Ever since iCCO-Dservice appeared at the Seoul World Block Chain Summit and launched the world’s first block chain electronic cigarette iCCO, electronic cigarettes and digital currencies have been officially interwoven from two parallel lines.
Although there have been media reports that this year’s e-cigarette is last year’s block chain, the development of the e-cigarette industry has many similarities with the block chain. But in fact, the application of block chain technology in electronic cigarette products, to the issuance of digital currency related to electronic cigarettes, is also a phenomenon that began this year.
However, the problem is that there are still the same pain points between e-cigarettes and block chains. Besides the two mountains of industry supervision and public perception deviation, on the one hand, how to effectively make e-cigarettes create value in the application of block chains is also one of the difficulties that related enterprises must solve.
Are “block chains” + “electronic cigarettes” good or bad? Can technology application be effectively implemented? Vape.hk will take a good look at this issue today.
What is a blockchain?
To understand this question, we need to have a basic understanding of block chains.
Block chain is actually a new application mode of computer technology such as distributed data storage, point-to-point transmission, consensus mechanism, encryption algorithm and so on.
Block chain is an important concept of Bitcoin. It is essentially a de-centralized database. At the same time, as the underlying technology of Bitcoin, it is a series of data blocks associated with cryptographic methods. Each data block contains a batch of information about network transactions of Bitcoin to verify it. Validity of information (anti-counterfeiting) and generation of the next block.
Block chain was born from Nakamoto’s Bitcoin. Since 2009, a variety of digital currencies like Bitcoin have emerged, which are based on public block chain.
The current situation of digital currency is flourishing, including bitcoin, litecoin, dogecoin, OKcoinetc. Besides the application of currency, there are also various derivative applications, such as NXT, SIA, bit shares, MaidSafe, Ripple, Ethereum and so on.
In a narrow sense, block chain is a kind of chain data structure, which combines data blocks in a sequential manner in accordance with the time order, and ensures its untouchable and unforgettable distributed accounts in a cryptographic manner.
Generally speaking, block chain technology uses block chain data structure to verify and store data, and uses distributed node consensus algorithm to generate and update data. At the same time, cryptography is used to ensure the security of data transmission and access, and an intelligent contract composed of automated script code is used to program and manipulate data, which is a new distributed infrastructure and computing mode.
Simply put, the core value of the block chain is:
1. Any node can create a transaction. After a period of confirmation, it can confirm whether the transaction is valid. Block chains can effectively prevent the occurrence of bilateral problems.
2. The cost of attempting to rewrite or modify transaction records is very high.
3. Block chains implement two kinds of records, transactions and blocks. Transactions are the actual data stored on the block chain, while blocks are records that confirm when and in what order certain transactions become part of the block chain database..
The operating mode of block chain electronic cigarette
If we want to spread out the whole block chain, maybe ten articles are not enough to write, and it is difficult to see the actual working mode of block chain and electronic cigarette. Therefore, Vape.hk will choose several key block chain rules to illustrate.
Storage is all:
In the block chain world, the assets owned by individuals are stored in blocks on distributed servers. In theory, the ownership of these assets belongs to individuals.
Therefore, changes in storage media and methods allow the ownership of assets to be delivered to individuals.
Data is assets:
As a value network, the data on the block chain will be defined as assets, that is, demand is value, because of the existence of demand.
Behavior is mining:
Everyone’s actions will be shredded into one mining operation after another, contributing energy to the community.
Human behavior itself is a kind of release of energy, like breathing, which is essentially the energy conversion of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Similar social behavior may become a measurable energy conversion process because of the combination of block chains and hardware, continuously providing energy for community ecology.
The token is the reward:
In the world of block chains, whenever your assets or actions are created or circulated, they will be rewarded in the form of tokens in your digital wallet. The fragmentation and seamlessness of the reward mechanism give the society enough imagination space, which is also the fundamental reason for the upsurge of block chains.
So how can electronic cigarette products be applied to block chain technology? Taking iCCO-Dservice’s iCCO electronic cigarette as an example may be easier to understand.
In addition to the basic function of vaping, iCCO’s built-in chip will record the number of users’smoking outlets, battery power, residual amount of pods and regulate the equipment to a certain extent.
Based on iCCO-Dservice ecosystem, users can effectively record user behavior by registering their accounts when smoking an electronic cigarette. They can obtain data under the premise of user authorization. At the same time, users who provide data are rewarded by a specific reward system to improve their enthusiasm.
In other words, the user smokes iCCO e-cigarettes = mining, and the data generated will be rewarded to the user in the form of tokens.
On the other hand, because each block in the block chain structure includes block head and transaction information, its information is open, transparent and can not be tampered with, so this traceability characteristics, just effectively combat the proliferation of inferior fake goods.
That is to say, the block chain realizes the management and monitoring of the transaction process, effectively records the default behavior of both sides, realizes the supervision and fast punishment of the transaction and default behavior of both sides of users, achieves the trust interaction between enterprises and users quickly, and reduces the cost of self-certification of trust. And through this storage feature, consumers can easily identify fraud and verify the source of the seller.
Practical difficulties of block chain electronic cigarette
After understanding the operation mode of block chain and block chain electronic cigarette, we formally enter the focus of this article, that is, whether block chain + electronic cigarette is good or bad?
From the perspective of “cracking down fraud”, Vape.hk think that the combination of the two is good. Because the block chain itself is a technical scheme for storing, validating, transferring and exchanging network data through its own distributed nodes. For electronic cigarette enterprises, this technology can not only grasp every transaction information, but also rely on the characteristics of data in block chain that can not be tampered with and deleted to reduce product fraud cases and the flow of fake and inferior products.
In January 2016, the Seminar on Digital Money of the People’s Bank of China announced that the research on digital currency had achieved phased results. The meeting affirmed the value of digital currency in reducing the issue of traditional currency, and said that the central bank was exploring the issue of digital currency. Therefore, the effective application of block chains and digital assets can ensure the reliability of hardware and the security of assets.
However, it is worth noting that this is only from the perspective of counterfeiting. If we look at the value of data, there is still a serious problem in block chain e-cigarette itself – token incentives.
As mentioned above, we all know that token incentives are the main driving force for the growth of block chains, and the value of tokens is basically proportional to the value of data. But unlike Bitcoin, e-cigarettes in block chain mainly acquire tokens in a way that does not depend on mining machines. Instead, they use vaping data and common usage habits to allow the system to judge whether or not they should be rewarded.
This raises some questions. Firstly, vaping data and usage data are of little significance, and the value-added space and actual value of tokens are limited; secondly, mining by vaping is suspected of encouraging vaping; thirdly, electronic cigarettes in block chain become money laundering tools.
Vape.hk has read an article in the public number of Science and Technology Cannabis, which shows that the operating entity of a domestic electronic cigarette brand is a Beijing Science and Technology Co., Ltd. and the company’s VC lineup is highly concordant with IOST (block chain token) project.
According to BlockBeats, a US dollar fund investment manager who has been in touch with both the company and the IOST white paper, he once said: “Half a year ago, the head of the company claimed to be an expert in intelligent hardware, and half a year later he became an early believer in Bitcoin.”
More interestingly, the “early believer in Bitcoin” played tricks on the white paper. According to a number of block chain media reports, although a large part of the basic technical explanations of block chain, IOST white paper is available in both Chinese and English versions. But before long, the Chinese and English versions of the white papers disappeared one after another.
After sorting out the various public information of the enterprise, you will find that IOST is still in normal operation, it is difficult to doubt whether a brand of electronic cigarettes is only a “sheepskin” of IOST.
If that’s not clear enough, let’s make another analogy.
One e-cigarette player, Husa (a pseudonym), told the IT Times that perhaps few people knew that e-cigarettes had a brief intersection with block chains in the early days. “In the second half of 2017, many people who do wholesale e-cigarette business have started a block chain business.”
Husa recalls that in 2017 many e-cigarette wholesalers began to switch to block chain projects, and even a friend occupy the screens with their status in the circle of friends every day. They have all hung up registration links for some block chain projects. “Wholesalers have customers in their hands who can invite people to make money, customers registers an account and they get money. If new members buy token, they can also get a first-class rebate.”
Making money by “beating drums and passing flowers” is a dream interwoven by greed and desire. When I woke up, it was fixed on September 4, 2017. On that day, the ICO was called off, and after that, all kinds of block coins gradually weakened, and Husa’s friends finally returned to their old business.
In fact, the real reason for this situation is that these “coins” themselves are a digital game of blank robber. With the advantages of block chains and the trend of Bitcoin, enterprises create a virtual thing, then develop audiences, hold high prices and keep bulk goods, and finally recycle them into legal currency.
Of course, this does not mean that block chain e-cigarettes will be problematic. For the AHAVAP block chain e-cigarettes conference I attended recently, although the brand has plans to use vaping data as a token incentive basis for judging, according to the current business model, the incentive plan of the brand is mainly applied to the sales side, which is right. It is also reasonable for enterprises.
Generally speaking, the block chain is challenging the existing monetary policy. Although the starting point is not bad, how many real-value currencies like Bitcoin can it produce?
The source of Bitcoin’s value is the many loyal fans who are willing to let Bitcoin represent their wealth. With the growing number of loyal groups and the increasing diversity of individuals in the group, an ecosystem of self-recycling and growth has been formed. Even if the group does not expand, Bitcoin will not easily die (to zero), unless the group shrinks and dies.
For example, in this group, there are farmers who produce food, entrepreneurs who produce clothes, businessmen who provide commodities circulation, teachers who provide education, workers who are willing to accept Bitcoin, and police who are willing to maintain security. As long as the group is large enough, Bitcoin naturally becomes the money for value exchange and value storage in this group.
The so-called value exchange is that I am willing to use my intellectual, physical and other labor achievements to exchange your labor results, money is just for more convenient exchange.
But what about e-cigarette products? What exchange value can it have? Who will accept it?
In addition, any holder of virtual currency will face the market risk brought by exchange rate fluctuations. Whether virtual currency is used as a trading medium or as a value storage, large fluctuations will obviously affect the behavior of currency traders.
Therefore, Vape.hk believe that even if the block chain e-cigarette is a good concept, but in the absence of regulation and improvement of the potential problems of digital currency, the development of block chain e-cigarette enterprises really need to think twice before moving forward. Making electronic cigarettes is not a game. It is an addictive industry. Even the cigarettes in Yuxi realm, known as “the world’s first block chain cigarettes”, have disappeared since then. What’s more when the regulation of electronic cigarettes is still unclear?
The spirit of experimentation is good, but I urge you to be kind.
