The Development History and Future Outlook of Blockchain Technology

The launch of the Ethereum mainnet in 2015 marked the beginning of a new era for smart contracts, laying the foundation for the diverse applications of blockchain technology beyond Bitcoin. Since then, blockchain is no longer limited to being the distributed ledger technology behind Bitcoin, but carries more expectations for decentralization and trusted collaboration.

The natural compatibility of Blockchain with capital circulation has led traditional financial sectors to be the first to pay attention and attempt to apply it to optimize processes such as fund settlement and clearing. In 2015, a report from the World Economic Forum showed that several well-known financial institutions expressed great interest in blockchain technology, focusing on exploring its application potential in the settlement process. By the end of 2017, a technology giant announced a blockchain collaboration project covering multiple fields, predicting that more and more industries would be directly impacted by blockchain in the future.

From 2017 to 2021, various industries experienced a wave of "blockchain innovation craze." In 2018, a survey of 600 executives from 15 regions worldwide showed that over 84% of respondents indicated that their companies had engaged in the blockchain field to some extent. However, these explorations were mostly focused on "permissioned ledgers," essentially using blockchain for data sharing and tracking within the enterprise or among partners. Yet, constrained by the existing digital infrastructure of enterprises and the lack of blockchain governance, the technical potential is difficult to fully unleash.

"Governance" has been one of the most unpopular topics in the blockchain community, but over time, people have gradually realized that governance is not only the key to driving the mature application of blockchain but also a necessary condition. Reports from several international organizations indicate that for blockchain to reach maturity, continuous efforts are needed in non-technical areas such as standardization and regulatory frameworks, in addition to technological breakthroughs.

When "governance" becomes the main theme, the application path of Blockchain gradually shifts from the idealized "revolution" and "disruption" to an "evolutionary integration" with the existing system. After 2021, people's focus on Blockchain has returned to the financial sector, specifically to "tokenization." Recent practices in tokenization emphasize the introduction of Blockchain based on the advantages of the existing financial system, while also paying attention to compliance and risk control.

Over the past decade, although various industries have been enthusiastic about exploring Blockchain for business innovation, most applications still revolve around "transparency" and "public ledger," lacking truly irreplaceable core functionalities. In many scenarios, Blockchain serves more as a complement to existing database technologies rather than a complete transformation.

The development path of Blockchain often gives people a feeling of "scratching an itch through the boot." No one denies its value as a technological innovation, but in many industries outside of the gray market, Blockchain has not truly met core needs. Many seemingly cutting-edge attempts inevitably fall into the trap of "innovation for the sake of innovation." To this day, while people's expectations for Blockchain have spread from finance to various industries, they have ultimately returned to finance—after all, people recognize that finance may be the field with the most practical demand and implementation space for Blockchain.

In recent years, Hong Kong's policy support for stablecoin legislation and RWA tokenization indicates its attempt to find a balance between compliance and innovation to attract high-quality digital asset projects and consolidate its position as an international financial hub. However, this direction also faces challenges. Taking stablecoins as an example, the global market often presents a "winner-takes-all" pattern, with US dollar stablecoins dominating the retail sector for a long time. For HKD stablecoins to break through, clearer differentiation positioning and supporting ecosystem construction are needed to fully leverage Hong Kong's unique advantages as an offshore financial center.

Whether Blockchain can emerge from the "scratching the surface" predicament in Hong Kong still requires time to verify, but at least, the direction has become increasingly clear. With the gradual improvement of regulations and in-depth pilot programs, if Blockchain can be organically combined with the advantages of traditional financial systems under controllable risks, Hong Kong still hopes to occupy an important position in the global digital financial landscape, truly becoming a "bridge" and a "testing ground."