Lianhe Zaobao | Sun Yat-sen and Web3 Digital Reform

By: Suji Yan, founder and president of Mask Network

Original source: Lianhe Zaobao

When I went to Singapore to participate in the Digital Technology Forum at the end of August, the author visited the Sun Yat-sen Nanyang Memorial Hall. I wrote this article to commemorate the revolutionary sages' persistent belief in the republic.

May the spirit of Sun Yat-sen and Tongmenghui shine for the way forward for colleagues in the Web3 industry .

Since the establishment of the China Alliance, the revolutionaries led by Sun Yat-sen launched 10 uprisings until the 1911 Revolution of 1911. The biggest cost of an armed uprising is the loss of blood or life, but at the same time the cost to the economy is huge. According to the statistics of Jiang Yongjing, an expert in modern Taiwan history, the revolutionary funds consumed by the League will be about 1.4 million Hong Kong dollars at that time. Faced with huge capital needs and uncertain fate, the revolutionaries have extremely limited financing channels. In order to meet the funding gap of the armed uprising, Sun Yat-sen issued bonds several times in the name of guilds, companies and revolutionary governments, and went all over the world to raise funds for the armed uprisings.

There are many parallels between Sun Yat-sen's revolution and the Web3 digital revolution .

• First of all, the China Alliance created by Sun Yat-sen can be compared to the DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) that is indispensable in the Web3 reform. The China Alliance DAO is composed of multiple sub-DAOs, with a unified charter and philosophy, and each local bureau disseminates the revolutionary idea on its own based on the local situation. This can not only ensure the unity of the action goals, but also avoid the rigid course of action.
• Secondly, Sun Yat-sen realized in the process of issuing bonds that the vast overseas Chinese group, especially the overseas Chinese laborers in Nanyang, strongly supported the revolutionary cause. Some even eat a meal a day to save money to donate to the revolutionary cause.

Taking "grassroots" as the object of the revolution, virtual assets are very similar to this. A token can be divided into 1/10^18 at most, and more enthusiastic users can participate in this project with lower cost and investment. The digital revolution.

Web3 can be said to be a large-scale democratic experiment, and the content of the experiment is to observe whether token holders can reach consensus in extremely decentralized governance rights. Sun Yat-sen innovatively used the "industrial rights" of the new government as collateral to improve the creditworthiness of the bonds.

Don't forget, in 1911, "starting a business" was still a very pioneering thing . Taking "industrial rights" as collateral, firstly, it can attract more revolutionaries who agree with the theory of "industry to rejuvenate the country", and secondly, after the establishment of the industry, it can play a role of benefiting the country and the people. For example, many well-known Web3 projects will provide special rights for early supporters to attract and reward more enthusiastic users to participate in the construction of the project.

At the same time, Mr. Zhongshan deeply understands that seeking reform not only requires fundraising, but also needs to increase publicity and public opinion . Therefore, during his exile abroad, he simultaneously founded several revolutionary newspapers to publicize his ideas. Although most of these newspapers and periodicals were closed soon, they contributed greatly to awakening the overseas Chinese community and understanding the necessity of reform. Sun believes that "there are senators in the crowd, and there are those who wake up later. Those who are harbingers must move in and move forward together." In other words, it is the responsibility of a few social pioneers to guide public opinion, and using newspapers and magazines as a public opinion tool to educate and awaken the people is a good thing. He is active in the purpose of running the newspaper.

In November 1905, Sun Yat-sen first put forward the idea of the Three People's Principles of nationality, civil rights and people's livelihood in the "Minbao" founded in Tokyo in November 1905. It is not difficult to find that in the release of revolutionary newspapers and the wave of Web3 reform, entrepreneurs issued NFTs (non-fungible tokens) to expand community identity and publicize project vision, which are similar in purpose.

Just as Sun Yat-sen ran a newspaper, now Web3 entrepreneurs use NFT as an introduction, attracting a large number of people with common ideals to hold NFT, form a community, and promote the vision of the next project. These NFT owners can be distributed in different communities to preach, create public opinion, and further publicize the project.

Web3 and Smart Nation Project

Singapore has been working tirelessly to build the world's first Smart Nation . In the Smart Nation 2025 construction strategy, government services have changed from "the government for you" to "the government and you", showing the decentralization of powers, encouraging enterprises, people and the government to work together to create value, and using open and innovative ideas to attract All sectors of society participate in the construction of a smart country. This is very much in line with Sun Yat-sen's vision of issuing bonds back then, and to build a blueprint for an ideal and smart country of freedom, equality and fraternity in the long run.

Therefore, when evaluating blockchain projects, various government departments should not be blinded by the risks of digital assets, but as Ethereum founder Vitalik said in his personal blog, using the characteristics of blockchain technology to establish Create a new consensus and trust mechanism among the people, enterprises and the government .

In addition, the author also believes that if blockchain technology can be used to expand the digital land area and establish digital citizenship, it will be of great reference value for Singapore, which is a highly developed society but has a limited actual land area. Applying to become a digital citizen does not affect nationality or right of abode, but after a successful application, it will make it easier for the applicant to register a company and apply for a bank account in Singapore. This move will be attractive to tech industry founders, blockchain entrepreneurs and digital nomads.

Estonia, located in Europe, launched an e-citizenship program as early as 2014 , but since this program is not based on blockchain technology, there are still security risks of information leakage. Identity systems based on blockchain technology do not need to share sensitive information directly or explicitly. Conversely, electronic data can be shared and authenticated through cryptography.

In addition, the recent strong development of zero-knowledge proof technology in the blockchain industry can share and authenticate identity information without revealing any information. This also shows that in the near future, the zero-knowledge proof mechanism can be used to perform identity authentication without exposing personal information .

The digital revolution driven by Web3 is unstoppable, and Singapore, as a highly digital society, has a great first-mover advantage in fully embracing blockchain technology. It is my fervent hope that I can participate in this historical process and use my strengths to witness another digital transformation of Singapore.