Some criticisms of Comrade Meng Yan: Talk less about doctrines and solve more problems

Author: Liu Honglin

Some criticisms of Comrade Meng Yan.

Today, Comrade Meng Yan published a long and eloquent article, expressing his emotion over the passage of the GENIUS Act by the United States, saying that this was the Bretton Woods Conference and the Nixon Shock in modern monetary history, and asserting that the "super-sovereign network" of the US dollar stablecoin has already incorporated the world into its system, and other countries are facing the beginning of a battle to defend their monetary sovereignty.

The article is moving, magnificent and broad-minded. I was a little dazed when I read it, as if I saw a prophet who had traveled through two centuries and was worried about the future of the entire human financial system.

But after calming down, I can't help but ask: Who did you write this article for?

If you are writing for the Chinese government, then you may have underestimated the country's strategic investment in blockchain in recent years. Since 2019, when the central bank proposed "blockchain as an important breakthrough for independent innovation of core technologies", it has promoted the implementation of DC/EP while clarifying the importance of blockchain from an institutional level; distributed ledger platforms with state-owned backgrounds have emerged in an endless stream, and alliance chains and industrial chain projects have blossomed everywhere.

Admittedly, not every project is reliable, but the accusation of "ignoring blockchain and falling behind" is probably not true.

If it is written for the industry, especially Chinese Internet entrepreneurs, it is even more unreasonable. Chinese Internet companies have never stopped exploring the direction of Web3 in recent years: NFT, public chain, wallet, and the entire metaverse... They have tried all kinds of things and suffered heavy losses. But at least they have never been absent. The reality is that under the double pressure of compliance restrictions and vague overseas policies, the paths that can really move from experimentation to implementation and from products to applications are very limited. We can criticize execution and vague sense of direction, but you can't say that they are not doing it.

If anyone really needs to say sorry to blockchain, it should be those financial scams that use the name of blockchain.

In the end, the person who was most moved by this article might be the author himself. He lamented that "blockchain needs to be understood again", lamented that "we once missed the opportunity", and even hoped to "say sorry to blockchain" - it sounded sincere and emotional.

But the question is: If one really loves this land as deeply and affectionately as the article expresses, shouldn't one get involved, work in the fields, and build it in a positive direction?

It is so easy to discuss philosophy from across an ocean.

I am not against criticism, nor am I against creating pressure at the level of public opinion, and I am not even against expressing some emotions occasionally. However, the development of the industry has never been driven by one or two emotional articles, but by those who work silently in the field and lay the infrastructure slowly.

"Talk less about theories and solve more problems" is what the industry needs most now.

The real question has never been "Are we aware of this technological revolution?" but "Do we have a way to make this revolution safe, practical and reliable within the existing institutional environment?"

This is the difficulty.

Many of the phenomena mentioned in the article, such as the slowdown in the pace of the Australian central bank after the pilot, the vacillation of Singapore's policies, and the reluctance to implement internal deductions by Wall Street banks, don't they indicate that this is not a "procrastination disease unique to China", but a global problem of complex game between technology and regulation, innovation and order?

Given all this background, it would be too hasty to attribute everything to "pretending to be asleep" or "collective misjudgment of technology."

In our industry, too many people have used "sentiments" to package their own views. Today they talk about currency revolution, tomorrow they talk about sovereignty challenges, and the day after tomorrow they talk about the transformation of civilization. But if you really ask: Are you a product developer? Or a compliance developer? Or a low-level developer? Many people do nothing. At most, they receive a few friends who work on the blockchain in the Bay Area, watch a few overseas conferences, and then come back to write an article about "The Strategic Lack of Global Governance."

This article is not without value. It makes more people aware of the international geopolitical significance of the US dollar stablecoin, which is a good thing. But if it is really as the article says, with the country and the people in mind, then I hope to do something practical like many entrepreneurs who quietly set up compliant exchanges and compliant stablecoins in Hong Kong, and like the technical teams that are working on on-chain payment infrastructure, even if it is just a small step.

Because what this industry lacks most is never articles, but applications; not shouting, but systems; not emotions, but construction.

Say sorry to blockchain? It is better to say thank you to the developers who are still working and those who are willing to start positive businesses.

We can't waste any more time on self-indulgent sentimentality.