Source: 青年志Youthology

Date: July 19, 2024

Original Mandarin: A股为什么不随经济增长而增长

Original Author: 李厚辰 （Houchen Li）

Cover Page: Reuters

TL;DR: In this article, Li explores the puzzling disconnect between China's economic growth and its stagnant stock market.

Despite China's rapid economic expansion and increased corporate profits, the A-share market remains sluggish. Reasons he discussed include:

1. Weighted Stocks' Impact: The concentration of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in weighted stocks, which often face profitability challenges, drags down the overall index. Unlike tech-heavy indices in the U.S., China's market is dominated by banks and insurance companies.

2. Rapid Market Expansion: The fast-paced growth in the number of listed companies has spread available funds too thin, limiting stock price increases and market capitalization growth.

3. Delisting Dilemmas: Low delisting rates and the presence of many underperforming SOEs stifle market dynamism, leading to an imbalance between supply and demand.

4. Liquidity fund diversion: Despite a significant increase in China's broad money supply (M2), much of this liquidity has been absorbed by the real estate market and fixed asset investments rather than flowing into the stock market.

5. Liquidity Constraints: Restrictions on short selling and the absence of market makers limit market liquidity, reducing the incentive for investment and hindering price formation.

The article argues that these structural issues, rather than moral failings, are the root causes of the stock market's disconnect from China's economic growth. Addressing these non-market factors is crucial for aligning the stock market with the broader economy.

For a long time, the Chinese stock market has captivated millions of investors. Among the many "dramas" surrounding the stock market, the story of Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of Global Times, who began trading stocks in 2023, is quite representative. At the end of June, he reflected on his first anniversary of opening an account in the A-shares market on Weibo, revealing a total loss of 74,597 yuan, which is 10.65% of his principal investment of 700,000 yuan. In contrast to the A-shares, global stock markets have surged post-pandemic due to factors like inflation, with many markets reaching historical highs. Even if they haven't broken historical records, several emerging markets have experienced significant increases. Meanwhile, the A-shares have been fluctuating, with the index repeatedly returning to the 3,000-point defense line (closing at 2,977.13 points the day before this article was published).

Historically, after the boom and bust of 2007-2008 (with a peak of 6,124 and a low of 1,664), the A-shares have been in a long-term oscillation. By the end of December 2009, the index was at 3,068 points, not much different from the current level. It is often said that the stock market is a barometer of the economy. Regardless of its quality, the rapid development of China's economy over the past few decades is undeniable: surpassing Japan in 2010 to become the second-largest economy, overtaking the United States in 2020 to become the world's largest trading nation, and achieving a per capita GDP of over $10,000. While the overall economy and corporate profits have been growing, the stock market remains an exception.

A stagnant stock market affects everyone, not just stock investors. For instance, preserving the value of social security and pension funds is a critical issue for major countries worldwide. Without viable means to increase their value, facing an aging society becomes more challenging. The total assets of the world's top 300 pension funds amount to $23.6 trillion, with a significant portion invested in the stock market. North American pension funds have the highest proportion of their assets in stocks, at 45.6%. European and Asia-Pacific pension funds also have substantial stock market investments, accounting for 25.9% and 25.5% of their total assets, respectively.

Why is there such a significant disconnect between the Chinese stock market and the economic system? Today, we will explore this topic.

How is the stock market index calculated?

The A-share index we commonly discuss is the SSE Composite Index (full name: Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index). How is this index calculated? Suppose there are three companies in the market, A, B, and C, with market values of 2 billion, 3 billion, and 5 billion, respectively. If the number of companies remains unchanged, and Company A rises by 10%, Company B rises by 10%, and Company C falls by 15%, then according to simple weighted calculation, the overall stock index would fall by 2.5%.

Another common scenario is when, assuming the total number of investors remains unchanged, a new company D with a market value of 2 billion is listed in addition to ABC. Investors in ABC would inevitably sell some of their ABC shares to invest in D. According to market supply and demand, this would lead to a decline in the prices of ABC companies. If the new funds are insufficient to drive up the price of Company D, the overall stock index would fall, and it might even lead to a decline in Company D's stock price.

For a single company, the stock price is formed by the aggregation of individual stock transactions. A company's profitability and investor confidence will influence the overall index through the weighted prices of these companies, resulting in rises and falls.

The two most important factors to consider are: first, the supply of stocks in the market and the funds in the stock market. Like any commodity, if funds are abundant, prices rise; if funds are insufficient, prices fall. Second, the company's profitability. The most profitable way for stocks is annual dividends. If a company's net profit continues to grow, its dividend capacity increases, allowing the stock to have a higher price. This is called the price-to-earnings ratio (P/E ratio), the simplest being the static P/E ratio, which is the ratio of the stock price to the known recent publicly disclosed earnings per share. The higher this number, the more overvalued the stock price is; the lower this number, the more undervalued the price is.

Currently, the static P/E ratios of major stock markets worldwide are as follows: the United States 21.79, the United Kingdom 10.51, Germany 14.91, India 23.17, Japan 16.40, and China is 12.82.

What are the reasons that the stock market cannot rise?

Therefore, the inability of the stock index to rise can generally be attributed to two reasons: first, the insufficient profitability of the major weighted companies, which drags down the overall stock index; second, low market liquidity, with too many stocks and too little capital in the stock market. While the logic seems very simple, the detailed analysis is somewhat complex.

1) How crucial are top-tier giants to the stock market?

First, the rise and fall of weighted stocks have a significant impact on stock indices. Taking the U.S. S&P 500 and the Shanghai Composite Index as examples:

For the S&P 500, the top-weighted stocks are Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Tesla, NVIDIA, and Google. These seven companies account for 27.5% of the total market capitalization. For the Shanghai Composite Index, the top-weighted stocks are Moutai, ICBC, China Merchants Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, PetroChina, Bank of China, and China Life Insurance. These companies account for 17.1% of the total market capitalization.

U.S. weighted stocks are more concentrated in market value and are predominantly high-tech companies with outstanding profitability and rapid growth. In contrast, Chinese weighted stocks are mostly banks and insurance companies, sectors that have faced difficulties during economic downturns, as we've discussed in previous articles.

Why haven't Chinese tech stocks like Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, and DiDi listed in China? This relates to the value orientation of the A-share market. The A-share main board is relatively conservative, favoring companies with already substantial profits. It's particularly unfriendly to tech companies still in their growth phase and potentially still loss-making, which may not even meet listing requirements.

Consequently, it's evident that the blue-chip stocks in the A-share market do not provide strong support for index growth.

2）Faster market expansion means less money？

The rapid expansion of the stock market can indeed lead to a situation where available funds are spread too thinly across a growing number of companies, potentially resulting in insufficiently weighted stock indices. This issue is more severe than the insufficient profitability of major weighted companies.

From 2008 to 2024, the Nasdaq saw a slight increase in the number of listed companies, from over 3,200 to 3,700, a 1.1-fold increase. However, its market capitalization grew significantly, from $4.5 trillion in 2012 to $23 trillion in 2024, a 5.1-fold increase. In contrast, the A-share market in China expanded much more rapidly. From 2008 to 2022, the number of listed companies grew from 1,590 to over 5,000, a 3.1-fold increase. Meanwhile, the total market capitalization grew from 22.88 trillion RMB in 2012 to 82.63 trillion RMB in 2024, a 2.6-fold increase.

Statistics show that between 1997 and 2017, the market capitalization of the A-share market increased by 27.5% annually, but 26.5% of this growth came from the issuance of new stocks by listed companies, with only 1% from stock price increases. This explains why investors find it challenging to benefit from the market.

Among the more than 5,000 listed companies, over 3,300 are private enterprises, about 1,400 are state-owned, and 177 are foreign-controlled. Although state-owned enterprises account for only 28% of the market by number, they dominate in terms of assets, profits, and dividends, accounting for 78.6%, 69.3%, and 66.5% of the A-share market, respectively. As of December 31, 2023, the total market capitalization of state-owned enterprises was 42.15 trillion RMB, representing 51.65%, while private enterprises accounted for 31.68 trillion RMB, or 38.81%.

State-owned enterprises heavily influence the valuation and indices of the A-share market, but their growth and profitability are concerning. For instance, one-third of these are Local Government Financing Vehicle (LGFV), including various city parks, construction companies, real estate, and water groups, totaling 457 companies, many of which have been struggling. Many LGFVs might not meet listing thresholds but have circumvented stock issuance approval through reverse mergers. After the 2017 notice on regulating local government debt financing, many urban investment companies listed through mergers and acquisitions, typically with large asset sizes and high debt levels.

It is reasonable for enterprises of various ownership types to raise funds through listing, as the primary function of the stock market is to help companies finance. However, if the market expands too rapidly, especially with an abundance of asset-heavy, highly indebted companies with insufficient growth potential, the stock index will inevitably be dragged down. The fact that so many state-owned enterprises can be listed highlights the non-market factors at play, which may further complicate the issue of delisting.

3）The delisting dilemma

For a long time, the proportion of delisted companies in the A-share market has remained in the single digits, which is naturally much lower compared to Nasdaq's annual delisting rate of around 5%. After 2019, the number of delisted companies in the A-share market increased, with 12, 20, 23, 50, and 43 companies delisted from 2019 to 2023, respectively. Even in the peak year, the delisting rate was only 1%.

Although China's stock market has delisting standards, such as financial delisting for companies with revenues below 100 million RMB and face value delisting for stocks trading below 1 RMB, companies still use various accounting methods to avoid delisting. For example, they might incur large losses in one year (by accounting for various costs upfront, reducing total costs in the second year) to improve revenue and profit figures in the following year.

Delisting, as the name suggests, requires a company to repurchase its circulating shares unless it goes bankrupt and liquidates after delisting, which is almost the opposite of raising capital through listing. Therefore, the cost of delisting is either bankruptcy or a significant amount of money for repurchase. Both of these outcomes are very difficult for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and non-market factors further complicate the actual delisting of SOEs. The stock market's inability to renew itself over the long term leads to an imbalance between supply and demand, resulting in liquidity being lower than the total circulating stock, making it inevitable that prices cannot rise.

Thus, delisting is not just a matter of having rules, but also whether the enforcing body is independent and can strictly enforce those rules.

4) Where did the stock market's money go?

In fact, even if the stock market expands rapidly, if the inflow of funds also grows significantly, the total market capitalization can grow quickly. Over the past few years, China's broad money supply (M2)—which, in addition to M1 (current deposits of enterprises), includes bank deposits of corporate time deposits, money market funds, and insurance funds—has grown at an astonishing rate. The balance surged from 97 trillion RMB at the end of 2012 to 300 trillion RMB now. During this period, the total market capitalization of the A-shares grew proportionally with M2, accounting for 23% of the M2 balance in 2012 and 25% in 2023. However, while the market capitalization grew, the index remained unchanged, indicating that the new funds were almost entirely absorbed by the market expansion.

Moreover, we need to examine whether this ratio is reasonable. Comparing the total market capitalization of U.S. stocks with the U.S. M2 balance, this value rose from 150% to 204% from 2012 to 2023. You read that right—the total market capitalization is larger than the M2 total, not smaller. Market capitalization is a non-circulating concept, similar to how a company's market value is generally greater than its cash flow. Likewise, a country's total assets will certainly be greater than its M2 monetary balance. From this perspective, China's stock market funds are actually severely insufficient.

It is evident that in recent years, a large portion of M2 growth has not entered the stock market but has gone into the real estate market and fixed asset investments like infrastructure. Since 2016, China's annual real estate sales have exceeded 10 trillion RMB, reaching as high as 15 trillion RMB at the peak. The amount going into infrastructure is even larger.

Here we can understand a certain flow direction of money: new M2 entering the real estate market could potentially enter the stock market. For example, if many people take loans to buy properties from Company A, this results in a substantial cash flow surplus and profit for Company A, which might then use this surplus and profit for stock market investments. This means that any cash flow surplus and profit from individuals and companies could potentially enter the stock market for appreciation. Even if a company borrows to pay employee salaries, employees could use this money to invest in the stock market. Unless M2 growth fails to bring about cash surpluses and profits—commonly referred to as the negative scissors difference between M1 and M2 (M1-M2)—this flow is possible.

The M1-M2 difference is often used to observe changes in Chinese consumer spending and corporate income. When people actively consume, funds from savings deposits flow into corporate current deposits, resulting in M1 growth outpacing M2, forming a positive scissors difference; conversely, when people are hesitant to consume or invest, M2 growth becomes larger, forming a negative scissors difference.

Over the past decade, a large portion of household cash surpluses has flowed into the real estate market, creating debt. Imagine someone with a 30-year mortgage; no wonder yhey have little money left for stock market investments. The situation on the corporate side is similar. The leverage ratio has increased not only among individuals but also among companies.

High leverage means high funding costs, and combined with the stagnation of stock indices amid rapid market expansion, this greatly limits the ability of funds to enter the stock market. Therefore, many companies, before 2021, also invested their funds in the more predictable real estate market. This creates a compounded downward spiral: the more sluggish the stock market, the lower the expected return, and the less likely it is for funds to enter the stock market. This further decreases stock market liquidity, restricting market capitalization growth.

5) Stock market liquidity is restricted

In reality, the stock market is not a place where profits can only be made during periods of rising prices. The fundamental function of the capital market is to enable companies to achieve a fair price. This price can go up (going long) or down (going short). Many well-known funds have made money by short selling.

Investors can profit from the trading flow of stocks, not necessarily from their rise in value. A more freely flowing, unrestricted environment is more likely to achieve high liquidity. This includes real-time trading systems, options to go long or short, and even the use of high-frequency trading. Although these measures may increase short-term speculative behavior and volatility, they are beneficial for increasing market liquidity in the long run.

Short selling is often depicted as a "bad thing," as if it causes everyone to lose money, but this is not the case. We know that the increase in total market capitalization is closely related to the total profits of listed companies. Therefore, a healthy stock market needs to guide funds toward companies that are more worthy of investment and have better profit potential. How do we assess a company's value? It is essentially through their stock price. Stocks with strong profitability have higher prices, while those with lower profit potential have lower prices. Thus, there are two types of short-term mismatches in the stock market: one is that companies with strong profitability are undervalued, leading to insufficient funds and low prices; the other is that companies with poor profitability are overly hyped, leading to excessively high prices. At any time, the market needs to achieve the "should-be" price of a company to release the most reasonable price signal. Going long achieves the former, and going short achieves the latter. For the stock market as a "resource allocation mechanism," going long and short are symmetrical operations, with no inherent good or bad.

In China, short selling has long been restricted, with the belief that the short selling mechanism is one of the culprits of market downturns. Only institutional investors can short sell through the margin trading mechanism, and restrictions have been increasing since this year. This has led to a 70% reduction in the stock lending balance in the A-share market since the beginning of the year. On July 11 this year, the stock lending business was completely suspended, and the margin ratio for short selling was increased, further limiting short selling methods and raising the threshold for short selling. In the short term, this can certainly reduce market volatility, but if there are still bubbles in the market that need to be deflated, it merely reduces the "stock price," leading to medium- and long-term resource misallocation.

In addition to these trading systems, there are other systems related to price formation and liquidity, such as the market maker system. On the NYSE, each stock has a designated market maker responsible for providing liquidity in the absence of buy and sell orders, ensuring smooth market operation and helping to form stock prices. Nasdaq uses a multiple market maker system, where multiple market makers compete to quote the same stock.

The A-share main board does not have market makers; only the SME board has this mechanism. This is because, for a long time, market makers have been accused of excessive speculation, insider trading, and market manipulation. While these concerns are valid, in the absence of sufficient marketization and regulation, market makers can become pure arbitrage tools. However, without market makers, small and medium-sized stocks can face liquidity issues, leading to many stocks lacking trades and thus not forming prices.

All restrictions on liquidity will lead to a decrease in the motivation to invest funds in the market. Since 2023, liquidity in China's stock market has shrunk, and even with the national team stepping in, daily trading volume has dropped to around 600 billion RMB.

Non-marketization is not a 'moral issue'

The persistent disconnect between the stock market and the economy has often been attributed to "moral issues," such as excessive share reduction by major shareholders, speculative behavior, and malicious short selling. Consequently, exchanges and regulators have primarily focused on restrictive measures—limiting share reductions, program trading, end-of-day trading, the scale of short selling, and implementing T+1 for securities lending. It is as if the removal of speculators would naturally lead to a rising stock market.

However, as our analysis suggests, these measures do not address issues such as the rapid non-market-driven expansion or the inability of companies to delist. The market's preference for large state-owned enterprises (SOEs) also fails to attract fast-growing internet companies. Increasing restrictions may temporarily prevent the stock market from falling too quickly, but in the long term, they limit the market's growth potential by reducing liquidity.

In modern society, whether for governments, enterprises, or individuals, there is a universal desire for wealth appreciation. The stock market is fundamentally a platform for sharing corporate development through equity structures. Under normal circumstances, the overall economy and corporate growth should be reflected in the stock market. Even in Pakistan, the stock market generally correlates positively with GDP growth. This disconnection is unlikely to be a moral issue; rather, it stems from non-market factors — the stock market does not reflect the true value of enterprises.

China's stock market has a relatively low price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio compared to global standards, which could indicate growth potential. However, the more pressing question, which this article seeks to address, is why an economy with such rapid past growth and historically high M2 growth rates has such a low stock market P/E ratio. Under what conditions can the stock market synchronize with economic growth?

Geoffrey Moore discusses in his seminal work "Crossing the Chasm" how all new ideas spread along a bell-shaped curve, with the majority falling into a main chasm between the early market and the mainstream market. Businesses that successfully adapt their product and occasionally their business strategy to meet the needs of the early majority, who differ from early adopters, are those that take this risky leap. This concept also applies to the crypto wallet market. For example, in the 1960s-70s, when computers were first being developed, they relied on text-based command lines and were primarily used by scientists, researchers, and large corporations for complex tasks like data analysis and simulations. It was not until Xerox developed the graphical user interface (GUI) and Ethernet that computers became more user friendly and accessible to a wider range of people.

This is also the case for crpyto wallets. In the early days of Bitcoin, the only ways to store and secure bitcoin were to utilize a cold wallet or to preserve private keys on paper. Since then, however, cryptocurrency wallets have advanced significantly. The tools available for safeguarding and keeping digital assets have developed along with the crypto business. Before delving into the current technical solutions, such as multiparty computation and smart contract wallets, we must first examine how we got here. This article will briefly cover the history of web3 wallets from the invention of Bitcoin, with a focus on security concerns at each stage, significant improvements, and the conflict between self- and non-self-custodial wallet types.

Marketing towards Innovators

In 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto proposed Bitcoin, a decentralized proof-of-work digital currency inspired by its predecessors. Since then a pair of public and private key is used to make and validate Bitcoin transactions. However, if a third-party ever obtained access to a user's public and private keys, the remaining bitcoin can be stolen. This need to protect the public and private key pair gave rise to the first generation of crypto wallets. The first wallet developed for Bitcoin was a desktop application known as Bitcoin-QT which required the user to download the entire blockchain as a 'full client', making it impractical for most users to use as Bitcoin gained popularity in later years (btw Bitcoin block size is 460GB as of Feb 2023). Moreover, cybercriminals could develop malware to access users' local wallet.dat file which stores their private keys.

Soon, a new generation of wallets, such as MultiBit and Coinbase that didn't require downloading the complete blockchain to conduct transactions, became widely available, with MultiBit gaining 1.5 million downloads and Coinbase having 1 million customers in early 2014. However, these blockchain infrastructure were not flawless. Users confirmed that MultiBit generated numerous random cryptographic keys and encouraged a unique address for each transaction.

During the formative years of cryptocurrency, these "full" and "light client" wallets featuring a command line and graphical user interface were targeted at geeks, programmers, and bitcoin enthusiasts. Albeit subjective to security issues, these wallets established the standards for what makes a practical crypto wallet through their functions, security features, and user interfaces.

Welcoming early adoptors

As bitcoin grew in popularity, crypto wallet systems began to streamline their workflow and user onboarding procedures to offer a straightforward, undemanding experience. When web-based applications like Coinbase advise users to store their private keys on the platform and use standard username and password to authenticate their identity, custody wallets rapidly gain control. Although these platforms were regularly audited to ensure they have the proper capital-to-deposit ratios to prove their solvency, complaints surfaced that the audit was merely a formality. However, in stark contrast to cryptocurrency's anonymous beginnings, these custodial wallets required Know-Your-Customer (KYC) regulations.

At this time wallet providers also started rolling out multi-signature (multisig) wallets to combat security issues. Contrary to traditional wallets that use a pair of public and private keys to sign and validate transactions, multisig wallets, on the other hand, provide users with a single public key and three private keys and requires M of N (e.g. two of three) to sign a transaction. Users initially hesitant to store their bitcoins now recognize the value of multi-signature. The new multiple-signatories protocol attracted high net worth bitcoin holders and large corporations

Early in 2013, Vitalik Buterin and others presented Ethereum, a new decentralized blockchain that extended bitcoin's capabilities beyond only tracking financial transactions. It enables programmers to make decentralized applications (Dapps) for gaming, financial systems, and the arts. EOA wallets are used by the majority of users to communicate with these Dapps. The Ethereum platform developed an entity called EOAs (Externally Owned Account) to expand on the conventional idea of Bitcoin transactions utilizing private keys. Also introduced was smart contract account, another keyless account controled by codes. EOA wallets use a seed phrase (mnemonic words) and a hierarchical deterministic (HD) structure to generate private keys, public keys that correspond with them and on-chain addresses. With the help of the seed phrase, users of these wallets can generate the private keys required to sign transactions and recover all keys.

The most popular example is Metamask, which debuted in 2016 and currently boasts more than 30 million active monthly users (as of March 2022). EOA wallets produce keys using a hierarchical deterministic (HD) structure and a seed phrase (mnemonic syllables).They also introduced another keyless account called a smart contract account. The most widely used case is Metamask, which launched in 2016 and now has over 30 million monthly active users (as of March 2022).

Although the industry has put a lot of work into educating consumers about the significance of protecting seed words and keys, this one flaw still prevents more widespread adoption. Additionally, the verification process is complicated, because EOAs can only authenticate one action per transaction. This means that for a typical Ethereum, users must sign three transactions to LP on Uniswap using MetaMask: two to authorize tokens and one to deposit them. Moreover, the emergence of more successful chains has sparked a wallet war not just within Ethereum but also within each chain individually, sometimes across chains, and among the L2 solutions. Ideally,as Fred Wilson puts:

"the wallets and dApps will eventually be hidden by developers so users don’t need to worry about which network their assets are on. They will be able to find them, use them, transfer them, sell them, etc without needing to know which chain they are dealing with."

Crossing the Chasm

For crypto wallets and web3 to become a mass adoption, the next generation of wallets should focus on bringing down the threshold for users to enter by bringing a sleek, user-friendly UI, design and documentation experience while keeping the self-custody principle that crypto economy stands for.

So far, there have been two technical solutions to smoother users' experience with web3 wallets, namely MPC wallets and Smart Contract wallets, and there is already an ecosystem of products and services in both categories that have been adopted by institutions, cryptonatives and DAOs. In the next blog, we will explain the two core technologies, listing their sets of trade offs and then move on to mapping the current competitive landscape of these low-threshold wallets.

• The succinctness feature of zero-knowledge proof (zkp) makes it stand out as a solution to Ethereum Layer 2 scalability

• The mathematical language of zkp is not compatible with Solidity, making it very hard for developers to port their contracts on Rollups using zero-knowledge proofs, thus several solutions emerge

• We believe Scroll, the EMV-compatible zkVM is a long-term driven and the most practical approach given its unique technical approach, close work relationship with Ethereum Foundation, and strong research background in the zero-knowledge field

The Importance of ZK Proof in Scaling Ethereum

What is Zero Knowledge Proof

A zero-knowledge proof is a way of proving the validity of a statement without revealing the statement itself, using sophisticated mathematical computations. Normally it consists of two parties, the 'prover' that tries to prove a claim and the 'verifier' that validates the claim. The use of public and private key pairs is a perfect illustration of zero-knowledge proof. I can claim ownership of a crypto account without explicitly showing you my private key. Instead, I can send you a signature generated with my private key to confirm the public key of this account.

Two crucial characteristics of zero-knowledge proof are succinctness and non-disclosure. Succinctness means it's easy and quick to verify, so it is usually used to scale up transactions while non-disclosure means it is private by nature and can be used to build private networks. Notably, these two features don't always come together, since they require different circuits to build. For example, the majority of ZK-rollup scaling solutions do not incorporate the transaction-shielding privacy component of zero-knowledge proof. For the purpose of this article, we will focus only on its succinct nature.

Why do we need zero-knowledge proofs

Unlike the counterparty Layer2 scaling solution - Optimistic rollup, which works under the optimistic assumption that all verifiers are honest and have a seven-day withdrawal period, Rollups using zk proofs rely on the mathematical mechanisms that are more rigorous and secure (proof cannot be generated if there are invalid transactions) with millisecond verification time. However, ZK-Rollups are incompatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), making it challenging to write and operate Solidity-based Dapp’s protocols. A detailed comparison of Optimistic Rollup and Zk Rollup can be seen here.

In the medium to long term, ZK rollups will win out in all use cases as ZK-SNARK technology improves. --- Vitalik Buterin

Zk-rollup is usually classified as ZK-Snark and ZK-Starck and presented the latter as superior to the former given its post-quantum resistance and trustless setup. However, as our research found out, given polynomial commitment schemes (such as KZG)， there is less difference between the circuits of zk-Snark and zk-STACK. Some Rollups, such as Polygon Hermez, incorporate a mix of the two in designing their front and back ends.

Several efforts are geared towards creating a zero-knowledge EVM (zkEVM) implementation that helps developers to leverage the security and scalability guarantees of zero-knowledge while using familiar (and battle-tested) tooling and languages, including Scroll, Polygon zkEVM, zkSync and etc.

A battle between zkVM vs. zkEVM

We classify ZK-rollups into 3 types, based on their compatibility with Ethereum, which refers to the ability for developers to easily port contracts from Ethereum L1. Part of EVM compatibility depends on the amount of opcode coverage on the non-EVM machine, which has 141 opcodes. Achieving perfect compatibility hits diminishing returns if the majority of development does not necessitate full 1:1 opcode conversion.

zkEVM projects are working on incorporating as many opcodes as possible to enhance developer experience, while zkVM protocols' instruction set is generally smaller than the number of opcodes of EVM, but developers have to grasp a new language, such as Cairo for Starknet. We believe EVM-equivalent is the long-term driven yet most practical approach for L2 Scaling.

Within the zkEVM bucket, these are Polygon Hermez and Scroll. Though providing both bytecode level EVM compatibility, Polygon is different from Scroll in that it has its own execution logic without using Geth, the Go implementation of Ethereum in handling transactions, deployment, and execution of smart contracts. Whereas Scroll achieves opcode level equivalent zkEVM with the same execution logic as Ethereum, meaning that developers can have the exact same experience on Scroll as they have with Ethereum.

With the aforementioned advantages, we believe Scroll is the most promising protocol in the L2 scaling arena. Next, we will dive deeper into the architecture and innovations of Scroll.

Scroll

Anatomy of Scroll’s architecture

Scroll, building towards zkEVM, is able to execute native EVM bytecode on L2 while inheriting strong security guarantees from base layer Ethereum.

There are mainly three components of Scroll, namely the scroll node, roller network, and Layer 1 contracts.

• Scroll Nodes can be largely seen as the sequencer that executes transactions and generates new L2 blocks with new state root and trace. Then the nodes will randomly select a Roller for proof generation.

• Roller Network is the pool of provers, who first convert the execution trace received from the coordinator to circuit witness and generate proofs for each of the zkEVM circuits written for each opcode in the trace (this is where zkEVM comes into play!). Finally, it will use proof aggregation to bundle proofs from multiple zkEVM circuits into a single block proof and send the proof back to the Scroll Nodes.

• Layer 1 contracts consist of a roll-up contract and bridge contracts, the first one being the data availability on L1 and the second being the messager between L1 and Scroll. Once the coordinator receives the aggregated proof, it submits the proof to the Rollup contract to finalize L2 blocks.

What’s special about Scroll

Meeting the Team Behind

Who's building it

• Ye Zhang: is a Ph.D. student at New York University studying Computer Science. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree from Peking University in China. He has been a researcher in zero-knowledge proof for four years and published some of the pioneer papers in zkp application and improvement

• Sandy Peng: works on the strategy side of Scroll with her experience in investment and management. She used to be the partner for Fission Capital in Hongkong and holds a B.A. From Cambridge University in the UK

• Haichen Shen: Before funding Scroll, Haichen was a Senior Applied Scientist with a focus on AI compilers. He holds a PhD degree in Computer Science and previously graduated from Tsinghua University in China.

The team currently has around 45 members, 30 of which are engineering backgrounds. Members are located in Europe, Asia, and North America. They have been working with the PSE team from the Ethereum foundation since day one.

Who’s funding it

Scroll raised $30 million in Series A fundraising in April 2022. Polychain was as the funding's lead investor, and other investors included Bain Crypto and Geometric DAO. They had already obtained $3 million from angel investors. Ye Zhang said in an interview that while choosing investors, they were very picky about their backgrounds and specifically chose those with backgrounds in research and technology so they could help Scroll during the growing process by introducing more zk professionals to their team.

What’s the current status of it

Scroll is currently at its public pre-alpha test. The features are exactly the same as its mainnet being launched later in H2 this year, as a permissionless network. Notable protocols such as Uniswap V3, LensProtocol, and Safe have all been deployed on Scroll testnet. From recent research by Messari, we can see Scroll leads the way in user adoption with the highest number of unique wallet addresses and transactions.

The next two big things ahead are to decentralize the sequencer i.e. Scroll Nodes and to accelerate provers' proof generation time. Several proposals have been made regarding how to decentralize the operation nodes. They may introduce forced arbitrary execution if a transaction has not been executed in one or two days to avoid censorship. In terms of Proof Acceleration, Scroll has partnered with a few hardware companies such as Cysic (btw who just raised a 600m seed fund) to test out the most suitable GPU form. They aim to fully decentralize prover networks in 2024.

Parting Thoughts

Throughout the examination of Scroll and additional zkEVM projects, I find Scroll really special in its vision and value. They appear to be working toward a very specific objective: using zero-knowledge-proof technology to scale Ethereum while maintaining security, decentralization, and developer-friendly conditions. All of their investors and team members are research-focused, providing them with the ideal individuals to carry out the right actions. By collaborating with Ethereum's PSE team from day one, Scroll has the ultimate goal of helping Ethereum scaling - 'zk SNARK everything‘.

Lastly, it’s necessary to mention that this article only focuses on the advantages of Scroll, emphasizing its competitive advantages of building an EVM-equivalent Layer 2 scaling solution. Further analysis of the strategy and architecture of other similar projects such as Taiko, Polygon, zkSnyc, and Starknet is necessary to fully understand the arena of zk-rollup.

1. dYdX作为一款定位为去中心化衍生品交易平台，在用户体验、产品功能方面都做到了和CEX近似的流畅体验，但是其中心化的订单薄、订单匹配引擎和StartEx不开源的技术方案，使其仍然是一款中心化程度很高的产品

2. 作为Defi衍生品龙头项目，dYdX的交易量占比达到70%左右。2022年d实现1.28亿美元的营收，但是因为支付了高额的挖矿和质押奖励吸引用户和做市商，使得项目仍然处于亏损状态，新一季度的三项提案有效减轻了成本端支出

3. dYdX的项目收益由母公司dYdX Trading Inc.所有，而成本端支出由代币持有人以币价稀释的形式承担。dYdX代币本质上是治理代币，经济效用很低，表现为价格长期萎靡

4. 2023年下半年dYdX成功搭建COSMOS应用链、实现完全去中心化是$dYdX实现更大的经济价值的关键

dYdX最近因为推迟投资人的代币解锁期而再次进入大众的视野，在Starknet运行了2年之后即将迁往Cosmos建立自己的独立应用链。作为最早开始做借贷、闪电贷和永续合约的龙头Defi应用，dYdX一直在各项数据上表现良好，然而其代币价格却从最高的27美元跌落过95%，目前维持在发币价格3美元左右。

本篇文章将着重从dYdX的产品逻辑和近一年的财务数据表现解析$dYdx的经济模型，以及其代币在2023年是否有希望获得新的上涨机会

dydx背景介绍

dYdX是⼀个⽤于永续合约和保证⾦交易的去中⼼化衍⽣品交易所。该交易所使⽤传统的基于订单簿的设计来部署流动性和保证交易体验。其产品模型较为简洁，由做市商和多空双方形成三方博弈，用户体验与CEX交易所（Binance、FTX等）相近。

据dydx官方数据显示，在2022年整体熊市的环境下，dydx实现了$4460亿的累计交易量，共计营收$1.28亿美元，并支付了1.973亿美元的用户奖励，最终总净损失为5930万美元，全年新用户3.4万人，累计用户9万人左右（这或许跟dydx的主要服务面向机构性交易主体有关）。⽬前⽇交易量在10-20亿美⾦左右，最⾼达到过150亿美⾦的⽇交易量，但是相比最大的中心化交易所Binance的$50亿衍生品日交易量来看，还有一定的成长空间。

2021年4月开始，dydx采用了以太坊Layer2 解决方案StartEx，为其后续发币和大规模交易量提升做了提前准备。⽬前正在研发基于cosmos的V4版本独立应用链，如果能如约在2023年下半年上线成功，将会大幅实现交易去中心化，交易量扩容，并且代币价值的大幅提升。

融资历史

dydx目前一共完成4轮融资（2017 seed轮-2021年C轮），融资额$87M，投资方包括Paradigm，A16z，Polychain，DefianceCapital和ThreeArrowCapital。根据Dydx的代币分配，27.7%也就是大约277M的代币会分配给投资人，得出投资人的持币成本大概是$0.31

发展时间线

代币分配模型

$dydx最大供应量为10亿代币，从2021年8月分五年解锁，现流通代币量1.48亿，占总代币数量15%。代币质押量900万枚，占流通代币6%。需要提前注释的是dydx的奖励发放以28天为一个周期（Epoch），所以每到接近月末的时候代币流通量和价格会有明显波动。

从代币分配的总原则来看，50% 的代币归社区和用户所有，50%的代币归项目方、投资人和员工所有。社区和用户的代币分配权由社区投票决定，而另外50%由项目方，也就是dydx Inc，自行决定。在今年1月，Dydx项目方宣布将原本于2月释放给投资人和创始团队的1.5亿枚代币推迟到12月再逐步发放，缓解了市场的抛压预期，代币价格当日上涨20%。

而在社区代币分配上，2022年7月DIP14、16和17提案通过后，原本用作交易奖励、LP奖励和质押池的代币分配给了Community Treasury用来发展社区（做研究资助、Hackthon、NFT等社区活动），共计112M, 使得Community Treasury代币占有率从5%提高到了16.2% 。从后面财务分析部分我们可以看出，这些提案有效缓解了dydx的成本支出。

此外，从2026年7月开始社区可以通过提案增发Dydx，保证通胀率，来继续⽀持协议的发展和治理。预计2031年会有9.4%的代币用作Community treasury Infation

财务表现和关键数据指标

交易量方面，dydx的交易量在今年1月实现47%的增长后一直在下降，第四季度的交易量为$600亿,仅为去年Q4的一半，这也跟去年整体熊市的环境相符合。11月FTX崩盘后dydx交易量迎来了一个4天的激增（11月8日-11日）。但是相比于同类去中心化永续合约产品，dydx仍然是占有绝对统治地位

细拆分交易币种来看，在dydx上交易量最大的币种是ETH和BTC，占到了85%左右。BTC交易额明显小于ETH，可能是因为协议在以太坊主网上。相对应地，ETH和BTC占协议收入的主要来源。

第四季度市场总持仓量（Open Interest）上涨了43%，其中BTC总持仓量上涨了120%，SOL、NEAR、FIL、TRX、ICP上涨也多于100%，ETH总持仓量上涨了59%，说明熊市下市场对永续合约的热度不减，但是更集中在交易主流币种。

根据DuneAnalytics看板显示，dydx累计用户量大约是10万人，2022年新增用户3万人，日活用户维持在1600-1700人左右，第四季度在FTX崩盘后有了小幅上涨。

10亿体量的日交易量却只有千人活跃，我们推测有两个原因，从平台手续费的设定，和流动性质押奖励的流向可以看出，在dYdX上活跃的主要是专业做市商和大型交易机构。而且团队的工作重心目前仍是开发V4版本，没有做太多拉新和留存的活动。

产品分析

正如dydx创始人在Bankless的采访中提到，评估一个web3的产品，可以从产品功能、用户体验、去中心化程度以及安全性四个维度切入，我们给dYdx的综合评分是：7.5分

产品功能（8分）：自从2021年11月以后，dYdx的以太坊一层产品已经停止运营。目前全部在StartEx搭建的Layer2层，主要产品目前永续合约、Hedies NFT，同时也有IOS版dydx交易平台，没有Android版。之前Layer1的现货交易、保证金交易和借贷功能没有出现在Layer2版本中。

用户体验（8分）：作为一款去中心化产品，dydx的用户交互设计体验非常好，页面设计就像中心化交易所一样。因为在Layer2所以交易手续费也非常低。但是也有两个值得一提的问题：1）用户在充值和提款阶段花费Gas Fee较高，首次充值依然需要花费10-50美元左右连接以太坊主网(根据测试金额得出），但是充值1000以上可以免GasFee。相比建在Arbitrum上的GMX连接钱包就可以直接使用，对于散户更加友好。2）当下10tps的上链交易和1000tps的下单与撤单，性能严重不⾜，⽆法⽀持下⼀个量级的增⻓。

去中心化程度（5分）：创始人Antonio认为，一款去中心化产品的去中心化程度取决于产品中心化程度最高的部分*。*产品⽬前由dydx官⽅提供基于链下AWS的混合订单薄和订单匹配的中⼼化引擎，2021年12月因为AWS宕机导致停止运营，币价下跌10%。其基础设施StarkEX的提供⽅starkware并不开源，在L2层的定序器中⼼化，最后只是将证明发送到ETH做验证，整体来看产品的中性化属性依然很强，可以说⽬前只是⼀个去中⼼化程度很低的链上产品。

安全性（9分）：除了中心化订单薄和订单匹配带来的宕机、订单篡改、数据泄露的安全隐患，目前dYdX还没有其他如黑客攻击等风险事件。

营收结构分析

总体而言，在2022年，该协议产生了1.28亿美元的收入，并支付了1.973亿美元的奖励，导致总净损失为6930万美元。dYdx的收益和成本结构是比较清晰收入来源于用户在平台支付的交易手续费，支出主要来源于对做市商和散户的交易和流动性提供激励，同时还有给StartEx支付的技术服务费和线下公司运营成本没有披露。

从收入端来看，DYDX的营收来源就是交易佣金以2022年Q4的收入和成交额来看，平均佣金率为万分之2.5，非常低。目前该收入由dydx inc 项目方控制，并不分配给$dydx持有者。

从成本端来看：$dydx每年释放6000万个$dydx的代币奖励是协议的主要支出，持续五年，每28天为一个周期（epoch），目前在第19个周期。这6000万个$dydx主要花销在三个部分：

• 可追溯的挖矿奖励：一共约5千万个dYdX代币奖励给早期用户，在2021年7月完成快照。（DYDX代币于2021年8月3日正式上线。 在随后的28天内将进行DYDX的初始分配。 于2021年9月8日晚上11:00左右开始可以进行转让，当日价格从$3升至$27后直线下跌）

• 交易奖励：2022年共计支出46M$DYDX。这笔奖励在前14个周期中，每个周期释放3.84M$DYDX，从第15个周期（2022.09.27）开始，奖励下调为每个周期2.88M$DYDX。

• 流动性提供方奖励：2022年共计支出15M$DYDX，其中每个周期奖励1.15M$DYDX。 (13个周期 x 1.15=15M）

• 还有未知成本：1）使用StarkEx支付基础设施费用；2）链下公司的运营成本

作为订单薄模式的交易所，dYdX在供给端靠专业做市商（Wintermute、Altonomy、Alameda、Jump、Amber等）为协议提供流动性，对做市商和交易者进行代币奖励。根据dydx流动性奖励数据显示，有两个大型做市商拿走了75%的LP奖励。在需求端靠早期空头、社区宣传、交易奖励和低价交易费吸引用户。

dYdX协议总收⼊阶段性⼩于代币通胀奖励，导致项目长期处于亏损状态。最新的财报表明dydx的季度性亏损下降到了$7.9M,相比上个季度下降了14%。这一改善是由于社区在第三季度末通过**DIP14（减少25%的交易奖励）和DIP16&17（决定逐步取消流动性抵押奖励）。这一决定使得dYdX在2022年Q4少亏损了$200万**

在我们看来，dYdX目前除了产品中提到的中心化的订单薄机制这个问题之外，最影响其经济表现的是**$dYdX只是一个治理代币，本身目前没有太强的效用**，质押代币目前没有流动性奖励、只有少量的交易手续费折扣，导致交易者和做市商没有持币动力，产品使⽤者与做市商因代币效⽤不⾜，代币价格表现萎靡，距ATH已下跌90%，回到了2021年发币的价格。

总体上，我们可以把dYdX的收益结构总结为收入都归项目方，但是项目支出成本带来的币价稀释都由持币者承担。

短期内项目进程展望

与COSMOS合作搭建独立开源的应用链

团队在2022年6月宣布V4版本的研发计划。新版本将会使用Cosmos搭建完全开源的，采用PoS共识机制应用链。$dydx将会成为整条链的代币，这或许意味着$dydx将会被赋予支付工具、PoS质押代币等价值。主网预计在2023年下半年开放。根据前文列举的dYdX在产品和经济模型中的问题，我们可以看出迁往Cosmos有其必要性。

首先，Layer1以太坊主网和Layer2 ZK Rollup的tps有限，10tps的上链和1000tps的下单/撤单速度很难满足一款永续合约交易这种对交易时效性要求很高的产品。dYdX的想法是自己成立一条链，掌握所有的validator stacks的研发自主性，将订单薄做成链下非共识的验证模式，即把orderbook部署在所有的validator上，validator再去链下匹配订单薄，将成交的交易上链，将下单、撤单通过全网广播在验证者之间进行状态同步。既可以满⾜orderbook也去中⼼化，也可以在tps上⼀个台阶

其次，$dydx作为一整条公链的代币，其实际效用将得到提升,也会为项目提高货币政策的自主性。我们推测，$dydx将会用于支付验证者Gas Fee和交易费率。同时，V4版本的dYdX将完全交由社区管理，有极大的可能，社区可以投票将平台收入分给所有的代币持有人。在今年一月的时候，dydx宣布将投资人和项目方持有的150万$dYdX推迟到2023年12月解锁30%。**预计届时V4主网已经上线，dydx的价格能够承担住市场带来的抛压。**同时，成本端不再考虑支付给像StarkEx这样的第三方的技术服务费，可以进一步提升利润空间。

在安全性方面，虽然维护V4版本的验证者大概率是少于以太坊主网的，但是这些验证者只需要维护Dydx一个Dapp的交易，会有更多的社会共识基础（Social Concensus），而且有更多的解决办法（可以分叉、回滚、社区投票）

当然，建立一个应用链的复杂程度和要考虑的问题远大于搭架一个web端的Dapp。考虑钱包，节点，⽹⻚端，移动端app、建⽴预⾔机、跨链桥、建⽴native USDC以及PoS共识机制的MEV和验证者激励问题，开发时间非常紧张。而且用户使用习惯很难改变，可以参考Uniswap v2和v3版本共存的状态。**除非cosmos版本能够通过流动性深度、质押奖励、早期空头、代币赋能等方式等方式激励用户迁移到新版本，以太版本和Comsos将会共存。**Antonio在一次采访中也说明，团队会尽最大可能帮助用户从以太网过渡到Cosmos，但是Cosmos上线后依然会继续运营以太版dYdX。

建立SubDAO信托组织

根据最新的DIP18提案内容显示，dYdX将调用社区资金库中$36万美元的dydx建立一个Operation SubDAO来管理DYdX的运营准则手册（英文原文叫Playbook）、开设法币银行账户等。资金用于奖励选出的4位受托人前期六个月的工作。最近DIP投票取消了dydx质押奖励，因为社区认为dydx代币不足以抵御大型风险（代币价格下跌的话，没有任何价值了），所以我们推测如果未来将奖励代币换成法币交给这个信托组织可以提高dYdX抵抗极端市场风险的能力。

思考和总结

dydx一直都是敢于率先尝试加密行业新机会的产品。在2018开始做闪电贷服务，2019年看到Bitmex提出的永续合约便推出了自己的第一个合约交易对、2021年ZK-Rollup刚开始崭露头角时便转向starknet，到现在成长为行业龙头交易所。而现在Starknet已经估值80亿，dYdX又毅然转向转向估值20亿的Cosmos搭建自己的应用链，朝着完全去中心化和行业领头去中心化交易所迈进。我们认为如果dYdX在下半年成功迁至Comsos，其公链代币dYdx将会被赋予更扎实的经济效用，改善一贯萎靡的币价表现。同时SubDAO海外信托公司的成功运营也将给dYdx带来更强的风险规避能力。

参考资料和延展阅读

1. dYdX Layer 2 交易动态数据看板

2. dYdX LP奖励数据看板

3. TokenTerminal dYdX 的财务数据看板

4. Dune Analytics dydx 代币和协议端数据看板

5. dYdX Q4 2022财报及分析

6. 2022 dydx官方生态报告

7. dYdX V4版本时间线规划

8. 
   

9. Dydx代币和治理文档

10. 
    

11. 《头等仓：深度解析 DeFi 衍生品龙头 dYdX 产品机制、发展现状与经济模型》（2021.09）

1. 以太坊的设计初衷和比特币有什么不同

2. 为什么权益制证明对于以太坊生态的发展好于工作量证明

3. 以太坊目前的发展阶段到哪里了

以太坊与比特币的设计原理对比

比特币创立了一个基于工作量证明共识机制（proof of work）的点对点交易的去中心化加密货币，本质上是一个记录交易数据的完全公开的账本。在比特币的基础上，2014年Vitalik提出了以太坊（Etherum），一个去中心化的开源的，运用智能合约搭建Dapp（Decentralized App）的区块链平台。

共识机制：不同于中心化网络系统的权力高度集中，对于分布式系统来说，网络中哪个节点拥有记录数据的权利是需要全社区达成一致共识的，不同的社区会采取不同的共识机制来实现公平公正和防止恶意攻击。比如BTC选择的是Proof of Work工作量证明，即哪个节点率先完成一个庞大的数学运算得出结果，经过其他的节点检验，就可以拥有这个区块的记账权。

以太坊和比特币的区别在于，比特币只是实现交易和支付的功能，而以太坊的设计初衷是为了实现图灵完备，也就是说开发者可以在以太坊虚拟机（Etherum Virtual Machine）中通过Solidity编程语言撰写智能合约（Smart Contract）构建Dapp生态。

图灵完备这个概念或许对非计算机背景的人比较陌生，它用于表示*任何现实世界通用计算机或计算机语言都可以近似模拟任何其他现实世界通用计算机的计算方面、用途的计算机或计算机语言。*通常很多编程语言的图灵完备性影响主要需要考虑分支Branch和循环loop的问题。图灵完备的优点是能实现更多的计算，但缺点是非常占内存，也就是为什么ETH会引入Gas Fee来支付矿工的计算和校验成本，每一个操作指令都有明文规定的Gas消耗量（GasUsed）

Gas Fee 是一个沉没成本，即无论交易成功或者失败，矿工都为此进行了验证，消耗了资源，所以燃料费是旷工计算得出，并记录在此交易的区块中。为了避免合约中的错误引起不可预计的恶性燃料消耗，用户需要在发送交易时设定允许消耗的燃料上限，即 gasLimit。 这样不管合约是否良好，最坏情况也只是消耗 gasLimit 量的燃料

这个概念就好像我们点外卖，要给外卖员支付的路费是平台计算好的，会包括在最后的支付金额里。在用餐高峰期我们会给外卖员打赏来获取提前接单的可能。

为什么以太坊要逐步转移至权益之证明机制

随着生态的逐渐繁荣，交易量激增，ETH网络开始面临拥堵、GasFee极高的问题。一个客观的对比就是当前以太坊的交易处理性能(20笔/秒)，而Visa在2016年的MyBroadband表示，VisaNet每天平均处理1.5亿笔交易，约平均每秒1,667笔。以太坊如果想要普及去中心化交易，提高每秒交易量（TPS Transaction per second），降低交易成本，也就是扩容（Scalability）是首要任务。

然而区块链技术面临着“不可能三角难题”，即一个区块链技术无法同时达到“高效低能”、“去中心化”、以及“安全”这三个要求。不同的区块链设计都是在保全两个牺牲另外一个。 比如为了实现更高的TPS，BSC和Solana只有几十几百个节点，牺牲了去中心化的理念，而Multichain Ecosystems则牺牲了安全性，因为很可能其中一条链被黑客攻击，进而影响整个生态

为了能降低对去中心化理念和安全性能的损失，创始人Vitalik2015年提出了从工作量证明机制向权益之证明共识机制（PoS）转变的计划，POS机制可以支持分片技术（Sharding），也就是将区块链切分成多个Shard chain,并行运算，进而一个区块接着一个区块地运行，从而提高以太坊的每秒交易量。整体的实现路径是 PoW to PoS (phase 0：The Merge) → data sharding (phase 1) → execution sharding (phase 2)

相比于工作量证明机中是验证者需要购买运算设备（GPU和Asic芯片）运行大量运算得出随机数来获取记账权，在权益证明机制中，用户想成为验证者参与挖矿，只需要向存款合约存入一定数量的代币（比如ETH 2.0中规定最低32个ETH）并运行三种独立的软件：执行客户端、共识客户端和验证者。

以太坊网络会每隔一段时间随机选择一位验证者作为区块创建者，所创建的区块会发送给网络上的其他节点接受随机选择的一个验证者委员会的验证，通过他们的投票确定所提议区块的有效性，没问题即可获得出块奖励，如果验证者有失信行为或者消极怠工，比如没有在线，那么可以惩罚（Slashing）销毁抵押品

这种权益值证明的经济学原理是对于不当行为的惩罚远大于对正当行为的奖励。Vitalik在Why Proof of Stake (Nov 2020)这篇文章中，列举了攻击工作量证明和权益之证明机制网络的经济成本，想要获得一天1美元的奖励，大概对GPU-based POW来说大概是$0.26/小时（6个小时共计）如果攻击者的到处块奖励了，那就没有成本了，对于ASIC-based POW来说，大概成本是一次性支付两年的芯片费用、电费、运营费共$486,75。然而对于权益值证明来说，如果回报率在15%，那么为了每天一美元的回报，攻击成本在$2189。

除了提高可扩展性之外，Proof of Stake也更加去中心化：有人觉得PoS证明这种质押代币换取权益的方式更加的中心化。其实不然，PoW中购买矿机和芯片也需要花钱，同样是越有钱的组织能拥有更多的算力，而且自从有了Asic芯片后，高昂的价格让挖矿的门槛更高了。PoS则不然，无论有多少钱都可以去质押。而且，相比于GPU挖矿和ASIC挖矿需要大量的电力消耗、昂贵的应建安成本和庞大的运营空间，PoS只要有一台普通的电脑就可以做节点验证，更不容易被审查到，反倒更加去中心化了。

肖臻老师在《区块链技术与应用》公开课中提到过，像BTC、ETH这种大规模的区块链，对其发起51%攻击需要的资金成本，使攻击变得不可能，但对于小规模的区块链，PoS的好处就是，攻击者如果要攻击这条链，首先要买51%的代币，像是传统金融里的恶意收购，让社区变得更富有。

以太坊目前的发展阶段

目前以太坊2.0已经实现了Phase 0 The Merge，于2020年启动了信标链（Beacon Chain）搭建共识机制。信标链用于在质押人开始验证真实的以太坊交易之前管理和协调以太坊质押人网络, 每个分片链都会将信息传递给信标链，并将由一个专门的虚拟机和执行环境启用，称为eWASM（就是将不同的编程语言都compile成ETH的语言）。这样， ETH就不单单仅支持Solidity语言，而是兼容所有编程语言和运行环境，像图灵完备更近一步。

接下来的任务就是将POS和分片技术逐渐应用到执行交易层。以太坊2.0具体实现的过程要比想象中困难很多，以太坊基金会研究员Justin Drake曾比喻以太坊The Merge事件为「在一辆汽车全速奔驰的同时，一边更换车辆引擎」。

这期间就出现了以太坊二层（Layer2）这种解决方案，以减少基础层（根链）负担的方式来处理数据，通过将主链的部分数据处理转移到 Layer2 上，从而增强整个区块链网络的可扩展性。在众多解决方案中，最被看好的是Rollup，也诞生了很多热门公链，比如Polygon、Avalanche等，在以太坊像POS过渡的过程中，Layer2也有存在的必要，下一期我们就来讲讲Layer 2的项目和存在的价值。

我每天学习和摄入的有效网络信息（也是就不算读书）大概可以分为80% Web3&Crypto的内容+20%人文社科的内容。

目前有大概50个信息源，我相信信息源在精不在多，每天就几个小时看文章学习写温习报告的时间，还是。

受Zhixiong Pan前辈启发，接下来我也会把我的Web3 信息流聚合方法公开，希望任何人都可以构建个性化的订阅工具，满足在 Web3 时代海量信息的筛选需求。Pan老师的聚合平台适配于Mac OS，我使用的平台是建立在Windows系统上的

前期知识介绍： RSS（Really Simple Syndication）是简易信息聚合，是一种消息来源格式规范，用以聚合多个网站更新的内容并自动通知网站订阅者，常见的信息源包是.opml或者.xml格式。RSS网站或者软件有很多，我接触过的有RSS.app、Inoreader 和Newsflow。我这次采用的是Newsflow，可以下载而且交互界面也简洁清爽

信息源可以按照媒介类型，分为中英文网站的快讯和深度报道、Twitter、Mirror、Medium,、各个研究机构和KOL的Newsletter，研究类文章以及播客节目

添加方法就是直接在主页的【订阅源】点击添加，输入RSS关键词，就可以找到要关注的内容

因为并不是每个信息平台都是直接适配RSS格式，所以接下来我会讲几个特殊的媒介类型分享转换格式的方法：

• Twitter类：

  在 https://rsshub.app/twitter/user/ 这个地址后面加twitter ID （不是名字），然后复制到搜索栏即可。比如，我要关注在Twitter上ID 为RoeyLi2的人，就是https://rsshub.app/twitter/user/RoeyLi2，既可以把她加到我的信息流列表里

• Telegram 类：

  用https://rsshub.app/telegram/channel/[channel]，【Channel】替代为你要关注的Telegram账号ID即可。比如，我要关注巴比特的深度内容平台，他的ID是defizhidao，那么RSS链接为https://rsshub.app/telegram/channel/defizhidao，关注方式同Twitter，这里不再截图演示

• 播客节目类：

  此方法适用于在海外播客平台的节目，无法抓取到上线仅小宇宙app的播客。在https://podcastrepublic.net/完整输入你要关注的播客节目，有错别字无法识别。点击进去，就会有已经生成好的RSS Feed Link，关注方式同Twitter，这里不再截图演示。

• Newletter类：

进入 https://kill-the-newsletter.com/，在Newsletter name栏输入你想呈现的Newsletter名称，比如我想关注Coindesk的newsletter, 然后点击Create Inbox, 这时会生成一个随机邮箱地址，复制到newsletter网站订阅的邮箱地址上，点击订阅。最后把第二行的Atom feed输入到Newsflow的搜索框即可。

• Mirror类文章：

  在作者的Mirror地址前面加Sub。比如我的Mirror地址是https://mirror.xyz/0x5E127b154F21d057b44355f1aeedAC16c29E5195，那我的mirror的feed地址就是https://submirror.xyz/0x5E127b154F21d057b44355f1aeedAC16c29E5195，加到rss工具里订阅就可以了一会有新文章就会推送到rss阅读器 （该搞个ENS域名了...）。Newsflow里搜索方法同twitter，这里不再截图演示

• Medium平台文章：

  和Mirror类似，只要在URL上追加feed就可以变成feed订阅地址。举个例子：Pan老师的Medium是 https://medium.com/@zlexdl.eth 在@前加上feed/变成https://medium.com/feed/@zlexdl.eth 就可以加到rss阅读器中订阅了。。Newsflow里搜索方法同twitter，这里不再截图演示

以上就是所有信息源的添加方式，我之所以没有总结打包成一个Opml文件发给大家直接下载，一是因为我不会。。。二是因为我相信授人以鱼不如授人以渔，三是手动添加每一位内容产出者的过程中让我更好地甄别每一个信息源是否是我真的需要的，做这个信息源整合器才真的有意义。

希望本文提供的工具和方法都能让你更好地在信息爆炸的时代少一些信息焦虑，帮你减少信息筛查的时间，多一些时间聚焦在生活中其他有意义的事情上。

立个Flag，下一篇文章梳理介绍我挑选关注的50个Crpto、Web3、哲学、经济类内容源，以及他们的RSS订阅网址。

如果你觉得本篇文章对你有些受用，欢迎你关注并转发给身边需要的朋友，谢谢~

如何评估一家Crypto VC公司投资眼光一直是困惑我的问题。基于价值投资理论，对于专注于投资早期项目的公司，很难通过项目本身的指标来评价投资成功与否。Stratos VC最近发表了一篇文章，将所有投资项目中拿到后期投资的项目占比，以及后期投资额度作为评价标准。除去自卖自夸的成分，本文提供了一种新的评估思路，以及可复制的分析方法和数据源。

原文链接：Crypto's Venture Capital Landscape

摘要：

1. 从2021年初开始，有大概1500个加密货币项目拿到早期融资。然而只有20%的项目获得早期阶段融资的公司后来又获得了后续融资

2. 基础设施领域最受后期资本喜爱。根据后期融资额度来看，TOP20名中有12家是与基础设施相关的项目

3. 按后续融资额度来看，最成功的早期投资项目是0 Layer Zero，大概在第一轮融资一年后又拿到$135M 融资

4. 根据所投资项目的复投率排名来看，Maven 11 Capital, Stratos, Hypersphere Venture 和 Mechanism Capital表现最佳，都在40%以上

5. 表现最好的这4家Crypto VC中有3家是新成立的Fund （2021年后成立的），这或许意味着较新的基金比成熟的基金有更好的命中率

自2018年以来，有3300多个基金对加密货币进行了风险投资。在这些基金中，只有339个基金自2021年初以来进行了10次或更多的投资--这意味着大约90%的基金都是临时投资者，而不是专注&积极的加密货币基金。

为了进一步细化，我们可以将339个活跃的加密货币基金分解为两个相关的细分市场。

190个基金活跃在早期阶段，其定义是自2021年初以来至少进行了10次种子或种子前投资。 有40个是在2020年左右就成立的

2021-2022年投资项目一览

自2021年开始，大概进行了1500个早期阶段（种子和种子前）的加密货币筹款回合 - 占近75亿美元的融资，每轮融资规模中位数为300万美元。Stratos通过鉴于观察哪些公司最终进行了后续的一轮融资来评估起初几轮融资好坏的标准。路径依赖是早期投资中的一个重要因素，继续进行后续一轮融资的公司更有可能最终获得成功。

路径依赖：指给定条件下人们的决策选择受其过去决策的影响，即使过去的境况可能已经过时

下图显示了2021年1月至2022年3月按月划分的早期阶段融资数量（柱状图），并将拿到后续轮融资的公司数量单独列为一个类别（折线图数字）。从2021年开始到2022年3月，有将近1000个早期阶段的融资。DeFi是最受欢迎的类别，占31%，其次是NFTs、Web3、基础设施，然后是CeFi。随着时间的推移，每个月的轮融资数量明显增加。2021年1月有19个早期阶段的融资，而2022年1月则有92个。有趣的是，DeFi和基础设施交易的数量在整个时间框架内保持相对平稳。大部分的增长来自于NFT和Web3类别。从2021年9月开始，大部分轮次都在这些类别中。

选择这个时间框架的原因是，它最能代表当前加密货币风险领域的种子格局--它包括有一定规模的”经理人“项目（emerging managers）也包括刚入局的”孵化项目“（incumbents）。我们排除了2022年3月之后的新公司队列，因为这些队列中的公司还没有成熟到通常需要进行后续融资。

只有20%的项目获得早期阶段融资的公司后来又获得了后续融资。当然随着时间的推移，这个比例会增加，因为Stratos的预期是，表现好的公司往往会在最初的种子轮融资后的12-18个月内筹集后续资金。也就是在2022年1月-2023年9月之间。

看完数量之后，再来细看一下具体哪些项目被续投，以及续投项目的种子轮投资方是谁。下表显示了在2021年1月至2022年3月期间最初获得融资的前20家公司，其依据是在随后的后续回合中筹集的资金数额。

通过对行业的细分，我们可以看出，基础设施领域表现有益，收到后期资本喜爱。前5名中有4家公司，20名中有12家是与基础设施有关。鉴于只有16%的早期融资是在基础设施领域，这个子行业的表现似乎优于其他行业。其中包括像Fuel和Subspace这样的扩展解决方案，以及像Moralis和QuickNode这样的集中式基础设施供应商。其他类别：Recur是资金最充足的NFT公司，筹集了500万美元的种子轮和随后的5000万美元的后续轮。Element Finance和Goldfinch Finance为DeFi带了路，分别筹集了3200万美元和2500万美元。

有一些基金在数据中多次出现。比如Hypersphere、Maven 11、Coinbase Ventures、A_capital和Andreesen Horowitz各自至少出现在前20个早期阶段轮次中的3个。Coinbase Ventures以22项种子轮投资被复投而领先。

为了排除这种”命中次数“是因为一家公司广撒网更造成的，有必要考虑同一时期该公司的投资总数。有些投资者只是投资了更多的公司，所以自然会有更多的标的。下图考虑到了这一点，而是显示了 复投项目占总投资项目的比例

深蓝色是成立时间较长的Crypto VC（2020年前成立）

浅蓝色是新成立的Crypto VC（2020年后成立）

值得注意的是，表现最好的4家Crypto VC中有3家是新成立的公司。鉴于活跃的早期加密货币基金中只有21%是新兴经理人，这可能意味着较新的基金比成熟的基金有更好的命中率。

总结

本文研究了339家Crypto VC的投资项目。数据显示，只有少数新兴和成熟的基金持续投资于高质量又被复投的公司。

当创始人考虑与哪些投资者合作时，重要的是要关注哪些VC有投资成功过早期公司的基金。作为项目的Buidler，我们也要注意为项目背书的投资方是否真的有慧眼识珠的能力。据统计，在种子轮融资后没有进行后续融资的公司极不可能继续取得成功--最好的早期基金可以通过有针对性的支持和与后期投资者的关系，帮助增加后续融资的可能性。

创始人还应该考虑与专注于早期阶段的基金（如Nascent, Maven 11, Stratos）和全生命周期基金（如Pantera, Polychain, a16z）合作的利弊。规模较小的专注于早期阶段的基金通常可以更多的参与，并拥有更多的带宽；规模较大的全生命周期基金拥有更多的资源，并将更好地随着时间的推移增加资本。

另一个考虑因素是公司的专业领域。一个投资者可能专注于基础设施，而其他投资者则专注于DeFi、游戏等。

数据来源

主要从Messari最近收购的Dove Metrics数据集收集筹资数据，并以CrunchBase和一些内部工具作为补充。根据我们使用的过滤器，有一些公司可能会从数据集中遗漏 - 例如，对于后续率数据，我们只包括在2021年投资期间至少进行了10次早期阶段投资的美国和欧洲基金。超过1500万美元的早期阶段融资不在统计范围，因为这些融资并不代表典型的早期阶段融资。

我曾经也是知识付费项目的忠实用户，经常在得到上购买课程和电子书阅读，在经常在Coursera、Datacamp上面订阅课程。我内心是知道，其实促使我付费的是看到海量的商业、心理学、方法技能和互联网方面的内容，而自己追赶不上信息变化的速度和内心觉得自己无知的焦虑。几年以后再回顾这些碎片化时间学习的“”知识“”带给我的作用，实际效用也很低。与其说是“知识”，这更像是一种普通的信息。

信息过载一直是困扰我们的问题，网上总是有看不完的碎片化信息（微博、Twitter、朋友圈、实时新闻、播客）、权威人士的Newsletter，还有付一点钱就可以获取权限的微信信息群、知识星球、专家研报、付费课程，以及“古老”方式---书籍阅读。我应该如何屏蔽掉无用的信息、哪些是无用的信息，如何提高信噪比呢？

这篇播客内容解答了我对“知识付费”效用的质疑，这种商业模式对获取知识途径改变的影响，以及什么才是有用的信息。

本文主张：**好的知识，应该是“免费的”。**文章以“知识付费”为案例，探讨知识商业化对个人和社会的侵蚀危害。

目录

1.知识付费的问题何在？

2.为何反对知识付费？

3.为何学习者捍卫知识付 费？

4.不知识付费会怎么样？

知识付费的问题何在？

为了更好地预见知识付费如何改变教育行业，我们可以类比到版税如何影响出版行业。知识付费的逻辑，其实和出版社支付作者版税是一个逻辑 --- 以最后的成交量决定收益。无论是直播、视频、音频、文章，最终的收益都是与订阅或者观看的人高度相关。

版税出现的时间大概是在18世纪才开始的，像东方孔子弟子编撰的著作论语、西方柏拉图的理想国其实都是没有版税的。在版税出现后，出版物呈几何数量级增长。商业化价值，也就是版税收入or销量，一直是影响出版商决定发行哪些刊物、如何包装刊物的重要因素。

我认为版税收入这个因素，其实是把书籍阅读的决定权交给了普通人，我或者说普罗大众喜闻乐见的书才会畅销、才会有发行权。但是，正如塔勒布在《黑天鹅》中写道，真正影响我们的不是我们已知的世界，而是那些未知的世界。

同理，知识付费异化了知识传播者，促使他们迎合知识接受者的需求，并不是促使他们写出真正好的有价值的作品。这里，李老师将这种异化拆分成以下几点：

1. 对目的表述的异化：

   在网上一个知识付费，当一个传授者想把他东西卖得好的时候，他多半会明确的关联他的讲述和一个实际目的的关系，强调知识的实用性，比如课程标语《如何用崇高的名义赚钱》、《怎样白赚一辆特斯拉》，《两年内月薪五万》，即便课程本身的内容没有那么实用主义。知识，往往对实际生活没有像包装的那样，有那么强的指引作用。

   而对知识的目的性表述，这种利用，在苏格拉底和康德的《判断力批判》来看，从美和道德的层面，就是不体面不道德的。 包括看过这些“实用主义”的知识后，也不会真的有人能实现两年内月薪五万、白赚一辆特斯拉、听了36节10几分钟一节的心理学通识，就能入门心理学。如果真的能实现，还要在大学花四年修一个学位何用？ 综上，目的表述的异化，将知识中善与美德的部分完全剔除、基本也是空口的承诺。

2. 对知识结构的单一异化

   公众对于知识结构的认知是学科化的，分为管理学、 心理学、经济学、金融学、计算机学等。这里，李老师举了两个反例：1）一个登山者，充满知识，但不会把知识按照学科分科存在脑海里，哪些是这个生理学，哪些是肌肉的力学、气象学、植物学，而是把知识内化为行为。2）哲学家，除了分析哲学和语言哲学是技术性哲学，但哲学是涵盖了很多知识，从整体把握，跨学科、跨门类知识的融会贯通。

   然而如今很多畅销课程，都是在以单一学科为划分标准，出售课程。这种单一的异化带来的问题是：学习者很难内化和整合到自己的生活实践行为里，只是在脑子里知道了一堆头头是道没用的知识，但是知识付费又倾向于这么做，单一划分，受众会认为这是获取知识最好最有效的途径，课程也很好卖。

3. 简化的异化

   畅销书都要冠上极简xxx的名字，《极简欧洲史》、《极简哲学》。任何一个对自己有要求的人，都不应该买这种开头为极简的书，难道我的脑子里就应该装一些极简的东西吗?难道不是应该装一些一手哲学精细阅读的东西？但是在这样一个信息爆炸的时代，大家都希望通过最少时间获取最有价值的信息，但这种动机，就是对获取知识方式的最大误解。

   有人会反驳，极简有什么问题，通过通俗的语言将科学门槛降低，让普通公众也能学习知识，有什么问题吗？哲学家提炼出那么多晦涩的术语，物自体、本源、主体性、悬置，不能用日常语言来表达吗？

   不能。

   用日常的语言把握学术的概念，是在将理论与实证误用。

   单一学术概念，在日常生活层面是不能被单一考虑的。比如，我们都知道“沉没成本”这个经济学基于理性人假设构建的理论范畴，指导我们做决策要向前看，不考虑“沉没成本”，但在生活中，我们并不能把决策简化到只考虑“沉没成本”，尤其是处在一段不利的感情或者工作关系中时。这种概念的学术和实际生活混用尤为发生在经济学和心理学，两个知识付费畅销领域。

   一个理论范畴的理解，需要一个理论体系的支撑，也就是语境、前提。学科需要术语化，因为只有在一个术语体系里才真正有价值。一旦理论范畴模糊，用通俗语言讲出来，就丧失了本身的价值，不如不了解。

4. Know-How的异化

   原本知识的作用之一是为学习者带来更多的求知欲，继续深入探索的语言，但是《xxx就够了》、《极简xxx》、《xxx干货》等标题暗含着这篇文章已经有充足的内容满足你的求知心理。在求知过程中，一旦你认为自己所把握的知识是“充足”的时候，就会削减你继续求知的动力，让你停止求知。讲授者为了推销自己的东西，更愿意将自己的产品描述为充足的，而实际上充不充足我们不知道，但常常会为自己学到的片面知识沾沾自喜。

以上四种异化，对目的表述的异化、对知识结构的异化、对简化的异化和对Know-how的异化，都通往一个共同的目的：好卖，好接受。

知识付费最流行的题材是不是应该被教授的？

知识付费最好卖的题材就是“人生攻略”，教你如何达到一个目的，比如如何成为一个沟通高手、如何买房、如何升职加薪、做投资、如何搭讪男、女朋友搞定一个人。比如：

1. 亲子课程：满足父母比较扭曲的心理，释放其关怀的压力。虚伪之处在于很多父母对知识毫无兴趣，基本上不看书，却反而认为自己的孩子应该多读书，在网上买好多亲子的课程，强迫孩子去听，而这些知识正是被异化的知识，反而对孩子产生不良的影响。如果父母真的对孩子有心，应该自己责任心多一点。真的对教育儿童有好奇，就去学学发展心理学。

2. 受害者题材：我大概在2016-2018年的时候对Knowyourself这个公众号平台的文章非常有共鸣，不过后来逐渐意识到里面的营销心理，以及看到几次文章贩卖“大龄剩女“等社会焦虑后取关了。他们之前在豆瓣上推出过“童年创伤的心理修复”这个课，标题起得太好了，暗含读者童年遭受过不公正的待遇。记得今年脱口秀大会童漠男也聊到过这个话题，中国人的受害者心理太普遍了，在婚姻、家庭、工作、社会，我们很多人都很喜欢把自己带入一个受害者角色。因为在我们这个文化里面，有一种受害者道德水平更高、道德地位更高的这么一个先天假设在里面。听这种课程很“爽”，因为这其实就是一个对外释放责任的过程。

3. 单一学科极简快速入门：上面讲过了

4. 升职加薪类：XXX能力、XXX技能其实最终都指向一个东西”升职加薪“

5. 资产阶级品味：沾文化相关，古典乐入门、宋词鉴赏……（当消遣倒是无妨，但是学20节课就能他提高艺术敏感度，我持怀疑态度）

这些目的本身都漏掉类了一个环节，但这个环节恰恰又是最重要的，那就是这些目的，都是未经审视的目的。

大部分人不去审视这些问题，是因为底层的根本信念是我不必去审视这些目的，我几乎是一个普通人，因为我是一个普通人，所以我要去搞定我的老板和同事、要去考公务员，要得到一个男、女朋友。但我们忽略的是很多事情的目的就在过程之中。比如搭讪术，谈恋爱的行为就是其目的本身，而不是最终获得一个异性的青睐，当我们用一系列手段和话术去接近一个人的时候，感情本身就已经异化了。同理，事业本身的目的就誉于事业本身。当然，我们也都会认为钱是一切事情的目的，只要能得到钱，什么手段不重要，但这里又要思考一下， 有钱了之后又怎么样了，就是消费、同辈荣耀感等（这里的反驳例举我也没有想得很充分）。

第二个问题是人生攻略往往指向零和博弈。人生攻略的很多内容都是关于如何“让我赢”“让别人输”的知识，现实社会已经足够零和博弈，足够尔虞我诈了，我们真的不需要再去花钱学习这些只能让社会更加糟糕的知识了。这种攻略本身也暗含了极端自由主义倡导的：相信每个人只要自私的在一个合理的法治框架下谋求自己的利益，这个社会的利益就会最大化。设想一下如果公司里每一个人都学过如何沟通的话术、怎么升职加薪的课程，你愿意去这种公司上班吗，而且这种情况下，学习的话术等于白学。

第三个问题是求知阶段论：我们特别喜欢谈“初级阶段”，我们老觉得自己处在“初级阶段”，所以很多东西都是可以接受的，这是对辩证法极大的误用和迷思。对于个体来说，想要了解一个学科，不一定要靠知识付费的xxx学科通识内容来入门，完全可以直接去看那些稍微严肃点的经典教材来完成这一阶段。当代国内哲学大师陈嘉映、邓晓芒学习的那个时代没有知识付费，没有各种二手的研究材料，对于他们来讲，完成初级入门就是直接读《资本论》。我在本科哲学导论的课程上，必读作品也是像霍布斯的《利维坦》、尼采的《查拉图斯特拉如是说》、柏拉图的《对话录》，虽然有些晦涩、有些难懂，但是经历了自学和解读的过程，这几本书也是在我记忆里停留最久的。类比经济学的《曼昆经济学原理》vs 《牛奶可乐经济学》、《魔鬼经济学》

为什么我们必须反对知识付费？

什么样的人在捍卫知识付费：

1. 知识付费平台，情有可原

2. 知识的传播者会捍卫知识付费，因为在用知识赚钱。但我们仔细想一下，其实在过去，知识的传播者是不怎么赚钱的，苏格拉底、孔子收徒弟基本都是不收取费用的， 而谁在收钱呢？古希腊的智者学派，收钱教人做辩论术和修辞学。这真是2000多年了没有啥变化，那个时候人们要去参加公民政治生活去辩论，智者学派就通过教辩论术赚钱。但是2000多年以后我们记住了哪种传播者？

3. 知识接受者:花了钱，有禀赋效用。花了时间又花了钱很难愿意承认这个东西不好。

知识付费对我们的危害是什么呢？带来的是普通人 “生活的侵蚀”和“劣币驱逐良币”的乱象

我们看20部烂片会提高我们对于电影的审美吗？还是会让我们在平常更容易接受烂片并乐在其中，并慢慢认为好电影需要花费很大的功夫才能去欣赏理解，因此也看不了多少？同理，看20本烂书就能让你看得进去《纯粹理性批判》，还是看完之后更不容易看进去《纯粹理性批判》?

没有人应当去追求成为“普通人”，当你使用“普通人”这个词的时候，你所描绘的其实并不是一个具有明确概念的人群，你其实想说的就是“别给我责任，别给我加负担，我就想做一个纯粹的消费者”，而这本身就有问题。

一旦我们捍卫知识付费，我们就是在让更多人不可能接触到真正的知识，而是满足于一些易懂、简单的概念。这些概念也不会提高受众的审美品味、阅读能力，反而是在训练大奥只能接受短期反馈的东西。一旦回馈周期拉长，稍微晦涩一点，你根本就看不进去，也看不下去。所以一旦我们让他们捍卫知识付费，就在生产越来越多这种只能接受短期刺激的人。没有人看了20本烂书之后就会想去读《纯粹理性批判》，也没有人听了一大堆经济学入门知识后就想去研究计量经济学，读经济学论文。

第二点，这种不加审视的，以过度宣传、过度承诺的方式投入市场的知识付费，其实是增加了信息爆炸的力度，占用普通手中的精力和阅读时间。当微信阅读量可以变现后，我们将会面对读不完的垃圾文章，在垃圾中寻找价值点，甚至把垃圾当做宝。

第三，知识付费本身是不道德的，我同意往往越重要的东西越不应该付费。我们不能够想象我们为空气和水可以极高的价格让人们去获得。当然你现在交水费，但你交水费其实交的不是资源费用，你交的更多是净水的费用。就如果你比如说生活在一个水质很好的湖边，你从湖里打水是不用交钱。做36节哲学入门课的人，在里面信誓旦旦滴说哲学像空气一样重要，每个人都应该接触哲学，让生活变得更好， 那为什么你的课还要200多块钱？越是生死攸关的东西越不应该商品化。

而且，一首知识其实很便宜，我买一本纯粹理性批判、一本会饮篇、一本牛津通识读本也就20-30块钱，这钱基本就是给书商的印刷费。但做这些知识的二手传播者却要单价200-300元？我们用维基百科从来不花钱，然后把维基百科的内容拿去商业化却要收别人几十块钱，这不是盗窃吗？哪怕是作者花时间去消化、整理、做成课程，这个形式会比康德、黑格尔等哲学家形成自己的思想著作还值钱吗？大部分知识传播都不是强原创性的，就像这篇文章，我要免费发出来，因为大部分都不是我的原创内容，我形成这些观点的基础都是不收费的。

不知识付费会怎样？

作为知识传播者，应该扮演的角色是链接问题和知识，而不是基础知识的提供者。诚然，我们不能要求一个人高中毕业之后就自觉低阅读所有重要的个学科书籍，并自动化形成自己的逻辑，但是读懂更深奥的知识应该是社会教育、义务教育的任务。如果一个人基础教育完成的不好，再来一次简明入门，其实是没有价值的。也就是说，假设基础教育部分没有促使人获得那么好的基础能力，他现在读曼昆经济学有点吃力，知识传播者现在应该做的是用一个更简单的方式再给他入门一次，还是让他获得更强的动机去啃曼昆经济学？当然是后者。

知识传播者的价值在于提出好的问题，并且指出只是在解决问题中的重要性。要传达的是从对于个人生活和社会来说，问题何在？这个问题和知识系统的关系是什么？当你真正把这个问题说清楚之后，你一定要告诉受众，我只能说明白问题和知识的关系，我讲的东西绝不充分的能够解决这句问题，也不充分的让你能够分析和理解这些问题。如果你要真的去理解这些问题和解决问题的话，你必须去看那些书。

我想到大学的时候哲学教授Oran Magal上课的时候引用Zen Buddhism的一句话："I am a finger pointing to the moon. Don’t look at me; look at the moon." 最好的教学方式也是为学生支出通往月亮的路，而不是直接把月亮简化后端到学生面前。

那知识传播者如何盈利呢？这里维基百科的捐赠模式就是一个很好的例子

第一，由于是捐赠，他没有给任何人的使用提供门槛。捐与不捐、捐多少都不会影响受众获取知识的权限。

第二，如果捐赠本身不成为这个知识提供者本身写之提供知识的动机，这是我觉得维基百科特别好的，也就是说维基百科并没有把这个钱返给这个词条的写作者。如果维基百科把捐赠的钱返给这个词条写作者，我们会发现对这个词条写作者极其异化，一定是异化的。

我自己也一直在坚持为喜欢的内容创作者付费，很多优质内容的创作者都会在捐赠平台上有打赏入口比如国外的Patreon.com,国内的爱发电平台。都可以鼓励自己喜欢的创作者创作更多优质内容。

本文借李厚辰老师的播客节目《告别知识付费》对知识商业化做了深入辨析，愿我们都能以更好的方式，以更美的、更深刻的、更系统的、更有真正效果的方式去求知

这次要介绍一个长期位于Metaverse相关项目市值前十名，币价处于低位的非游戏项目（终于不用自己跑了），Enjin，代币为ENJ。Enjin是一个游戏NFT开发与发行平台，为开发者、项目方、用户三方提供了一个综合平台类产品，用于链游的开发、交易、货币化和营销。

关注这个项目是因为自身工作和Gamefi领域相关。对于开发平台和工具类产品，总是会让我联想到淘金热时期卖锤子会赚钱的这个类比。

我认为Enjin是一个非常有潜力的Gamefi项目。有种闷声做技术创新的大佬既视感。而且经过和先发竞品对比后那些我发现Enjin的不足之处，在最近项目方披露的活动和新闻里发现都在逐渐改善。

害，想到一块去了不是？

本文我将从公司和团队、产品生态发展、代币表现和与同类竞品对比四个方面介绍Enjin平台。

项目亮点：

1）创始人是ERC-1155代币标准的发起人，该标准对链游NFT的开发与分发有重要意义

2）Enjin平台不仅是以太坊二层扩容解决方案，还拥有服务于开发者、项目方和玩家的完整产品生态

3）目前正在从以太坊向波卡链过渡，Enjin将成为可以实现多链并行、高速海量交易的开源链游NFT开发平台

4）在自身短板上看到项目方在积极改善，比如找web2知名游戏公司Square Enix合作NFT出圈，为平台代币创造更多的使用场景等

公司背景

Enjin在早期做游戏社区平台时期积累了丰富的玩家和社区运营经验，在链游兴起前期转型为链游NFT开发与发行平台

Enjin是一个基于以太坊的NFT交易平台。2009年成立了Enjin社区平台，曾支持魔兽世界、星球大战、英雄联盟等大型游戏创建公会。游戏社区运营领域积累了丰富的经验，拥有超过25万个游戏社区和2000万的注册玩家

2017年，在链游兴起前期，转型为NFT开发与发行平台。ICO阶段募资1890万美元，也和微软（Azure ）、三星、Minecraft合作出过NFT和游戏内区块链接入口

目前一共完成了4轮融资，共计融资额6200万美元，投资方包括：Blockchain.com, Crypto.com, Fenbuhsi capital，Hashed（Source：Crunchbase）

创始人中很值一提的是CTO Witek Radomski是以太坊代币标准 ERC 1155的发起人。ERC 1155对Gamefi项目有重要意义（Source：巴比特）：

• 现有的代币标准需要为每一种道具类型（即盾牌、皮肤、药水、龙宝宝等）制定单独的智能合约。今天，视频游戏在某些情况下有数十万种道具。如果要求游戏工作室为每个物品创建一个智能合约，这将非常昂贵且难以管理，且区块链对此也难以承载。ERC-1155允许一个智能合约生产和管理无限数量的道具项目。因此，游戏工作室创建、跟踪和管理项目要容易得多，另外，他们可以节省高达90%的gas费。

• 现有的代币标准，批量传输功能有限。而ERC-1155允许用户在1次交易中向多个接受者发送任意数量的物品项目。

产品生态

Enjin在以太链上为游戏NFT提供了从基础设施层到应用层的完善生态。目前正在逐步向波卡链转移，实现多链并行高速海量交易。

在早期阶段，Enjin建立了Jumpnet，一个以太坊Layer 2 的解决方案，采用PoA（权威证明机制），免Gas fee，提高交易量、降低交易费、而且低碳环保。

• PoA证明：结合PoS权益证明和PoW工作量证明。验证节点需要先行通过身份验证，并通过这个身份来获得担保网络的权利，进而换取区块奖励。优点是可以防止具有强大算力但仅支持少量股权的攻击者，但略微中心化，通常不能保证抗审查力

从去年开始Enjin开发了新的建立在波卡链的交易平台Efinity，Efinity 在其设计上为 NFT 的互操作性和交易体验做了一些针对性的优化，其中一个重要特点是，所有符合 ERC-20、ERC-721 和 ERC-1155 的 Token 可以通过跨链桥导入 Efinity，以此实现 NFT 的跨链流动。从2021年12月拍下波卡链平行卡槽，到今年3月Efinity正式上线波卡链。可以实现6秒出块时间，每秒200万次NFT铸造。

Enjin也有1亿美元的Metaverse生态基金和Enjin Adopter Program。基金现阶段主要用于帮助合作的NFT项目构筑在Efinity上，实现跨链项目转移、扶持平台上的游戏开发、基础设建设以及元宇宙领域的探索项目；AdopterProgram用于孵化项目的种子轮融资，比如Enjin生态中的EnjinStarter launchpad，就是Enjin自己的投资孵化项目。除了EnjinStarter以外，Forest Knight、Kingdom Karnage以及Spinterland都是Enjin Adopter program中的项目

发展阶段

Enjin生态下大部分产品处在Beta测试即将上线阶段，今年的目标是打造开源多链游戏和NFT综合平台

Efinity

2021年12月成功拍下波卡链第六个平行卡槽，今年3月正式上线波卡链，目前已经实现的功能有NFT铸造、EFI token交易以及开发者钱包管理

正在探索Efinity和ETH的跨链协议、EFI公共治理、添加GraphQL的API

NFT.io

Beta测试已经完成，预计8月上线以太链，支持ERC721 和ERC1155，可以连接以太链大部分主流钱包（Metamask、Wallet Connect等）。相比于Opensea，NFT.io 可以实现NFT竞拍、卖家展示页自定义功能

计划登陆Polygon、Efinity、BSC链，将支持从其他交易市场导入NFT、在NFT.io铸造NFT，以及奖励和质押功能

Enjin钱包

目前的1.0版本支持多链、多家去中心化交易所，内嵌谷歌浏览器、扫描二维码接收NFT、联系人地址管理

即将推出的2.0版本在测试中，预计近期发行，会支持比较大型的NFT项目在钱包内管理，比如BYAC、Azuki、Doodles

Enjin平台

计划打造成开源平台，Beta版本测试中。开放源代码意味着进一步去中心化，平台的发展从官方驱动转为社区驱动

代币情况

官方代币有ENJ和EFI两个。ENJ在以太链通行，用于数字资产铸造；EFI在波卡链通行，用于去中心化生态建设

ENJ

ENJ代币一直以来都是Gamefi项目代币市值排名前十名，目前上线了多家大型交易平台（Binance、Kucoin、Okex、Huobi 和Uniswap、Pancakeswap等去中心化交易所）。

ENJ总发行量10亿，市面流通约8.9亿，目前单币价格$0.69,发行价格$0.03,历史最高价格$4.85 （Source：Coinmarketcap）。

根据持币地址追踪看出，前十名ENJ持有者的持有量占总量47.48%，代币分布较为分散（对比Axie 97.16%，Sandbox 88%），能够更好地规避砸盘、抛售的风险 （Source：Etherscan）。

EFI

Efinity 链代币EFI计划用于链上和跨链资产交易、奖励生态贡献者和社区治理、目前单币价格$0.17,略低于发行价格$0.2，历史最高价格$2。持币地址距离去年9月大约有67%的增长（Source：Coinmarketcap, EFI whitepaper）。

竞品分析

相比于更知名的先发游戏NFT平台 ImmutableX，Enjin的优势在于游戏技术开发和自研跨链生态。未来还需要探索更多的代币使用场景、挖掘更多链游合作伙伴

Immutable X是以太坊二层扩容解决方案，使用第三方Stark ware提供的zk-stark技术；而Enjin目的是要打造跨链游戏和NFT综合平台，所有技术均为自研成果。

Enjin生态中，除了基础设施平台、代币、用于NFT买卖的交易平台外，还有自研钱包、游戏Launchpad、二维码生成器以及两条平行链。

相比于Immutable X 目前仅支持一种Typescript 开发者语言，Enjin支持Java、C#、C++、Gotdot游戏引擎，正在开发Unity、Unreal

美中不足的是Enjin平台目前游戏不够出圈，代币用途只有铸造和交易NFT。 Immutable X上有比较知名的用户体量比较大的游戏比如Gods Unchained、Illuvium、Guild of Guardians，为其贡献了绝大部分NFT交易量，而Enjin目前还没有用户体量较大的游戏出现，毕竟其生态中大多数产品仍然处于Beta阶段。

通过近三个月的官方youtube发布的项目开发进展来看，项目方也在增加平台代币的使用场景，比如奖励之前参与波卡链众贷的钱包地址、用于社区治理等等

此外值得一提的是，上个月Square Enix和Enjin达成合作Square Enix的最终幻想系列将在波卡链上发行NFT。具体执行方式是Square Enix将于2023年春季首次发布实体卡包，每个卡包内有6张收藏卡，售价为4美元，持有者可以在Enjin去年推出的Efinity平台上依代码兑换相关的NFT。算是Enjin在链游领域比较出圈的一次合作事件。

总体来看Enjin作为链游开发平台， 为开发者和游戏项目提供了很多技术便利，比如ERC1155代币标准、多种开发语言、NFT交易二维码、开源游戏开发平台等。面对ImmutableX、Ronin、Flow等对手的竞争，Enjin仍然有巨大的潜力和技术壁垒，期待看到更多游戏开发者入驻、完善Efinity链的平台建设。

不过我还有一些没有想明白的点，比如为什么要从以太链像波卡链并存过渡转移而不是共存？以太链不是也要合并升级了？有种放弃大城市和周边卫星城市转移去小城市发展的感觉呢？接下来要多研究layer 2解决方案和波卡链的优势及未来计划吧。

参考资料：

https://assets-global.website-files.com/60f93c8e038fc32afa829f7d/627506c201c2035d3b7c7312_Ecosystem%20Report%202022%20May.pdf

https://www.8btc.com/article/539316

https://www.theblockbeats.info/news/29329?search=1

https://www.btcfans.com/zh-tw/article/85681

https://efinity.io/whitepaper/introduction