May 23, Yu Jianing, the director of industrial economic institute of the information center of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), indicated that “neither blockchain nor bitcoin is a bubble” the 50 Peoples in Blockchain talk show.

Yu was asked about whether he agrees with Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma’s viewpoint on blockchain and bitcoin that ‘blockchain is not a bubble, but bitcoin is’. Yu stated that he might disagree with Ma’s argument. In his opinion, neither blockchain nor bitcoin is a bubble.

He demonstrated that, blockchain is a kind of distributed and immutable database technology, although it is also a carrier for the new type of digital assets, after all, it is  essentially a kind of technology. How come a technology becomes a bubble? Blockchain was first introduced in 2008 and the technology has come a long way over the past decade. A bubble should bursts during such a long time. Blockchain gains more and more attention and recognition due to its inherent, unique and subversive value.

Moreover, bitcoin is a kind of virtual digital product, or digital assets. However, this kind of digital asset is quite different from digital credits, bitcoin has its own substantial value. Yu listed 3 points:

First of all, bitcoin has a specific rules of mining while release traditional digital credits can be quite random. Bitcoin’s code dicates that there is a 21 million coin cap, created as a way to introduce digital scarcity to the cryptocurrency which enhance its value.

Secondly, bitcoin is an independent digital asset as it does not relies on any specific centralized platform. The distributed underlying database may prove the ownership of this cryptocurrency while traditional digital credits need to rely on a specific platform to identify its ownership. Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator of bitcoin, disappears science 2010 but bitcoin network still works quit well.

Finally, bitcoin holders have more autonomy. Traditional digital credits tend to be limited in their usage but to the independent digital assets, bitcoin holders can choose the disposal method with more flexibly.

In conclusion, Yu believes that neither blockchain nor bitcoin is a bubble, people may seek solutions for data storage and privacy security from blockchain and bitcoin also has its value which may contubute to the economic system.