Is blockchain’s “joining” a lifeline or a fatal poison pill for the P2P industry?

[Abstract] In the past year, the most common news about P2P is the platform running away, closing down and overdue payment. Similar problems have occurred frequently, making investors sleepless. What's worse, when talking about P2P, their faces suddenly change, as if they had a nightmare.

In the past year, the most common news about P2P is the platform running away, closing down and overdue payment. Similar problems have occurred frequently, making investors sleepless. What's worse, when talking about P2P, their faces suddenly change, as if they had a nightmare.

Since the P2P runaway craze began last year, Internet finance has fallen from a high point of popularity to a Pandora's box that people avoid at all costs.

1. The end of the era of barbarism

Past mistakes are lessons for the future.

After the runaway craze, the online lending industry has become more rational, whether it is the platform, financial managers, or borrowers. The release of a series of documents, from the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Healthy Development of Internet Finance" to the "Internet Finance Supervision Rules (Draft for Comments)", is enough to show that the country's supervision and attention to the development of the P2P industry.

Policy supervision can not only strengthen the constraints on the P2P industry, but also effectively promote the orderly, healthy and standardized development of the P2P industry. Trading platforms that have engaged in illegal operations such as false transactions, fraud, and self-financing will soon face the pressure of being reshuffled out.

The wild growth of P2P platforms has put the industry in a "sub-healthy" state. In order to survive and maximize profits, various P2P platforms compete with each other, using all kinds of tricks, and even more so, in order to compete for user resources and attract users, they have started a series of silent wars. The once loud slogans of high interest rates and high incomes have become a legal and compliant way of healthy development.

Internet finance is the transformation of traditional financial services to the Internet, and the orderly development of the platform through the Internet's operational thinking. It allows customers to enjoy basic financial services while also enjoying product experience and service efficiency. Security is a major issue.

But what is disappointing is that some platforms have abandoned the security system of traditional financial services due to excessive reliance on the Internet, and have major loopholes in risk control and fund health. It is because of the advantages of the Internet that they have lost the essence of financial services, which has led to extreme phenomena such as platform absconding and fraud.

From the perspective of the P2P industry, it is necessary to take into account both the convenience of the Internet and the security of traditional finance. However, in fact, most platforms only achieve the latter, choosing the Internet channel + traditional financial services to do Internet finance. In fact, they still use the Internet channel to output traditional financial services. This completely deviates from the essential needs of Internet finance, which is convenience and experience first.

2. The combination of P2P and "blockchain" has broad prospects

Virtual currency is popular all over the world, and blockchain as the underlying technology has also received frequent attention.

At the "2015-2016 Microfinance 50 Forum Annual Meeting" held in Beijing, many experts said that in the field of Internet finance, "blockchain" technology may have great potential. Compared with the traditional model, the cost is much lower, and it is likely to become a hotbed for the future financial field, deriving many Internet financial business models based on "blockchain".

The development trend of Internet finance is bound to be the integration of the P2P industry and "blockchain". In China, many people have begun to notice the storm that blockchain will bring, and have begun to plan and strive to innovate.

Ant Financial will first implement blockchain technology on the Alipay Charity Donation Platform, realizing the combination of blockchain and charity. Baidu and Circle have reached a strategic cooperation, taking the first step to open up the international financial market. The Financial Blockchain Cooperation Alliance was established, and Tencent joined it, and its subsidiary WeBank joined as a member unit and initiator unit respectively.

Perhaps, like any new technology, blockchain may be a disruptive idea at first, but over time, it may also give birth to a larger ecosystem in an innovative way. In essence, blockchain is an information technology, a decentralized and revolutionary computing paradigm. It encourages any parties who do not need to trust to participate in collaboration through credit, evidence and compensation reward tracking models.

It can be seen from this that "blockchain" is likely to become a highly sought-after "darling" in the P2P industry and even in the global Internet financial field.

The integration of the P2P industry and "blockchain" can not only take advantage of the unique advantages of "blockchain" itself, but also make the entire industry more "transparent", injecting a breath of fresh blood into the entire industry. At the same time, as time goes by, blockchain technology may exist in a large ecosystem with both centralized and decentralized models. In the future world, there may be considerable complementary space for both centralized and decentralized models.