A summary of blockchain investment opportunities based on my recent research

Dearest Steemit Friends,

I believe blockchain is going to be an important driver for the evolution of economics and social development, including international clearing, payment system, and food security, etc. Here I would like to share with you some of my findings regarding what would be the possible opportunities for investments in blockchain:

亲爱的Steemit朋友们，
我相信区块链区块链即将成为推动经济飞跃以及社会发展的重要驱动因素，包括在国际银行机构清算，支付系统以及食物安全等领域。这里我很乐意和各位分享我关于区块链未来可能的投资机会方面的看法：

• Technology focusing on giving solutions to the existing problem using blockchain, such as:
1）Konfid.io: Enabling billing and trading of electricity in an automatic way without manual intervention with the help of smart contracts
2）Ripple: Offering a better solution for international money transfer which simplifies the clearing process among financial institutes by reducing the clearing time and transferring fees.
• Technology focusing on building a blockchain platform that ideally solves the impossible triangle of the blockchain, such as Seele
• Technology focusing on developing the ideal valuation models for ICO projects.

• 专注在解决现有问题的区块链技术，比如：

1. Konfid.io:使用智能合约实现电费账单以及电量交易的全自动过程，将人力的使用降低到最小化
2. Ripple(瑞波)：用区块链技术来实现银行等金融机构之间的国际清算过程，目的是减少清算费用和需要的时间。
   • 可以有效解决区块链“不可能三角问题”的区块链平台或者其他项目技术，比如中国的Seele正在做这方面的研究和努力
   • 专注在研究可以对ICO项目进行合理科学估值的模型的项目

【Why “Technology focusing on giving solutions to the existing problem using blockchain technology”】
We could see a diversity of existing operational process in different business activities, which are not efficient enough and could be optimized with benefits such as cost saving and revenue increase.
Taking the energy sector as an example, billing process and electricity pricing scheme see a huge potential to improve.
The traditional way of billing is more labor costing and takes a bunch of time for both users and electricity traders. In some cities in China, for example, billing process relies heavily on the specialists ’data collection for every single apartment which is a quite manual way.
When it comes to the tariff of non-commercial use electricity, it is normally fixed and lack of flexibility for users to enjoy more options on the tariff based on different level of electricity consumption.

【为什么是“专注在解决现有问题的区块链技术”】
在不同的商业活动中，有非常多肉眼可见的各式各样的操作类的步骤，这些步骤都有很大的提升效率的空间，如果可以优化将可以极大的降低成本和提升收入。
传统的出账单方式是低效的，对于用电的消费者以及电力公司，都需要消耗很多的人力以及时间。比如说在中国的某些城市，出账单前的准备工作很大程度上依赖于专人挨家挨户的上门去记录电表数据，这是非常低效的体力活。
在非商业用户的电费收费标准方面，通常是固定的电价，这就很难给用户享受到根据他们用电量需求提供不同电价的选择方案了。

【Why “Technology focusing on building a blockchain platform that ideally solves the impossible triangle of blockchain”】
It is commonly acknowledged that there is an impossible triangle of blockchain that means it is impossible to perfectly guarantee scalability, decentralization, and security for any blockchain system, which is a major difficulty for blockchain technology development.
The founder of Ethereum ever pointed out that Ethereum was only capable of balancing decentralization and security, and scalability would be something that they need to work on in the future which they are recently working on improving the scalability by optimizing their current POW consensus plugin with the help of Casper.

【为什么是“可以有效解决区块链“不可能三角问题”的区块链平台或者其他项目技术”】
大家都知道在区块链技术中存在着一个叫做不可能三角问题，意思是对于任何区块链网络，几乎不可能同时兼顾可扩展性，去中心化以及安全性，这也是阻碍区块链技术发展的一个难题。
以太坊的创始人V神也曾经指出过以太坊只能首先兼顾去中心化以及安全性，他认为这是最根本的元素，所以如果要保留两个特性的话，首先要保留它们。至于可扩展性，目前以太坊也正在努力优化工作量算法进行扩容，计划借助Casper来实现。

【Why “Technology focusing on developing the ideal valuation models for ICO projects”】
ICO (Initial Coin Offering) has been a major way of raising capital from public investors in the past recent year, but it turns out to be a risky way for investors who do not truly understand the ICO project because most of the ICO end up with launching no project and investors obtain nothing but worthless virtual token.

【为什么是“专注在研究可以对ICO项目进行合理科学估值的模型的项目”】
ICO（首次发币）在过去几年已经逐渐成为区块链项目公开募资的主要渠道，但很多案例表明ICO对于经验比较少的投资者来说是极具风险的，大多数的ICO最终没有成果落地的产品，导致投资者除了拿到一些代币之外什么也没有得到。

ICO pricing could be either overpricing or underpricing. For example, the token price of Dragonchain which was found by Disney, increased from $0.07 to $5, which proved to be underpricing.
Beginners are not recommended to invest in ICO because it is unlike IPO which is under strict scrutiny by regulators and exchange committee. Therefore, any loss from ICO is not under any protection from laws and regulations in many countries, while IPO investors could receive certain compensation from sponsors and underwriters when fraud is found.

在定价方面，ICO的定价时常会出现严重高估或者严重低估的情况。比如，迪斯尼推出的Draganchain的代币价格，从发布时的0.07美元/币，飙升至5美元/币，可以推断在定价的时候存在比较严重的低估。
刚刚接触ICO经验不多的投资人不建议投资ICO，因为ICO和IPO（首次公开发行股票）不一样，IPO有比较严格的审核机制，监管机构以及交易所都是法律意义上的监管者，而ICO目前并没有保障投资人的监管机制。所以，在大多数国家，保护ICO投资者遭受因项目造假带来的损失的保护机制是缺失的，反观IPO投资者，如果因为被投资公司出现严重上市造假行为，投资人有可能可以从保荐人和承销商获得赔偿。

But there are successful ICO which are based on promising projects with great potentials, such as Ethereum and Ripple which turns out to be dedicated to developing a commonly used blockchain platform and blockchain-based application for unsolved problems.
Investors could research on the feasibility of the ICO and form their own judgment on the valuation of the ICO projects by studying their white paper which elaborates the project and the team in details. Experienced investors, including those institute investors, are capable of differentiating promising projects.
Therefore, it is important to have valuation models that could quantify how much value the project could bring for investors who are going to invest in ICO.

话虽如此，但也是有很成功的ICO项目的，他们都是基于非常有潜力的项目，比如以太坊和瑞波，都是建立在优质的项目基础之上的，以太坊致力于建立最广泛使用的区块链平台，而瑞波则致力于打造最理想的跨境清算的解决方案。
投资人通常可以通过ICO项目的白皮书，去研究项目的可行性从而做出估值方面的判断，白皮书通常会很详细的介绍项目和团队。对于有经验的投资人，包括机构投资者，他们更善于识别优质的项目。
因此，ICO的估值模型就显得尤为重要了，一个好的估值模型可以告提供量化的数据诉投资人ICO项目可以带来多少的价值。