Bitcoin OKCoin: The role of virtual currency is an innovative supplement to traditional finance

Recently, the authoritative financial industry magazine Tsinghua Financial Review published an article titled "Current Bitcoin Industry Development Status and Policy Research". Tsinghua Financial Review's readership is aimed at senior and middle-level leaders in China's policy-making departments, and it mainly provides reference for economic and financial policy makers. This is the first time that an influential magazine in China has published an industry observation on Bitcoin.

This article analyzes virtual currencies represented by Bitcoin from three aspects: technology, finance, and sociology. Their future role will be an innovative supplement to traditional finance.

From a technical perspective, the Bitcoin network protocol is a decentralized, peer-to-peer value transfer protocol. All transactions in the entire network database will not result in duplicate payments or false payments.

Blockchain technology is currently considered to have revolutionary significance in the Internet era, and Bitcoin is just one form of application based on it. In Silicon Valley, there are already many startups and projects focusing on the research and development of blockchain technology applications in real life.

From a financial perspective, Bitcoin can be seen as a digital investment product similar to electronic gold or a global standardized digital asset. Its constant total volume, easy portability, wide audience, low transaction costs and huge imagination space have made more and more investors believe that it has investment value; at the same time, Bitcoin relies on the Internet to circulate globally, so in certain specific application scenarios, such as cross-border payments and virtual economic value transfer media, Bitcoin can be used as an efficient and low-cost means of circulation and payment tool, assuming the function of a financial instrument.

From a sociological perspective, the Internet represents the trend of information liberalization, while Bitcoin represents the trend of financial liberalization. As a completely decentralized electronic currency that does not rely on any single authority for issuance, and can achieve value transfer without going through the banking system during cross-border and cross-currency transfers, Bitcoin is believed to have the opportunity to improve the inefficiency and high cost of the existing global financial system in the process of financial globalization, which is its sociological significance.

Xu Mingxing, founder of bitcoin startup OKCoin, said that from mid-2014 to mid-2015, bitcoin prices continued to fluctuate at low levels, which indicated that bitcoin had entered a period of rational development after the previous excessive hype. This is also the best time to remove speculative bubbles, re-examine the properties of bitcoin, sort out bitcoin industry rules, and explore industry development ideas.

In the future, different types of virtual currencies can be exchanged, and virtual currencies can be exchanged throughout the entire Internet financial industry. When exchange occurs, the liquidity of virtual currencies will be greatly enhanced, and the operating efficiency of the Internet financial industry will also be enhanced.

"Whether it is the development of the Internet in the past or the current upsurge in Internet finance, they all stem from people's pursuit of efficiency and convenience. The tool role of virtual currency in the Internet financial system will continue to evolve and upgrade with the development of Internet finance, and become an indispensable part of the Internet financial system," said Xu Mingxing.