tool."
Especially in border areas, during wartime, or when metal currency was scarce, silk and satin, being lightweight, storable, and high-value materials, even became "diplomatic hard currency." The "Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance" records that the Tang dynasty "gifted ten thousand bolts of silk" to Tibet as a means of appeasement and trade exchange. By the Song and Yuan dynasties, silk was widely circulated in Central Asia, Persia, and even the Eastern Roman Empire, regarded as "noble currency from the East."
This is also the true meaning of the "Silk Road": silk is not only goods but also a "settlement unit" along the route. Its value was accepted by various civilizations along the way, just as today USDT or BTC is recognized by users in different countries. In the past, we crossed borders with silk and satin; now we traverse borders with digital currency.
This trading structure may sound ancient, but it bears a striking resemblance to today's virtual currency transactions. In reality, in places like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Nigeria, a significant amount of trade, immigrant remittances, and even retail payments have begun using USDT or DAI for settlement. As long as you have a wallet address, you don't need a bank account or to run to foreign exchange offices; funds can be transferred internationally within minutes.
Especially after the rise of the Telegram ecosystem, the issuance of USDT on the TON chain quickly surpassed $1 billion, and on-chain payments have gradually shifted from speculation to real scenarios: paying salaries, making purchases, hiring overseas teams, procuring servers—a whole set of gray and white payment paths is becoming as simple as sending a WeChat red envelope.
It is very similar to the logic of "barter + universal currency" on the ancient Silk Road: transactions are not completed using your country's settlement system but through a "third value medium" that everyone collectively trusts. The camel team has been replaced by wallet addresses, silver ingots by tokens; the way trust is established has changed, but the value of trust itself has not.
Why is Telegram popular? It is not just because it allows for anonymous chatting, but because it inherently possesses cross-border attributes, encryption foundations, and user stickiness. Beyond WeChat, Telegram is one of the few "global social software," and TON is precisely its extension in the blockchain world.
TON is currently one of the closest attempts to the "Silk Road" model within the blockchain public chain system: it connects communication, accounts, payments, and transactions in a complete chain, allowing users to complete wallet transfers, receive salaries, conduct micro-payments, and even build Bot automated interaction logic within the chat box. This system provides a practical path for users in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia to bypass banks and credit cards.
TON is not an isolated case; Sui, Solana, and BNB Chain are also following a similar "payment-oriented" path. However, compared to the "DeFi-oriented" approach of other public chains, TON resembles a full-stack ecosystem that replicates "transaction + identity + ledger + communication"—it is closer to the collaborative form of the Silk Road.
Compliance Game: From Maritime Trade Office to On-Chain KYC
Of course, every time trade liberalization occurs, it is followed by a regulatory backlash.
The Tang dynasty established the "Maritime Trade Office," which was responsible for managing overseas trade. The "New Book of Tang: Treatise on Food and Money" records: "The Maritime Trade Envoy is in charge of foreign goods," meaning that as long as you bring goods into China from the sea or border areas, you must declare, pay taxes, assess value, and exchange currency at specific ports. The Maritime Trade Office was not only a trade regulatory agency but also the most important foreign exchange management department at that time.
Looking back, the "Pass Commandant" of the Han dynasty managed the entry and exit checkpoints of the Hexi Corridor, overseeing the passage, customs duties, and identities of Western Region merchants; while the Song dynasty set up "tax markets" to manage licensed trade and regulated the circulation of paper currency through "Jiaozi Affairs." These systems collectively formed a real "compliance framework" that existed on the ancient Silk Road.
If various blockchain ecosystems want to play the role of the "digital Silk Road," they will inevitably face a reality similar to that of the Tang dynasty's Maritime Trade Office: how to find the critical point between free circulation and national regulation.
First is the role of regulation. The vast majority of blockchain projects claim to be technologically neutral, but when they embed wallets, launch USDT, engage in financial lending, and connect with hundreds of millions of users globally, they inherently possess the attributes of a "financial institution." Should they be regulated, who will regulate them, and under what legal jurisdiction—these questions need to be answered.
Secondly, there is the issue of auditing and compliance. On-chain data is indeed transparent, but transparency ≠ compliance. To conduct large-scale cross-border settlements, you must meet complex requirements such as anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing, which often means user identity penetration and fund path identification—this creates inherent tension with the "anonymity" and "decentralization" that Web3 users value most.
Finally, there is the tax issue. In traditional trade, how much goods you carry, how many relay stations you pass, and how many times you change horses are all recorded, valued, and taxed. However, on-chain, the P2P transaction paths are ambiguous, and the profit sources of DeFi are complex; how should the state define "taxable transactions"? Who is responsible for tax base declaration? These remain unresolved questions.
In simple terms, all the regulatory challenges faced by today's Web3 payments have actually been experienced by the ancient Silk Road. The challenges back then were geography and military power, while today's challenges are code and regulation.
After Dunhuang: We Are Always Seeking Ways to "Cross Boundaries"
On the day I left Dunhuang, I drove along National Highway G215, crossing the Qilian Mountains, often losing signal on my phone. The mountain roads wound, with eternal snow-capped peaks in the distance and the weathered Gobi and ancient paths beneath my feet. In such a landscape, humans seem small, and technology appears quiet, as if the digital age is still a millennium away.
Yet it is in this silence that I recalled a simple but unchanging proposition: human civilization has always been a series of efforts to cross boundaries.
Ancient people used camel teams and paper customs documents to traverse geography and language; today, we use blockchain and smart contracts to attempt to overcome systems and trust. On the ruins of the Silk Road, we are not establishing a cross-border settlement system for the first time, nor will it be the last. This time, however, we are using code, addresses, and on-chain consensus.
Technology will change, routes will alter, but the impulse to "cross over" has never extinguished over the millennia. In the past, we traveled the physical Silk Road; now we are trying to establish a digital Silk Road. Whether ancient relay stations or smart contracts, they fundamentally represent the same desire—between order and chaos, we must always carve out a feasible path for trust.
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