In 1986, a baby boy was born in Shaoyang, Hunan.

Don't get me wrong, this baby boy is not Lu Yanzu, who will be one of the top five good-looking bloggers in the future, but the richest man in Hunan in the future---- Roasted Cat (Jiang Xinyu).

It is no exaggeration to say that he is the richest man in Hunan.

Calculated at the price of one piece, Roast Cat’s assets are 54.9 billion yuan, making him the richest man in Hunan.

However, Roast Cat may not live to see the day when he becomes the richest man.

Roasted Mao has been an academic master since he was a child. In 2001, 15-year-old Roasted Mao was admitted to the Youth Class of the University of Science and Technology with a score ranking 11th in the country. Become the pride of all Shaoyang. To this day, his name is still on the honor roll of his alma mater, and he is looked up to by his junior brothers and sisters.

In 2009, 23-year-old Jiang Xinyu published a paper "Constructing a Secure Thread Mechanism Using Formal Methods", graduated with a master's degree, and went to Yale University as a visiting scholar in 2011 Study for a Ph.D.

No one knows that Roasted Cat’s trip will bring a change to the Bitcoin market. A huge revolution.

Speaking of Bitcoin, it can be traced back to a small circle born in 1992.

This year, a crypto-animalist group was born. At a gathering, Timothy May, an electronics engineer at Intel Corporation, published the "Crypto-Nonism Manifesto" and formally proposed the concept of crypto-nonism.

The first sentence of the manifesto seems familiar to us:

"A ghost, the ghost of cryptozoism , wandering in the modern world. ”

The core idea of ​​​​encryptionism is to avoid sending and receiving information through computer networks through the application of cryptography software. The tasteharass, monitor and report, and strive to protect privacy rights and freedoms.

With their piety, they decided to create a new digital technology with decentralization as the spiritual core and the SHA256 algorithm as the foundation to resist the supervision of modern society. and commercial monopoly.

They firmly believe that this technology can subvert human society:

"Computer technology is about to be realized Individuals and groups communicate and interact with each other with complete anonymity

... Combined with the emerging information market, cryptographic statelessness will be available to all. Materials that can be expressed in words and pictures create a liquid market

Get up, encryption anarchists, all you will lose is the wire barrier!"

Speaking of which, although this view is very much like that of an idealist Wishful thinking is cute, but in fact, they really changed our lives.

Because Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, Bram Cohen, the author of BT downloads, Sean Parker, one of the founders of Facebook, "WikiLeaks" founder Assange and others are members of this group.

Of course, this also includes Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin.

Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? unknown. Until now, computer genius hackers and intelligence organizations from all over the world have failed to dig out the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, so much so that some people suspect that Satoshi Nakamoto is a time traveler from the future.

I have to say that Satoshi Nakamoto has not revealed his mysterious identity so far, and he is very crypto-alessist.

In 2008, the global financial crisis broke out. On November 1 of the same year, Satoshi Nakamoto published his own white paper "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" ", telling the world: "I am developing a new electronic currency system that is completely peer-to-peer and does not require the intervention of a trusted third party."

At this point, Bitcoin, an electronic currency that cannot be controlled by any force or financial power, began to be known.

This also means that crypto-anarchists can have their own central bank and build their own financial system.

In order to verify their own Theory, at 18:15 on January 3, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first block of Bitcoin, known as the "genesis block", on a small server in Helsinki, Finland, and obtained The first mine reward is 50 Bitcoins.

At this point, Bitcoin was officially born, and Satoshi Nakamoto became the "Creator"

Nakamoto. Cong soon announced the mining algorithm, and a group of technical geeks began mining on the servers of various universities, and the number of Bitcoins increased rapidly.

But the question quickly came, how to prove that Bitcoin has the function of currency? In other words, how to prove that Bitcoin can buy things?

2010 On May 18, 2018, a crypto expert named Laszlo Hanyecz from Florida, USA, posted a post online, offering to buy two pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoins, provided they meet in person for the transaction.

You heard it right, 10,000 Bitcoins, according to the current market value, is almost more than 7 billion yuan.

But at that time, everyone I thought it was a joke and ignored it.

It was not until 4 days later that a British man, with the idea of ​​"I can't buy two pizzas, I will suffer a loss and I won't be fooled", ordered two pizzas and delivered them to Hanyez's home, and got the 10,000 Bitcoins. , and Laszlo quickly ate these two pizzas worth 7 billion yuan.

Since then, May 22nd every year has become "Bitcoin Pizza Day" in the currency circle to commemorate the first commercial transaction of Bitcoin.

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After the pizza incident, the value of Bitcoin began to be recognized by the world, Bitcoin transactions were born, and the price began to rise.

Soon, this road to wealth was People noticed.

Interestingly, the first group to come into contact with Bitcoin were not the most technology-sensitive geeks in various universities, but the non-mainstream group in the small town with messy colored hair:

< p style="text-align: left;">Game power leveling

In 2010, The most popular game is "World of Warcraft", and behind World of Warcraft, there is a complete industrial chain of power leveling and upgrading, competition, gold farming, equipment hunting, dungeon grinding... countless teenage non-mainstream people, If you stay up all night, you can get tens of dollars of hard work. If you are lucky enough to find good equipment, it is not a dream to sell it for hundreds or even thousands.

Suddenly, in some power leveling QQ groups, some advertisements recruiting for mining appeared. You only need to install a piece of software, and the computer will automatically mine. Generally, it will not affect your game playing. Then it will be released the next day. coins, and then sell the bitcoins to the collector at a price of 2-3 yuan per coin. Generally, 10 bitcoins can be dug out in one night, which will at least provide enough food for the day.

So, Bitcoin has been carried forward in a very down-to-earth way in the hands of this group of non-mainstream people who know nothing about crypto-nonism.

These non-mainstream people in fancy clothes can never imagine how valuable a string of codes they casually sell will be in the future.

However, these first-generation miners soon faced a business crisis, because at the end of 2010, mining technology revolutionized.

According to Satoshi Nakamoto’s settings , Bitcoin is in a utopian ideal state where "everyone is a central bank", so anyone with a CPU can mine with just an ordinary computer and software.

However, this decentralized situation was quickly broken because GPUs entered the industry.

We all know that mining is very dependent on Computing power, at the beginning, everyone used CPU for mining, but with in-depth research on mining algorithms, everyone found that mining is repeating the same work, and CPU, as a general-purpose computing unit, is not good at parallelism at all. Computing, at most a dozen tasks are performed at a time, and mining is too slow.

On the contrary, GPU has thousands of stream processors, which are inherently suitable for mining and are obviously more efficient.

Satoshi Nakamoto did not agree with GPU mining at first. He even advocated reaching a gentleman’s agreement to artificially limit GPU mining to maintain mining. "fair state".

However, Satoshi Nakamoto still underestimated human nature.

When Bitcoin has value, people will naturally want to make money with it.

As Hanyez open sourced his optimization algorithm for graphics card GPU mining (now you know why he has 10,000 Bitcoins?), Bitcoin The computing power of the entire network has increased exponentially, and the unit has quickly jumped from MH/s to the level of GH/s. It used to be that a maximum of a dozen Bitcoins were mined in a day. After using GPU, the mining output increased sharply, and hundreds of Bitcoins were produced in a day. Dream.

As a result, non-mainstream people began to rush into Internet cafes with good graphics cards. The Internet cafe owners were confused, which indirectly contributed to the first graphics card competition in Internet cafes. The scale upgrade also solved the NVIDIA crisis of Leader Huang.

Graphics card mining has been popular for two years and has once again encountered challenges.

In June 2012, the American Butterfly Laboratory's ASIC mining machine was successfully developed, bringing a new mining revolution.

ASIC mining machine uses ASIC chip as the core of computing power. Simply put, it is an ASIC chip customized for Bitcoin’s SHA256 algorithm. It can be exchanged for Higher performance, lower energy consumption, smaller size.

Let’s compare. The current high-end 4090 graphics card has an optimized mining capacity of 129.8MH/s and a power consumption of about 322W. What about the mining machine Antminer S9? ? The mining capacity is 13.5TH/s! Several orders of magnitude higher!

Whoever has a mining machine has the power to "coin".

At Yale, Roast Cat heard about the research and development progress of the Butterfly Laboratory and keenly sensed the opportunity to make money.

The generation born in the 1980s grew up reading "The Reader". The "Reader" once told a story about the San Francisco gold rush era, because competition was too great. fierce, few gold diggers made money, and inThe person who "sold shovels" to them in the mine actually made huge profits.

Roasted Mao thought, why can't I be the person selling shovels?

So, almost at the same time as Butterfly Lab’s successful research and development, Friedcat posted a post on the Bitcointalk forum with the ID of Friedcat, claiming that it had the ability to develop mining machines. Ability to raise funds publicly from the community.

According to Roast Cat's financing plan, he dropped out of Yale and established Bitquan Information Technology Co., Ltd. The company's equity was divided into 400,000 shares, with a value of 0.1 per share. Bitcoin.

No one realizes that this is the first ICO (Initial Coin Offering) in the history of the world's currency circle.

Roast Cat not only raises funds online, but also goes on road shows to promote its mining machines . In the end, Roast Cat successfully raised 16,000 Bitcoins, which was about 1 million yuan at the price at the time. Among them, the one who invested the most was a 26-year-old young man named Wu Jihan, who invested a total of 15,000 Bitcoins.

It’s easy to do things when you have money. The research and development of roasted cat’s mining machine went very smoothly. In just two months, it launched its own product——Roasted Cat Mining machine generation.

Roasted Mao took the first-generation mining machine and set up a mining farm trial in his company's warehouse. As a result, as soon as it was turned on, it occupied the entire 51% of the world’s Bitcoin computing power!

In other words, at least at the beginning of 2013, 51% of the world's newly produced Bitcoins were roasted cats!

At its peak, the number of Bitcoins mined by the "Roasted Cat Mine" in a month was as high as more than 40,000!

The huge success of the Roasted Cat mining machine has triggered a collective panic in the currency circle. After all, there are only 21 million Bitcoins in total, and they have all been poached by Roasted Cats. , what do others dig?

As a result, hacker attacks followed one after another.

In order to spread hatred, Roast Cat only retains 20% of the entire networkThe computing power and excess mining machines were all sold.

At that time, no mining machine could compete with Roast Cat. Although Butterfly Laboratory’s mining machine was successfully developed, it was not mass-produced. The Avalon mining machine developed by Dr. Zhang Nangeng of Beihang University has not yet started to be supplied, so in the ASIC mining machine market, Roast Cat is the absolute king.

At that time, people from all over the world came to buy Roast Cat mining machines in droves. Some people recalled that “some even threw money directly over and picked up the mining machine. The machine ran away, lest someone take away the mining machine.”

In this way, in half a year, Roasted Mao made more than one billion, and at this time, Roasted Mao. Cat is only 27 years old.

Roasted Cat has a dream. He wants an island. This island does not belong to anyone. There is no army or police. On this island, the currency is Bitcoin. Coin is a free paradise for cryptozoologists.

However, before he could earn enough money to buy the island, his dream was shattered early.

Mining machines are so profitable that they naturally attract countless competitors.

In June 2013, Butterfly Lab’s mining machines were finally mass-produced. In July, Avalon mining machines also began to be shipped one after another, and Roasted Cat What about here? Due to the inability to obtain TSMC's 55nm chips, the second-generation mining machine has not been successfully developed, causing the computing power of the Roasted Cat Mine to suddenly drop to 4% of the entire network.

It wasn’t until January 2014 that Roast Cat launched its third-generation mining machine BE300. It originally thought it could return to the top, but this chip was encapsulated Problems and burnout accidents occurred one after another, which ultimately completely ended Roomao’s mining machine journey.

At the end of 2014, Roast Cat disappeared and was never seen again. The 74,715 Bitcoins in his Bitcoin wallet were also missing. .

The myth of roasted cats has ended.

Around August 2017, a total of 17,600 Bitcoins were transferred out of Roasted Cat’s two wallet accounts within a week. On November 12, 2024, Roasted Cat went silent. The Bitcoin account that had been held for 7 years revived again, and another 206.34 Bitcoins were transferred, worth US$18.12 million.

Did Roasted Mao do these transfers? Or being manipulated by others? Is Roast Cat still alive? No one knows.

Everyone only knows that the Bitcoin pioneer who wore a wrinkled T-shirt during the road show but had shining eyes will never come back.

二

Roasted Mao's company is not going well, and Wu Jihan, the major shareholder who invested in him, can only find another way out.

At this time, Wu Jihan was no longer the rookie, but a big boss with tens of millions of assets (dividends from roasted cats).

Because he was optimistic about Bitcoin, Wu Jihan still wanted to do mining machine trading, so he thought of a person——Chang Chai.

Chang Chai is a pen name that most people don’t understand, but it is well-known in the science fiction circle.

We all know that Liu Cixin is the first person in science fiction. From 1999 to 2006, he won the Galaxy Award, the highest science fiction award, for seven consecutive years.

So who won the Galaxy Award in 2007 and 2008?

Long clip.

Coincidentally, Chang Chai is also from Hunan. His real name is Liu Zhipeng. He has been fond of Chu Ci since he was a child, especially the poem "With Chang Chai" in Qu Yuan's "Nine Chapters". Lu Lixi, Cui Wei of Guanqieyun, and Pei Baolu of Mingyuexi were chivalrous and romantic, so he named himself "Changchai".

In reality, Chang Chai is also a passionate idealist. At 16 When he was 2 years old, he began to write science fiction novels. Articles such as "Kunlun", "Route 674", "The Injury of Fuso", "Dragon Slaying Technique", "If Ma Kai Is Still Alive", etc. were published successively, which made him famous.

Some people commented: "His works intersect modernity and history. His classical works are often generous and tragic, while his modern works gradually reveal a beautiful western style." He won the Galaxy Award.Later, many people regarded him as Liu Cixin's successor.

But after 2009, Chang Chai never published any science fiction novels.

Many people speculated that he had fallen into creative bottleneck, but a netizen mysteriously replied on the Tieba forum: "Chang Chai is doing very science fiction things."

Yes, Changchai is doing something very sci-fi-Bitcoin.

Insert a digression here. If we look through the history of the currency circle, we will find that there are many science fiction enthusiasts.

For example, Chang Chai, a science fiction writer.

Xuanlian founder "Crazy Xiaoqiang" is a science fiction writer.

Wu Jihan, the famous "magnet", the name of the chip he created after working alone comes from the English name of "Zhizi".

How much does Wu Jihan like Liu Cixin? When he held the "World Blockchain Conference Wuzhen" in 2018, he even organized a cross-border roundtable forum "The Science Fiction World in the Blockchain" just for Liu Cixin, just to meet Liu Cixin.

Zhang Jian, the founder of Fcoin, has the same name as his "Singer Capital" Derived from "Three Body Problems".

Wait.

Why do the science fiction circle and the initial currency circle highly overlap?

Probably because the two circles are highly consistent. They are both sensitive to technology, have delicate emotions, and like fantasy.

Bitcoin naturally suits their appetite. After all, this kind of thing is both technical and humanistic, realistic and ideal.

Chang Chai is such a person. After he came into contact with Bitcoin in 2009, he was quickly convinced by the grand ideals behind Bitcoin. Chang Chai recalls : "The emergence of Bitcoin perfectly fits my imagination of the cloud era and grand distributed computing projects. I was quickly fascinated by it..."

In 2011, Chang Chai found a job within the system. Like Liu Cixin, he fished during working hours and wandered around the Internet, specializing in introducing Bitcoin to the public.

This year, a female college student asked a question on Zhihu: How should I invest 6,000 yuan?

Changchai gave an answer that was beyond everyone’s knowledge: “Buy Bitcoin, keep your wallet properly, then forget about it, and look at it again in five years. ”

A few years later, Bitcoin skyrocketed. If this female college student had listened to Chang Chai’s advice at that time, she would have become a billionaire.

So this reply was turned over and worshiped by countless people, becoming a generation of "Zhihu Divine Posts".

However, at that time, what Changchai received was not praise, but ridicule. At that time, Bitcoin was at its bottom, and no one believed that Bitcoin could make money.

Chang Chai was unconvinced and began to publish Bitcoin articles continuously on his blog and debate with the hackers.

One ​​day, he suddenly received a message named QQAgent: "Blogger, I think your website is very valuable, why not apply for an independent Domain name and space? I’ll pay for it.”

This QQAgent is Wu Jihan.

However, Chang Chai is unwilling to follow Wu Jihan as a mining machine because he has a deeper understanding of Bitcoin than others.

Changchai believes: "If you only understand Bitcoin from the perspective of investment arbitrage, you are just a passer-by in its life who is rich and easy. ;But if you understand it from a philosophical and technical level and sink into it, you will be much richer than the former, both financially and spiritually. ”

Chang Chai was unwilling to get lost in the sudden rise and fall of wealth, so in 2011, Chang Chai cooperated with Wu Jihan to found Babbitt. Since then, the Chinese currency circle has its own Bitcoin media.

If Roasted Mao is the man who sold shovels during the gold rush, then Changchai is the one who opened a tavern and sold information.

However, perhaps because of being too idealistic, Chang Chai’s Bitcoin career did not go smoothly. Both Babbitt and later Bytom were popular for a time, but they quickly became popular again. Pass away.

Then why do we spend so much time introducing the story of Chang Chai? Not only because he is the evangelist of Bitcoin, but also because his Babbitt almost connected the entire currency circle in those years.

Let’s put it this way, in the barbaric era of Bitcoin, almost all the first-generation entrepreneurial tycoons knew each other through Babbitt.

One ​​day in 2013, a person named "GGGGG" posted a post. The core content of the post was about offline base.

The location is located in the holy land of grassroots entrepreneurs in Beijing: Garage Coffee.

That time, there were many losers online, but most people became Future big names, such as Shenyu, Zhao Dong, Li Xiaolai, Pumpkin Zhang, etc., talked about the future of Bitcoin.

Since then, currency players across the country have begun to frequently organize offline groups to connect resources and attract people to cooperate, creating one currency myth after another. .

For example, Wu Jihan met Zhan Ketuan, who had a background in integrated circuits, and they jointly founded Bitmain.

Pumpkin Zhang met Li Jiaxuan and established Beijing Jianan Yunzhi Innovation Information Technology Co., Ltd., which later became a mining machine giant.

Li Xiaolai met Zhu Fangyi and started to build his own mine.

Li Lin met Du Jun and started planning to build a platform.

Of course, there is also Roast Cat, and a considerable number of mining machines are also sold on the forum.

These people often gather in a small courtyardIn the house, we talked all night long, and then left with great pride.

The sky was as dark as ink, the lights were dim, and the road ahead could not be seen clearly, but everyone was still full of pride.

, SmarT, 42BTC, etc., marking the advent of the golden age of Bitcoin.

With more mining, problems also arise.

In the communication, the biggest pain point of these first-generation entrepreneurs in the currency circle is that they have mining machines and Bitcoin, but they lack transactions that can be controlled by people. platform.

At that time, the world's Bitcoin transactions were mainly monopolized by two platforms, namely Japan's Mt. Gox and Slovenia's BitStamp.

What about? There is only one trading platform - Bitcoin.

The founder of Bitcoin is Yang Linke. He was originally a sauna equipment seller. By accident, he invested tens of thousands of dollars and built a Bitcoin trading website. .

However, this transaction system is very crude. To recharge, you need to use online banking and transfer money to two people's accounts. Their holders are Yang Linke's wife and mother-in-law respectively----

This is not science fiction at all.

What’s more important is that both platforms and foreign platforms have problems such as low security and slow speed, and often charge three thousandths of the fee. two-way transaction fees.

If people in the circle complain a lot, people will naturally focus on this business.

So, in 2013, two new Bitcoin trading platforms were born, Xu Mingxing’s OKCoin and Li Lin’s “Huobi.com”.

In order to seize the market, both OKCoin and "Huobi.com" have adopted a fee-free model. This model is very similar to the booming Internet industry. First, Use the free model to trap users, and then charge after you have captured the market.

Relying on this move, Bitcoin exchanges instantly crushed international exchanges and soon accounted for 80% of the world's Bitcoin transactions.

They were lucky enough to catch up with Bitcoin's bull market.

In 2012, the price of one Bitcoin was still US$13. By the end of 2013, the price had exceeded US$1,000!

Is there any business in the world that can achieve such huge profits? Soon, countless people flocked into the currency circle, and even aunts who knew nothing about cryptocurrency joined in. The exchange was as busy as a vegetable market, and the servers were down for a while. It took several hours to sell a single Bitcoin.

Facts have proved that selling shovels does not make money, and selling information does not make money either. The most profitable thing is to engage in the trading market.

In this way, Xu Mingxing and Li Lin earned money that others could not earn in ten lifetimes in just one year. In 2020, both of them Listed on the "Hurun Global Young Self-Made Rich List" released by Hurun Research Institute.

That is really the dividend of an era. If you catch up, you will skyrocket. If you miss it, you will miss it.

But the good times did not last long. The popularity of Bitcoin attracted the attention of regulators, who also began to evaluate the risks of Bitcoin.

On December 5, 2013, the central bank jointly issued the "Notice on Preventing Bitcoin Risks" with five ministries and commissions, denying the currency attributes of Bitcoin and believing that Bitcoin It cannot and should not be used as currency in market circulation.

The entire market was in turmoil, the price of Bitcoin plummeted, and the money of countless speculators was wiped out in an instant.

Two months later, Japan's Bitcoin trading platform Mt. Gox issued an announcement announcing that it had been attacked by a hacker. More than 750,000 Bitcoins disappeared and the company went bankrupt.

This caused severe panic around the world. Who knows whether it was a real hacker attack or a "fake hacker who really escaped"?

Not long after, the American Butterfly Laboratory was also arrested for "suspected of commercial fraud."Federal courts are closed.

Since then, Bitcoin has entered a long bear market.

Zhao Dong lost 150 million when his position was liquidated in leverage trading.

Yang Linke sold most of his Bitcoins.

The roasted cat is missing.

Li Xiaolai also sold his Bitcoins and wanted to open a billiards hall.

In the cold winter, those players in the currency circle who denounce Fang Qiu and shout "Bitcoin Faith" often forget that no matter how firm their faith is, they are still enemies. But reality.

However, in this long bear market, those who can persevere will receive generous rewards in the future.

For example, Wu Jihan continued to improve his mining machines, maintaining 42.5% of the world's computing power during the Bitcoin winter, and later became Bitmain's "mining power". The illustrious reputation of "tyrant".

For example, Li Lin’s Huobi.com, Li Lin believes that it does deny the currency attributes of Bitcoin, but it does not limit the commodity attributes of Bitcoin. Bitcoin There is still investment value, and Huobi has secured two angel round investments to continue operations.

There is also Xu Mingxing’s OKCoin, which launched trading leverage. Simply put, it uses Bitcoin as a financial product to achieve it through short and long positions. "Coin speculation", while OKCoin charges handling fees through RMB withdrawals.

Countless dreamers with dreams of getting rich have traveled across the country, setting up mines one after another in the Saibei grasslands and deep mountains of Guizhou, using cheap wind power. and hydropower began the "coin-making business".

More than two years later, they finally received the reward of fate.

Blockchain technology, the underlying technology of Bitcoin, began to receive a lot of attention after 2016. The Russian genius Vitalik Buterin added smart contracts, greatly expanding the With the application scenarios of blockchain, blockchain has become the new favorite in the industry, and the currency circle is booming again.

Those who persisted have completely turned around in this bull market.

However, what is embarrassing is that new technologies are always the first to emerge.

What has the blockchain brought? It is not the spring of "encryptionists", but "altcoins".

The reason is very simple. There are a large number of people in the market who do not understand "encryptionism", let alone blockchain, but they understand human nature.

As long as human nature has a greedy side, they can take advantage of human nature to make money.

Let’s think back, in those years, were there overwhelming advertisements for “blockchain financial management projects”? Various celebrities live broadcasted to recommend blockchain? There were even friends and relatives who kept pulling you in, saying that blockchain was a new hot spot. , want to get in the car quickly?

Actually, they just want to cut leeks

Those bookmakers that issue random "altcoins" often register a shell company first, and then find an outsourcing team to design a virtual currency, such as a dog coin, cat coin, pig coin, eel coin, shit coin, etc. Then, through looking for trolls, inviting big bosses to the platform, live broadcasting, etc., the project will be hyped up, and then investors will be attracted to ICO, recharge transactions, and even crowdfunding to buy virtual mining machines, etc.

< p style="text-align: left;">With the bankers constantly increasing the value of the currency, which can rise by 10% in a day, who can withstand the temptation? Even if some people know that there are huge risks, they always bet that they will not be the last one to spread the money. As long as someone buys , you can always make money.

As a result, you often become the leeks harvested by the dealer.

When the banker has almost harvested, he will directly announce the collapse of the virtual currency, leaving a lot of chicken feathers.

Then the banker will change the name and do it again.

What's more, altcoins have also become a money laundering channel for telecommunications fraud. As long as the deceived person sends the money, it will be turned into altcoins in minutes, and then it will be used on the earth. A corner disappears

In this way, the entire market was torturedA smoky atmosphere. More importantly, this method is completely beyond supervision, cannot be regulated at all, and is extremely susceptible to human manipulation. You think you can achieve financial freedom, but in fact, what you achieve is other people’s financial freedom, and you are just A green leek.

In that era of barbaric growth of altcoins, some people became rich overnight, and more people were ruined. To put it bluntly, every time in the currency circle Profit, every penny earned is stained with blood.

It seems that we can no longer sit idly by and take action on Bitcoin.

Why?

Because unlike the United States and the United Kingdom, which are founded by financial capital, they are founded by manufacturing. In addition to stimulating speculation, a market like virtual currency has a negative impact on the real economy, taxation, There is almost no promotion effect in promoting consumption.

On the contrary, this kind of smoky "altcoin" is essentially a kind of capital plunder where bankers cut leeks. It is not only detrimental to common prosperity, but also easy to rob people. The amplification of greed will easily cause many social problems once it collapses, and in the end the whole people will have to foot the bill.

At the same time, China is still a huge energy consumer and is under huge pressure to reduce carbon emissions. What about the mines? It is the main force of carbon emissions. Some "mines" consume millions of kilowatt-hours of electricity a day. The annual electricity consumption of a "mine" somewhere in the southwest is equivalent to the total electricity consumption of three cities in a year...

Such a large amount of electricity consumption does not support any real industry, nor does it produce any actual value, nor does it drive employment and tax revenue. It just creates wealth myths one after another, but attracts more people. Put out the fire.

As a result, on September 4, 2017, seven ministries and commissions jointly issued an announcement announcing a comprehensive ban on ICOs, believing that they contained risks of illegal fund-raising and financial fraud. At the same time, all projects that have completed ICO are required to return investor funds and clear all ICO-related activities within the specified time.

This is the 94 incident that shook the currency circle.

As soon as the announcement came out, many altcoins immediately returned to zero, and some altcoin exchanges even chose to close directly.

Even worse is yet to come. On September 14, 2017, a formal notice was issued to ban cryptocurrency exchanges, requiring all domestic cryptocurrency exchanges to be fully liquidated before September 30. market.

As a result, not only tc, eth, etc, bch and other currencies collapsed, but Bitcoin also collapsed by at least 20%. < /p>

So, what to do with the currency circle?

Escape. left;">Yang Linke sold "Bitcoin" to the Hong Kong Blockchain Investment Fund.

Li Lin sold all shares of Huobi Global to Baiyu Capital.

What about Xu Mingxing? He is considered the most successful one in transformation. OKCoin gradually transformed into a company that applies and develops blockchain technology. Xu Mingxing also became the director of the Blockchain Committee of the Beijing Youth Internet Association.

But Xu Mingxing did not expect that in the future, the world of Bitcoin exchanges would be eaten up by his former subordinates.

This subordinate is Zhao Changpeng, the richest Chinese man who was just released from prison in the United States at the end of September this year.

Zhao Changpeng is from Jiangsu, 1977 Born in 1989, his mother and he waited in line at the Canadian Embassy for 36 hours before finally getting a visa and immigrating to Canada.

Zhao Changpeng’s most intuitive impression of Canada is: I drank fresh milk for the first time!

After graduating from university, Zhao Changpeng first worked at Bloomberg, and later He also participated in the construction of the cryptocurrency market website Blockchain.info.

By chance, Zhao Changpeng met He Yi.

He Yi, later the first sister in the currency circle, was originally the host of Travel TV. In 2014, he joined Xu Mingxing’s OKCoin as vice president and was fully responsible for OKCoin’s brand building.

He Yi originally wanted Zhao Changpeng to advertise OKCoin cheaply on Blockchain.info, but Zhao Changpeng rejected He Yi mercilessly.

Man, you successfully attracted He Yi’s attention.

He Yi felt that Zhao Changpeng did not influence his decision-making because of favors and was "very professional", so he introduced him to Xu Mingxing and invited him to join OKCoin.

This year, Zhao Changpeng is 37 years old.

Zhao Changpeng, who just joined OKCoin, has done a very good job. He has put forward a lot of his own ideas on the infrastructure, custody and security of on-chain transactions. Moreover, because of Zhao Changpeng’s overseas life experience, he has a natural advantage in exploring overseas markets, so Soon he became the vice president of OKCoin.

So far, Xu Mingxing, He Yi, and Zhao Changpeng have become the most influential figures in the currency circle in 2014, known as Iron. triangle.

However, the iron triangle is not ironclad, and Xu Mingxing and Zhao Changpeng soon fell out.

Some people say, The collapse was due to the huge differences in technology and business lines between Xu Mingxing and Zhao Changpeng.

Some people also said that the collapse was due to Xu Mingxing's discovery of Zhao Changpeng and He Yi. Extramarital affairs, poaching his corner together

Xu Mingxing once posted this on Weibo:

"The two of them started a business together with me alone. How can this continue?" At that time, the company also had clear regulations that if there was an internal relationship, one party must resign. As a senior executive, she took the lead in breaking the company regulations. If she talks about these things now, it cannot show her professional ethics or partnership spirit, right? In any case, without me, her current marriage would not be possible, and she has to thank me for this. ”

These two couples obviously allude to Zhao Changpeng and He Yi, and Zhao Changpeng was still married at the time.

When things got to this level, it was obvious that we could no longer work together. Zhao Changpeng and He Yi resigned one after another.

Then, in 2017, Changpeng Zhao and He Yi came together again and established Binance.

At that time, Changpeng Zhao could not have imagined that his Binance would become the world's largest trading platform in the future.

Perhaps, he should thank the 94 incident.

The 94 incident was a disaster for Bitcoin, Huobi and OKCoin, but for Binance, it was an opportunity to overtake in a corner.

Why? Because Binance is registered overseas and its servers are also overseas, Changpeng Zhao himself is a foreigner and is uniquely positioned to take the international route. Therefore, while other virtual currency exchange owners were busy drinking tea, Binance moved its servers to Hong Kong, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. , rose to fame.

At that time, 80% of the world’s Bitcoins were controlled by people, and the 94 world scared all Bitcoin holders and they were eager to transfer their coins. , He pair who has experience with OKCoin The market is flooded with LSPs, and they have established a "Binance 101 Girl Group". They are all fair-skinned, beautiful and have long legs. They have successfully attracted a large number of people by conducting some marketing activities such as "recharge and give girls private gifts". Male customers may seem simple and rude, but they actually bring a massive amount of transactions to Binance.

In this way, after the 94 incident, the traffic of the three major exchanges of Bitcoin, Huobi, and OKCoin all went to Binance, using the nationally controlled Bitcoin has suddenly turned this trading platform, which was just born a few months ago, into the world's virtual currency trading giant.

What is a hero created by times? This is how times make heroes!

By 2021, Binance has become the world's largest virtual currency trading platform. Bitcoin, which was originally "decentralized", has become more popular because of the existence of Binance. , and "centralized".

Binance’s daily transaction volume can reach 76 billion U.S. dollars, and Binance can also get a large commission from it, just like a casino, whether you lose or lose If you win, the casino will make money.

And Binance not only provides trading services, but also issues Binance Coin BNB, plus handling fees, currency listing fees, service fees, etc., to earn Get a lot of money.

20In January 2022, on the Bloomberg Billionaires List, Zhao Changpeng had a net worth of US$94.1 billion (approximately 634.8 billion yuan at the time, second only to Musk’s US$102.1 billion), beating out Zhang Yiming, Zhong Suisui, and Zeng Yuqun. Wait for the boss to become the "richest man in China".

This is the first Chinese in history to be worth close to 100 billion U.S. dollars, and also A Chinese with the most gray business.

However, having money does not mean safety. On the contrary, having money may mean more insecurity.

After all, since the birth of crypto-noism, there has always been a Sword of Damocles on the head - regulation, for the purpose of maintaining financial security and protection From an investor's perspective, regulatory authorities in various countries have always been unhappy with Zhao Changpeng. American economists once listed the "seven sins" of virtual currency, which are concealment, corruption, deception, crime, fraud, price increase, and CZ.

This CZ is Zhao Changpeng, Changpeng Zhao.

After leaving, Changpeng Zhao’s Binance wandered around the world and was warned by financial regulatory agencies in the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, South Africa, Singapore and other countries. Changpeng Zhao repeatedly He was afraid to return home and hid in the United Arab Emirates for a long time, but in the end he still could not escape the long-arm jurisdiction of the United States.

In June 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it had filed 13 charges against Changpeng Zhao and Binance.

At this time, no one was clamoring about "business environment" anymore. After some pulling, Zhao Changpeng finally pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering, unlicensed remittances, and sanctions violations. , was forced to pay a fine of US$4.316 billion to settle.

However, even if Zhao Changpeng is so obedient, the United States still refuses to let him go.

After he went to the United States and signed a confession, his passport was immediately confiscated, and he was fined another US$3 billion one after another.

You see, this is the power of the super "pig-killing plate".

In the end, with the efforts of the lawyer, as well as his ex-wife, current wife, life partner, partner, sister and mother, etc. 1After 61 relatives and friends wrote a collective letter to plead for mercy, the judge sentenced Zhao Changpeng to serve 4 months in prison.

On September 29, 2024, Zhao Changpeng was released from prison.

However, the matter is not over yet.

In October 2024, U.S. prosecutors emphasized that Binance failed to report more than 10 transactions with Hamas, "Al Qaeda", IS extremist organizations, etc. Thousands of suspicious transactions. The Binance platform also supports the sale of child sexual abuse material and is the recipient of large amounts of ransomware proceeds.

In November 2024, Changpeng Zhao was sued again, demanding the recovery of nearly $1.8 billion transferred out "based on fraud."

Zhao Changpeng’s legend continues, and Zhao Changpeng’s lawsuit continues. Obviously, as long as Changpeng Zhao’s wallet is still there, blood drawing in the United States will not end.

The "anarchist cryptocurrency" that seemed to challenge , was defeated in one blow.

三

Looking back on the 10 years of currency history, how do you evaluate Bitcoin?

Technically speaking, Bitcoin does not matter whether it is good or bad, good or evil, beautiful or ugly. It is just a program, an algorithm, and a string of mysterious codes hidden on the Internet. .

From a humanistic point of view, Bitcoin is a combination of individualism, liberalism and technological determinism. It is an idea of ​​​​technical geniuses and madmen to achieve statelessness. , the hope of a utopian society.

However, no matter how great the ideal is, it must withstand the gravity of reality.

For liberals, Bitcoin is a great ideal for human progress.

For people who are not interested in technology and just want to make money, Bitcoin is just a tool for making wealth.

Due to the lack of supervision, Bitcoin will always be full of ups and downs, and there will always be myths about making wealth. Due to survivor bias, everyone will only focus on those who make money..

When someone shows off in the circle of friends: "I accidentally made another 100 million."

When someone takes a picture of the steering wheel with half of the Maserati logo exposed, and then adds the words "God pays off".

When more people showed off a group of young models on the yacht.

Who can restrain his desires?

We are human beings and have desires, and Bitcoin can evoke the greediest greed in people’s hearts. If you can’t handle it, neither can I. live.

Luo Jinhai, founder of Bixu.com, once had a very vivid metaphor:

Bitcoin is the Supreme Lord of the Rings that governs all the rings. It confuses the mind, and those who wear the Lord of the Rings eventually become slaves of the devil Sauron.

In reality, unless those who wear Bitcoin rings have a very strong heart, most people will become slaves of this ring. .

Bitcoin, as a technology created by "encryptionists", is neutral in itself, but when technology and reality are combined, it encounters difficulties that are difficult to crack. Human nature is bound to cause problems.

Satoshi Nakamoto can collide with the unique hash value among 4.4 trillion, but cannot calculate the madness of human nature.

When greed in human nature distorts an originally neutral thing, the thing itself is no longer important. There were tulips back then, and now there are Bitcoins. , Tulips and Bitcoin are not wrong, only human nature is wrong.

Therefore, when human nature cannot bear the negative feedback of technology, regulatory intervention is very necessary.

After all, Bitcoin cannot satisfy hunger, cannot be circulated, and there is no monetary anchor behind it. In addition to consuming a lot of energy to create wealth creation myths, it brings More, there are only disasters.

Why are the Chinese so keen on the currency circle?

Why are 70% of the world’s Bitcoins mined by Chinese?

Why do the Chinese control 50% of the world's Bitcoin market and most of the trading platforms?

Look at the stories in the article of those big guys in the token industry who flew over the top of the mountain in an instant, but fell down again in an instant. , maybe there will be an answer.

Don’t use Bitcoin to test human nature. Human nature will never stand the test.