How chaotic is the cryptocurrency world outside of regulation? Report reveals that 80% of digital currencies are suspected of "plagiarizing code"

Recently, a digital currency C++ code similarity research report emerged, revealing a corner of the chaos in digital currency.

The report selected 488 digital currencies that use open source codes in the current digital currency market, and cross-compared the similarities of each digital currency code. It was found that 405 of them had a similarity of more than 90%, accounting for 82.99% of the total.

324 digital currencies

The similarity is more than 95%

Recently, a reporter from Securities Daily obtained a digital currency C++ code similarity research report jointly launched by Netta Laboratory and Xi'an Jiaotong University. The report adopts a full sample comparison, selecting 488 digital currencies that use open source codes in the entire digital currency market, and cross-comparing the similarity of each digital currency code.

The comparison results are shocking, which also reveals the chaos of digital currency code plagiarism. Currently, among the 488 digital currencies, only 38 have a similarity of less than 80%, which means that more than 90% of digital currencies have a similarity of more than 80%. Specifically, among the 488 digital currencies, 324 digital currencies have a similarity between 95%-100%, 81 have a similarity between 90%-95%, 29 are in the 85%-90% range, 16 are at the 80%-85% level, and another 38 are below 80%.

Based on this, a reporter from Securities Daily contacted the founder of Netta Lab to interpret the chaos of code plagiarism in the "cryptocurrency circle".

According to our reporter, Netta Lab is a member unit of Jiangsu Internet Association. It was founded in 2011 and is a technology service company dedicated to decentralized search engines and distributed autonomy. The application scenarios of Netta Lab products include resource sharing between public chains, enterprise database desensitization and precision marketing.

The high similarity of digital currency projects reflects the existing development bottleneck of blockchain itself. Xie Shaoyun, founder of Netta Lab, told the reporter of Securities Daily that the reason for this phenomenon is that, on the one hand, the blockchain industry does have a bad atmosphere and bubbles, and many people lack judgment on the industry and projects, and do not really pay attention to the quality of the projects. This has led to many project parties not focusing on technology development, resulting in a large number of rapid replication and plagiarism. On the other hand, some project parties are more impetuous for the sake of blockchain, and have not really started from the actual implementation of the product and the actual problems that need to be solved. In addition, there is a lack of innovation in technology and no systematic thinking on the underlying logic, which has led to a large number of projects that cannot be implemented.

A senior blockchain researcher also agreed with this view. At the same time, he added to the Securities Daily reporter that current digital currencies are mainly based on several mainstream technical architectures such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, graphene technology, Fabric, etc. Therefore, many digital currency codes will be similar.

Xie Shaoyun analyzed to the reporter of Securities Daily, "At present, the industry still lacks real innovation breakthroughs and industry pragmatists who put problem solving and application implementation first, and everyone is doing projects with an experimental mentality and a fluke mentality."

"We should return to the essence, truly solve practical problems, create tools that can be used by users and bring convenience, build real value and usability, come up with actual products, and promote the development of the industry from actual recognized value," she said.

Cryptocurrencies are all the same

Reflecting market chaos

In fact, the high similarity of mainstream digital currencies shows that the chaotic development of encrypted digital currencies in the absence of supervision on the issuance of digital currencies also indirectly reflects the current bubble in the encrypted digital currency market.

The "2018 China Blockchain Industry Development White Paper" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology clearly explains the risks of blockchain and encrypted digital currency: The white paper points out that the rapid development of blockchain technology has brought two kinds of harm: on the one hand, there is a speculative risk of bubbles caused by the sharp rise and fall of capital; on the other hand, there is a risk that blockchain technology will be used for illegal transactions. At the same time, the lack of government supervision of ICO activities has spawned a large number of projects of varying quality, with risks such as market bubbles caused by the lack of clear regulations for issuers, lack of appropriateness management for investors, and irrational behavior of investors, as well as the opportunity for criminals to launder money, traffic drugs, smuggle and raise funds illegally.

On September 4, 2017, the People's Bank of China, the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission and seven other ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Notice on Preventing Risks in Token Issuance and Financing", which completely stopped ICOs and warned of risks. The notice stated that there are multiple risks in token issuance, financing and trading, including the risk of false assets, the risk of business failure, and the risk of investment speculation. Investors must bear the investment risks themselves, and investors are expected to be careful to prevent being deceived. For all kinds of illegal financial activities carried out under the name of "coins", the public should strengthen their awareness of risk prevention and identification, and promptly report relevant clues of illegal and irregular activities.

In August, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and five other ministries and commissions issued a "Risk Warning on Preventing Illegal Fund Raising in the Name of "Virtual Currency" and "Blockchain". The warning of virtual currency risks was issued again, "Illegal elements use public propaganda to attract the public to invest funds with the bait of "static income" (profit from currency appreciation) and "dynamic income" (profit from developing downline), and induce investors to recruit personnel to join and continuously expand the capital pool, which has the characteristics of illegal fundraising, pyramid schemes, fraud and other illegal activities."

This article is from Securities Daily.