【Bitpush Biography Series】Elastos Co-founder Sunny Feng Han : One Person, Multiple Careers

Sunny Feng Han is the co-founder of Elastos, Visiting researcher of Columbia University, iCenter tutor of Tsinghua University, Former blockchain consultant of Huawei Research Institute, Secretary General of Asian DACA Blockchain Association, Chinese partner of Oracle Education Foundation, Lifetime VIP Member of Bitcoin Foundation, Author of the best-selling books Blockchain: Quantum Wealth, and Blockchain: From Digital Currency to Credit Society.

First Experience of Starting a Business

In the 1990s, the Internet has just sprung up in China, and entrepreneurship gradually became popular. Sunny Feng Han, who was studying for PhD in quantum mechanics at Tsinghua University, also joined the entrepreneurial tide.

He founded Yunzhou which was said to be " China's first O2O education website." In 1998, its annual income was 1/3 that of New Oriental, the most popular education institution at that time. He soon earned his first bucket of gold.

Later, Han fell into a period of confusion in his life. He could no longer feel the excitement of being in a business and wanted to continue studying quantum mechanics. You can’t have things both ways, so his business began to decline. In 2013, He had to resell his company at a low price and owed a lot of debt. At the same time, he got divorced and left the villa to his daughter and ex-wife.

He described his situation at that time: the budget for staying in a hotel in Zhongguancun was "no more than one hundred yuan a day"; cannot even afford a high-speed rail ticket.

Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

When he was nearly 50 years old, he went back to Tsinghua University to study quantum mechanics with his tutor Zhang Li. By chance, he listened to a speech about Bitcoin by Dun Di, an alumnus of Tsinghua University and CEO of Taiyiyun. It aroused his interest in Bitcoin and blockchain.

Interest is the best teacher. Later Han began to learn Bitcoin knowledge online, studied Satoshi Nakamoto's papers on Bitcoin, and actively participated in various lectures. With his background in quantum mechanics, soon he formed his own knowledge framework.

At a gathering hold by Tsinghua alumni, He explained Bitcoin to people as the keynote speaker, which was well received. Encouraged by this, he continued to delve into the underlying logic of Bitcoin and blockchain. He also asked Wang Xiaoyun, professor of Tsinghua University and cryptography expert, for cryptography knowledge. Combining with his own understanding, he wrote an article which became a must-read introduction to Bitcoin for many people.

With humble character and his own knowledge system, Han has gradually become a famous conveyor in the crypto field. People would love to give 10,000 yuan to invite him to give a speech about Bitcoin and blockchain at the famous Wudaokou Institute of Finance in Beijing; Okcoin CEO Xu Mingxing offered him a job as a consultant for three years. We may wonder how attractive is his speech. when he was lectured on quantum mechanics and Bitcoin at Hundun University, he received more than 50,000 yuan tips from thousands of students! You must know that Zhou Hongyi, the founder of 360 company, who was famous at that time, only received more than 10,000 yuan tips.

These positive responses made Han Feng firmer in his choice. Quantum mechanics plus blockchain will surely be widely recognized.

As Han's influence in the community has gradually expanded. In May 2014, together with Liao Xiang, Yang Linke, and Hu Hongjie, he registered China’s first private blockchain data asset association DACA (Digital Assets Coalition Asia) in Hong Kong. Han raised 300 Bitcoins for DACA, regularly held public classes on DACA blockchain technology for free, and gave lectures about blockchain in nearly 100 universities in China.

A Thousand Coins Spent, More Will Turn Up Again

2015 was the darkest moment for the Bitcoin market, but Han remained firmly committed to Bitcoin. He bought Ethereum at the lowest price and sold them after the price rose 7 times for 200 Bitcoins, waiting for the bull market to come.

In the same year, Han invested in NEO (Xiaoyi). The highlight of Xiaoyi project is using blockchain to solve equity issues in start-ups. He believes this has full potential because he knows well financing difficulty of startups, so he spares no effort to promote and speak for Xiaoyi. The news that Renaissance Capital wanted to invest also made the price of Xiaoyi soar. Thanks to the bull market in 2017, its price soared from less than a dime to 65 yuan. He sold all the coins in hand and gained nearly 700 times profits. This great turnaround brought him into financial freedom.

But later he invested most of his proceeds in starting Elastos.

Xiaoyi’s price then rose to about 1400 yuan, but Han didn't regret this. He realized the key to Xiaoyi's success: the global community.

The international community of Xiaoyi has been very successful. Many foreigners call it China’s Ethereum. 30,000 fans of Xiaoyi helped them write the underlying modules and participated in the development of open source software. Community plays a significant role in his another entrepreneurial trial.

Start Again For Faith

Money has never been the ultimate goal for him, though he has already achieved it. In his spiritual world, quantum mechanics is his eternal love and blockchain is his faith. Han wants to build a new worldview, combining distributed systems with quantum mechanics. A decentralized organization which complies with computational thinking and unified algorithms rules, as well as non-localized distributed node systems can truly realize the Global Free Market Adam Smith claimed.

Chen Rong, a technical expert who has been deeply involved in computer operating systems and programming models for more than 30 years, has always wanted to make a decentralized operating system to replace Windows. When he met Han Feng, who regarded blockchain as his lifelong faith, two people hit it off. In September 2017, Elastos was established.

Elastos is an open source software system that can well protect digital content and prevent privacy from being leaked or stolen. Blockchain issues IDs (warrants) for digital content to confirm the property right and tradability of digital content. Their combination provides the economic foundation of "private property rights" for the Internet in the information age. Only on the basis of clear property rights can the economy and productivity be developed.

The huge driving force for Elastos to truly gain international attention is the global community that Han insists on. On December 1, 2017, the meetup held by Elastos, Xiaoyi and Stellar achieved a complete success in Silicon Valley.

Han said that at the time, more than 300 people came to the 150-person venue. Some came from Europe, some drove there for several hours, and some just came to take photos with Da Hongfei, the founder of Xiaoyi. This is where the strength of community lies.

The next day, Han and other influential in the crypto field attended President Trump Breakfast. In the same year, Han's book Blockchain: Quantum Wealth won the Annual Popular Book Award of "2017 China Business Network Financial Book".

After returning to China, Han continued to expand the influence of community. Elastos, Wu Jihan and Da Hongfei held a G3 forum in Tsinghua University, co-organized by the Tsinghua Digital Currency Research Association. Their group photos spread across the global community, and Elastos has become the brightest star in the crypto field.

In February 2018, Elastos ELA was launched on Huobi and its price rose from 30 yuan to 600 yuan.

Fall Into Scandals, But Remain True to His Original Aspiration

Elastos has also been exposed to various unfavorable rumors. First, Binance cancelled the ELA listing qualification for cheating and illegal ticket purchases. What is even more shocking is the "White Paper on Rights Protection" on the Internet. Investors counted Elastos's “Eight Deadly Sins”.

Han said in an interview that the ups and downs of the capital market can not be controlled by individuals. He admitted that unlocking the ELA plan ahead of time was a failure, which brought bad results to both investors and project leaders. The rumors spread on the Internet that he sold coins to buy a luxury house in the United States. But actually, his lived a very simple life and there is no luxury house and car. He was doing research, studying and giving speech.

He said: “Just live up to your conscience. If you do something wrong, you apologize, and then go on. As long as you firmly believe that the direction is right and find a good path, your goals can be achieved."

Since the beginning of this year, the price of Elastos has been hovering within 20 yuan, which has fallen by more than 90% from the all-time high. But in March, Elastos ranked 38th in the world on the Microsoft Github Blockchain Project Code Update list.

The GreenPass recently developed by the Elastos DAM team was launched on AppStore around the world and piloted in a clinic in the United States. This application uses Elastos DID side chain technology to record users' nucleic acid tests, body temperature, travel history and other information. The team continues to do optimization and improvement.

Han firmly believes that their project is really practical, and the landing and productization of the operating system is a very complex process. Elastos has just been established, and it will take a long time to realize its vision.

Just like Bitcoin, although the founder is always a mystery, its underlying ideas are recognized by more and more people, and its own story is slowly formed. Han had a conversation with former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan about Bitcoin, and they both agreed that Bitcoin is a countermeasure to the lack of a gold standard in the fiat currency issuance mechanism.

Han hopes to establish a set of theories that can explain financial phenomena like quantum mechanics and digital currency in the future. He also hopes to donate most of the money he earned to schools and cooperate with universities to promote their development.

Recently, He has been preparing for the publication of his new book The Wealth of Nations on Blockchain. The theme of this book is "Wealth is not a physical thing, but a global credit consensus." This sentence can also be found in his Weibo profile. He believes that China will hopefully contribute to the next era of wealth consensus for mankind, if completed, will be the greatest contribution that China makes to people.

Rome was not built in a day. The realization of faith requires persistent efforts. Sunny Feng Han has always been on the way and never gave up.

By Amy Liu, May Liu

Photos via Internet

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