At the "2024 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival", Xiao Feng, Chairman of Wanxiang Blockchain and Chairman and CEO of HashKey Group, delivered a keynote speech. He emphasized the close connection between blockchain technology and distributed personal identity verification (DePIN), and divided the evolution of this relationship into three main stages:
The first stage was Bitcoin and its proof-of-work (PoW) mining mechanism, which is seen as a basic form of DePIN. The second stage occurred about four to five years ago, when the concept of a trusted data foundation was proposed. The purpose of this stage is to connect IoT devices between different organizations and ensure the authenticity and credibility of the data generated by these devices. The third stage begins with the emergence of large-scale AI models in 2024, which requires distributed storage, computing, and data collection through DePIN and hardware to adapt to the productivity revolution brought about by AI.
Xiao Feng also looked forward to the fourth and fifth stages in the future, and he believes that the value of the future will be even greater, far-reaching and extensive.
In addition, Xiao Feng mentioned the Green Bitcoin Alliance launched last year, which aims to offset the electricity consumption and carbon emissions generated during Bitcoin mining through carbon neutrality measures. Currently, 12% of the blocks have achieved carbon neutrality, and it is planned to achieve carbon neutrality for all blocks in the next 10 years.
He also pointed out that DePIN has a natural advantage in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the Yangtze River Delta region because these regions are the manufacturing centers of global smart devices. Since all Bitcoin mining machines are manufactured in the Greater Bay Area, and the first generation of DePIN equipment is also manufactured and distributed here, it can be foreseen that the manufacturing and distribution of DePIN equipment in the future will also be mainly concentrated in the Greater Bay Area.
