Blockchain technology: development and prospects

It has been more than 10 years since Satoshi Nakamoto published his famous paper entitled Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system, which set the foundation of blockchain technology. Accompanied by the price volatility of bitcoins from 2017 to 2018, blockchain has been a hot word on the internet, and particularly hot in China. Blockchain offers a distributed and secure system for data storage and value transactions. Its applications are springing up in multiple fields. The Chinese government is considering these trends with great caution. Initial coin offering has been banned in China since September 2017. By contrast, an official white paper on China's blockchain technology, which was released in May 2018, said that blockchain technology will be widely applied in the real economy of China within 3 years. In a recent panel discussion held by National Science Review, experts talked about related topics. Their opinions may provide a quick view of the future development of blockchain in China and abroad.