Huobi Group CEO Leon Li Shared His Vision for Blockchain Industry and Its Outlook

LONDON, Aug.26, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- On August 26, Huobi University shared an opinion piece made by Leon Li, CEO of Huobi Group in a keynote speech titled "Blockchain Industry and Its Outlook" at the opening session of Global Blockchain Leadership Programme.

Speaking at a lecture held by Huobi University, Huobi founder Leon Li outlined the current blockchain industry and shared his outlook. 

 "We sit at an important juncture in the growth and evolution of blockchain technology. Much has been accomplished since Bitcoin was created some 11 years ago, but the advancement of the technology has really ramped up in the last few years. 

Not only has blockchain been purporting its potential and outlining the possibilities, it has started reaching some of those goals and proving its value in our modern, digital world. The outlook for the next few years is filled with even more promise and potential, but it all goes back to the original thoughts in the Satoshi Nakamoto white paper on Bitcoin. 

The path that Bitcoin and blockchain has tried to get here is just as important as its outlook as the world has changed dramatically in the last 10 years and Blockchain technology has been offering solutions that were not even that well-conceived of back then, but still well needed today. "

'The industry is growing'

"The topic I am sharing today is "Blockchain Industry and Its Outlook". This industry has been growing for 11 years, in this 11-year process, I have been involved for 7 years, the previous 4 years I did not participate, and I was clueless to this industry like everyone else," Explained Li.

Huobi was founded in 2013 by Li, an alumnus of Tsinghua University. He was a computer engineer at Oracle before founding Huobi and entering into the blockchain space. Li's belief in the technology is predicated around the fact that it is revolutionary and has the potential to change the world.

"I will lead you to review the actual development of the industry, about how this industry was originated from a paper, a sole personal idea to a business that has profound global impact," he added.

"Secondly, I will give you a thought, the future of this industry, and Huobi's role in the future. We can't jump over Bitcoin to talk about blockchain."

'A new system'

"In Satoshi Nakamoto's paper, he talk about to create a system, a new financial system with following features:

"To create a system that doesn't require intermediaries. Traditional financial institutions have created a lot of problems with revenue through constant credit expansion."

"To create something with great freedom, say that money made in Japan cannot be spent in the U.S. directly. We should create a free financial world for the people who can truly own the asset they own."

"2013 is an important year. A European country called Cyprus went into credit bankruptcy. Due to the bad credit, we have seen many countries experiencing credit crises. The fiat can be devalued by half over one night. Bitcoin at that time was seen as a supranational and super sovereign currency."

"Bitcoin achieved global attention due to the Cyprus credit crisis. People seemed to reach consensus. As a direct result of this event at the beginning of the first half of 2013, Bitcoin was suddenly and all of a sudden expected to be a major player. Everyone believed that Bitcoin would become a global currency in the future."

"At the beginning of 2013, everyone took the case of the country of Cyprus, because it was a very big event. A lot of media reported that a lot of Cypriot nationals had exchanged their fiat currency to Bitcoin, saying that it was both freely convertible and fair and reasonably safe. The media reported it every day, so the public started to understand it."

"It has also attracted people from the financial world, people from the media, etc. Huobi went alive under this background. We launched Huobi in September 2013. There were also some technology-based explorations, using Bitcoin technology to virtualize email, which is to protect the information in your email."

"The most powerful push of the industry is that people realize how profitable it is to invest in Bitcoin. It was on November 19, 2013, I could never forget, I was sitting in front of my laptop and realized that Bitcoin has gained 10 folds over one month. A lot of well-known and successful companies were established in 2013."

"In 2013, people anticipate that Bitcoin will become the future world currency. However, only 10% of merchants were willing to accept it, that is, to make payments directly in Bitcoin, the other 90% were not accepting it. The vast majority of those 10% of merchants have high margins and can tolerate volatility."

"Bitcoin didn't find its way out for payments. So where would Bitcoin lead the industry? At the beginning of 2014, when Bitcoin was only around $600 USD, countries around the world have come up with their regulation policy on Bitcoin, including China, United States, and Japan. Mt.Gox went bankrupt in 2014. At this point Bitcoin was under very great pressure, being challenged about asset security."

"The global acceleration is now divided into several major categories, countries and regions like Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, and in fact the United States, have recently proposed some regulatory frameworks."

"As of now, it's been two years since the countries around the world have made it official to consider crypto legislation. We've seen the crypto law proposals in Russia. Countries that are open to foreign exchange are more welcoming, countries that are regulated are less welcoming. Probably that's the pattern."

'Future of the Industry'

"Government are building up third party intermediaries like data center to increase governance efficiency, like contract signing, authentications, issue invoices, etc. Although governments can't completely hand this over to a third party, since there are so many departments of government transactions, in every region and every city. And people don't hand this over to industry associations or to state agencies."

"This is a top-down huge project. The government develops products, and now we are able to do it with more efficient blockchain technology."

SOURCE Huobi University