上周，IOST联合创始人兼CEO钟家鸣给团队成员发了一封邮件，感谢成员在市场环境不好的情况下依然保持信仰，潜心开发。同时也鼓励大家坚守初心，携手创造未来。
区块链行业不止眼前的币价涨跌，这是一项拥有改变世界潜力的技术。如今在行业发展的初期，虽然存在着一些问题，绝大部分的先行者也要经历嘲笑，冷落，以及至暗的时刻，但只有创新的先行者才能收获最大的红利。
在此，我们将这封邮件分享给行业内的大家。行情虽有起伏，但我们从未动摇，也希望与你们一起Making Friends with Time。
Team，
我近期一直在思考，到底什么才是最理想的价值储存形式：是黄金，比特币，房地产，又或是权利？后来发现其实所谓储值工具，最根本的还是共识，即便是权利也不例外。
几千年前，人类曾经用贝壳作为价值的储存工具和实物交换的媒介。贝壳这种今天看起来完全不适合储存价值的产物，在当时由于地域和科技水平的限制，其稀有性得到了基本保障，因而得到了社会共识，并且获得了价值。
后来随着人类的发展，人们迫切的需要一种不易损坏且相对稀有的物品作为替代品，黄金便逐渐成为了全球范围内最为普遍使用的储值工具。黄金是非常适合充当储值工具的，它的化学性质较为稳定，难以和其他物质发生化合反应造成损坏或被腐蚀，产量稀少，铸造困难，这一切都使得黄金成本较高且相对保值。最终，黄金在世界各地都形成了一定的共识，价值得到了大家的肯定。
再后来，伴随着计算机，密码学，互联网的诞生以及科技的发展，2008年人类历史上出现了第一个既便携，又稀有，且不可剥夺的资产，它便是比特币。人类作为一个正在探索火星，希望进一步探索宇宙的种族，我们有理由相信资产和价值也将在不久的未来从线下全面数字化，真正的让人类摆脱地球上物质的束缚，走向全面数字化的时代，也由此规避由中心化系统可能带来的风险。正如 Peter Thiel 所言：“比特币是为世界的崩塌买的保险/比特币对冲得便是世界的崩塌“。
然而一切不止于此, 2015年7月30日，以太坊网络正式上线，Vitalik希望告诉这个世界区块链技术，远不止于比特币。区块链有潜力用信息传递价值，改变生产关系，改变中心化治理模式，重塑我们的世界。直到今天，类似于数字签名算法、授权令牌、数字版权管理、众筹、预测市场、汇款、博彩、社交网络平台、证券交易、存储系统、分布式计算及身份系统等，已经在区块链上逐步出现。尽管由于基础设施的不完备，方向不完全明确等原因导致并未出现大规模普及的应用，但是这也正是新型行业的机会所在。
今天的市场看似竞争激烈，仅过去12个月就有成百上千的项目完成募资，但实际上有力的竞争对手非常有限。Coinmarketcap上前100名的架构中，主网上线并且可用的除了ETH, EOS寥寥无几，很多项目的节点还都跑在自己的服务器上或者都是劣质版的EOS。未上线的项目中，大量项目技术上并不可行，开发者以及生态的建设也仅仅停留在用募资来的钱进行二次投资，最终结果看起来并不乐观。
今天的crypto market价格浮动巨大，很多人在2017年的牛市中赚的盆满钵满，又在2018年的熊市中亏损严重。价格之所以波动这么大，是因为市场上的以前都建立在投机之上 – 而我们的目标就是改变这种局面。
2018年以来，我们在开发上取得了非常激动人心的进展，第一版的测试网络已经顺利上线，下一个稳定版本的测试网络也会在10月底之前诞生，并且在2019年年初上线IOST的主网，这比我们最初的路线图提前了几乎6个月。在我们位于纽约，旧金山，北京，首尔，东京，新加坡和德国的超过80人的团队的共同努力下，我们会做出一个比EOS的扩容性，安全性，设计合理性均有提高，且更加去中心化，对开发者更加友好的架构，真正的为开发者提供一个可以开发大型应用和协议的区块链平台。
在生态建设上，我们建立了Theseus团队，希望其能够在IOST上打造各种类型的Dapp以及工具类产品，为今后更多的社区开发者指明方向。我们还成立了Bluehill，并且完成了独立募资，Bluehill将在今后扮演Consensys为Ethereum所扮演得角色，专门致力于发展IOST的开发者社区以及投资IOST的合作伙伴。在大家的努力下，我们已经在IOST Hub和各种平台上吸引了上百万的爱好者参与到IOST的讨论和未来生态建设中。
最后，2个月之前我们在纽约启动了一个基于IOST底层建设的项目 --- Berm Protocol。Berm Protocol 是一个由密码经济学驱动的PGC 数据分布与治理协议，可以使PGC数据与内容更加可用，可得，可信。Berm在IOST上建立的同时，将会保留独立的团队(均来自于Toutiao, Google, Bridgewater, 以及各种Ivy Undergraduates/Masters/PhDs等)。我们的目标是让其成为区块链上最先被大规模使用的协议之一，IOST也将借此机会成为最先被大规模使用的Blockchain Infrastructure。如果我们是微软，并在开发Windows系统，那么我们希望我们的产品可以拥有像Office和Internet Explorer这样的被大规模普及的应用或Protocol。
…...
这一切的成就都离不开团队里每一个人的努力。
过去的8个月里，我们走过了很多弯路，也做对了很多事情。这一路来收获的经验和教训是今后无比宝贵的财富。
只有创新的先行者才能收获最大的红利，但是绝大部分的先行者也要经历嘲笑，冷落，以及至暗的时刻，如果做什么事，下个月或者明年就能成功，那么很多人都可以轻易成功。
Coinbase在比特币价格下跌的过程中，一直在坚持和扩张。市场暴跌后熊市长达2年的过程中，他们也没有延缓自己的脚步。他们对自己的选择深信不疑，觉得世界的改变只是时间问题。他们希望成为这场潮流的一份子。虽然在市场不景气的时候，肯定其中不少人财产有缩水，但这没有影响他们的判断，走到今天，他们获得了巨大的成功。
我见过很多成功的投资者和创业者，他们和时间成为朋友，让市场为他们服务，选择方向并且为之努力。我也见过很多糟糕的交易员和创业者，他们压力巨大，每天在和市场赌博，不停的更换标的，改变方向，因为市场和他人的情绪而左右的自己的选择。
今年的熊市可能让很多人损失惨重，我自己也不例外。不过在这样的市场环境下，Coinbase每天仍有上万新用户注册，交易所的流动性对比2013-15年显著上升，而很多想A16Z这样的基金成功募集到数亿的资金用于支持区块链项目……我们对未来的判断应该保持理智，不盲目乐观，也不盲目悲观，市场情绪瞬息万变，与时间做朋友，创造价值，相信周期。
人生是一场充满有限和无限博弈的漫长旅途。我们总说选择比努力重要的同时，也要明白愿望和选择需要被坚持才能达成。希望大家能够相信我们一同的选择，相信科技的未来，相信周期的力量，可以不受市场情绪左右清醒地作出独立的判断，一起创造出真正的价值。
“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. Dream wildly. Live differently. Love recklessly. Lead courageously.” 很高兴你们在早期就加入这个大家庭，并且在市场冷淡的时候还在一起努力战斗。
Let’s build a better future together.
Best，
Jimmy Zhong
Team,
Recently, I’ve been thinking about an ultimate way of safely storing value - gold, Bitcoin, real estate, and power all came to mind. That’s when I started to realize that, in essence, the “store of value” was simply about consensus, power, even, is no exception.
Thousands of years ago, human beings relied on seashells as a store of value and medium of exchange. Due to geographic and technological limitations back in the day, seashells, an unthinkable form of currency today, was valuable because of its rarity, as determined by social consensus.
As mankind developed, we strived for a replacement that is sturdy yet still relatively rare, which is why gold gradually became the most widespread store of value across the globe. Gold is indeed fit for this purpose: it is chemically stable; very unreactive and unlikely to form compounds (making it hard to damage or corrode); rare in supply; difficult to cast – all of this have made gold costly and a relatively secure store of value. Ultimately, a consensus formed around gold, and its value is now recognized all around the globe.
Then, in 2008, with the development of cryptography, the Internet, and technology, the first portable, rare, and inalienable asset in the history of mankind was born – Bitcoin. As a species that is exploring Mars and hoping to one day go beyond Earth, human beings have reason to believe that assets and wealth will shift digitally in the future, when we will then be free of material limitations and step into an era of comprehensive digitization, evading even, the risks of a centralized system. As Peter Thiel once said, “Bitcoin is a hedge against the whole world falling apart.”
It didn’t just stop there. The Ethereum network went live on July 30, 2015 – Vitalik’s way of showing the world how Blockchain as a technology, can me more than just Bitcoin. There is great potential for blockchain technology to deliver value with information, transform relations of production and the centralized governance model, and reshape the world we are currently living in.
Today, applications on blockchain are emerging, including digital signature algorithms, securitized tokens, digital rights management, crowdfunding, prediction markets, remittance, online gambling, social media platforms, financial exchanges, storage systems, distributed computation and identity systems. Although we have yet to see mass-adopted applications due to the lack of basic infrastructure, vague development goals, and various other reasons, this field is precisely where opportunities for a new industry lie.
Competition in this market may seem fierce, with hundreds and thousands of projects completing funding in the past 12 months, but in reality, there are few truly competitive competitors. Aside from ETH and EOS, there are only a lonely few infrastructures on Coinmarketcap’s TOP 200 list that are functioning (or potentially functioning). A lot of projects are running nodes on private servers or are merely cheap copycats of EOS. As for projects that have yet to go live, many have unrealistic technologies that cannot be achieved in years, And as for the developer community and ecosystem, many are simply reinvesting the funds they raised from their ICOs – their future prospects are looking bleak.
There is high price volatility in today’s Crypto Market: a lot of people struck oil in the 2017 bull market, but lost heavily in the 2018 bear market. Prices are so volatile because in the Crypto Market, almost everything is based on speculation – and this is precisely what we are aiming to change.
Since the beginning of 2018, we have made exciting accomplishments in developing: our first beta network successfully went live, and our second stable beta will be launching before the end of October. We will be launching the IOST Main-Net in early 2019 – 6 months ahead of schedule. With over 80 people in New York, San Francisco, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, Germany and Singapore, we are creating an infrastructure that is better designed and better performing than EOS in scalability and security; it will be more decentralized and developer-friendly, and it will truly provide developers with a blockchain platform to develop mass-adopted applications and contracts.
We formed the Theseus team for the IOST ecosystem, launching various types of Dapp and tools on IOST and point more developers in our community in the right direction. We also launched Bluehill and raised independently – in the future, Bluehill to us will be Consensys for Ethereum: it will be devoted to the community of IOST developers and partners of IOST. Under all our efforts, we have successfully gathered millions of enthusiasts for the IOST community, to discuss the future construction of the IOST ecosystem.
Last but not least, just 2 months ago, we launched a project in New York that will be based on the IOST infrastructure – Berm Protocol. Berm Protocol is a PGC distribution/data governance protocol that makes PGC data and content more usable, available, and trustworthy, powered by crypto-economics. Berm will be built on IOST while maintaining a separate team of PhDs, Ex-Googlers, etc. We are aiming to make it one of the first mass-adopted protocols on blockchain, thus making IOST one of the first mass-adopted infrastructures. If we were Microsoft, building Windows: we would want to ship products with mass-adopted applications or protocols like Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer.
……
We have achieved all of this with the help of every single one of you.
In the past 8 months, we took many detours, but also made a lot of good decisions. The experience and lessons we took away will be invaluable wealth for the future.
Innovative pioneers catch the largest worms, but most pioneers must experience mockery, cold-shouldering, or even dark moments. If an adventure can be accomplished in a month or a year, then many people would easily succeed.
During Bitcoin’s 2013 price dip, Coinbase still held out and expanded. They didn’t slow down after the market crash and the following 2-year bear market. They remained adamant about their choice, believing it was simply a matter of time before revolutionary change. They wanted to ride the tide, and while many felt their belts tighten during the market downturn, that didn’t impact Coinbase decisions. Fast forward to today, Coinbase has reaped enormous success.
I’ve met many successful investors and entrepreneurs: time is their friend, the market works to service their needs. They set their minds on a direction and work to that end. I’ve also met many bad traders and entrepreneurs: they are crushed by stress, bet against the market, constantly shift gears, and their choices are easily swayed by the market and emotions of others.
This year’s bearish market has brought about devastating loss for many, myself included. Yet in this kind of market, multiple crypto exchanges are still seeing thousands of newly registered users per day and an apparent increase in liquidity exchange compared to 2013-2015; lots of funds like A16Z have raised hundreds of millions of dollars to fund blockchain projects… Our predictions of the future should remain rational: not blindly optimistic or pessimistic. Market sentiment changes like the moon; we must make friends with time, create value, and have faith in market cycles.
Life is a long journey of limited and unlimited game. We often say that choice is more important than effort; we also need to understand that desire and choices only pull through with persistence. I hope we can have faith in our common choice, the future of technology, the power of market cycles; remain unwavering in the face of swaying market sentiment; make independent and clear-headed judgments; and, together, build something people truly want.
“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. Dream wildly. Live differently. Love recklessly. Lead courageously.” I am grateful that you have all become part of the family in our early days, and are still fighting with us in this sagging market.
Let’s build a better future together.
Thanks,
Jimmy Zhong
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