Apple's entry into the blockchain is both unexpected and reasonable

1. Entering the Blockchain Space

As more and more traditional business giants enter the blockchain field, many business luminaries are also fully committed to blockchain entrepreneurship, such as Steve Wozniak (hereinafter referred to as Woz).

Woz is the co-founder of the global tech giant Apple, which he co-founded in 1976 with Steve Jobs and Ron Wayne, creating what is now the world's most valuable company. At that time, Woz and Jobs co-created the first and second generation of Apple computers. After the second generation became popular, it became the best-selling personal computer in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with monthly sales exceeding 10,000 units by 1979. He is hailed as the engineer who brought computers into the homes of the masses and was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Reagan in 1985.

Apple's success quickly brought Woz immense wealth, but he seemed to exhibit a "valuing righteousness over profit" trait early on. In recognition of his colleagues' contributions, Woz initiated a "Woz Plan" within the company, selling nearly one-third of his 80,000 shares to employees at a low price of $5 per share and gifting early entrepreneurial veterans stock worth a million dollars each.

However, for various reasons, Woz left Apple and created new ventures in the tech field, first founding CL 9, a company specializing in designing universal remote controls, and later co-founding "Wheel of Zeus" in 2001, which focused on the research and development of wireless global positioning system technology. Both directions were at the forefront of technology at the time, and Woz achieved good results in them.

Outside of his technical work, Woz also has a very rich personal life, such as publishing several books, making guest appearances as an actor, and even spending ten years teaching computer classes at an elementary school, making him a true winner in life.

Starting in 2015, Woz began to explore the blockchain field, laying the foundation for his subsequent career. According to media reports, Woz joined a digital currency ATM operator, Planet Capital, as a consultant and board member that year. The company aimed to become a disruptor in the payment industry using technologies like blockchain, serving both fiat and digital currency ATMs.

At that time, the digital currency industry was still in its infancy, and the payment space was very limited, so the company did not truly develop. However, Woz used this opportunity to begin his exploration of the blockchain industry and even purchased Bitcoin when its price was $800. "Humans created money and control it, issuing new coins (dollars) every year. In contrast, Bitcoin is not subject to this constraint or government manipulation; only Bitcoin is pure digital gold." Woz said.

Woz believes that blockchain is the next major IT revolution about to happen, but he still maintains a clear stance on the current hype surrounding blockchain. In June 2018, Woz stated at the NEX Technology Conference in New York that the hype around blockchain is very similar to the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s, where many companies promising to change lives with the internet quickly went bankrupt.

Despite this, a year later, Woz fully immersed himself in blockchain entrepreneurship, specifically with the recently popular Efforce company, which was somewhat expected. In July 2019, Woz announced at the Delta Summit in Malta that he had become a co-founder of Efforce, but there was no further news for a year until recently, when details and visions of Efforce were revealed alongside its token issuance news.

Efforce team photo at the Malta Delta Summit

According to official information, Efforce aims to be the first platform that allows everyone to participate in global energy-saving projects and enables investors to profit from them. Currently, the global market for energy efficiency projects has reached $250 billion, but investors typically require energy service companies (ESCOs) to invest over $200,000 in capital before they are willing to engage in energy-saving plans. Additionally, the expected returns on these capital investments are difficult to measure, requiring a high level of technical knowledge, making it challenging to secure financing from traditional banks.

Efforce sees this demand and provides ESCOs with a simplified financing process, evaluating the expected benefits of energy-saving plans through its professional team. Once approved, these plans are then listed on the Efforce blockchain platform for public reference, allowing users to fund projects using WOZX tokens on the platform. After the energy-saving plan is executed, the Efforce platform will utilize smart measurement tools connected to its blockchain to record the actual energy savings from the plan. This data will be allocated to investors' accounts, supplementing their energy balance for future sale or use.

"In the current difficult times, many small companies are struggling. They cannot afford the costs of switching to LED lighting, simplifying production processes, or insulating to save heat. Even though all these can save them money in the long run," said Jacopo Visetti, project leader and co-founder of Efforce.

Compared to many blockchain projects with "pie-in-the-sky" development plans, Efforce targets the financing field of energy-saving plans, which has clear pain points, making it a potential high-quality case of combining blockchain technology with the real economy. Especially with Woz's backing as a co-founder of Apple, this project has gained additional attention and trust.

As a result, Efforce quickly became a "top-tier" project in the blockchain industry, receiving comprehensive coverage from major foreign blockchain media such as Coindesk and The Block, as well as many traditional media outlets. In this context, the choice of which exchange Efforce's project token would first launch on has garnered significant market attention, as Efforce is one of the few projects that inherently brings a large amount of traffic and has an out-of-the-box effect, making it a target for exchanges to compete for.

2. The Unexpected Choice Behind It

However, Efforce's choice with Woz was quite surprising to the outside world; it did not choose a traditional, well-established exchange for its token launch but instead opted for a leading exchange, HBTC (Hobbit Exchange), to first list its WOZX token. On December 3, HBTC officially opened trading for the WOZX token, which has since surged over 30 times without significant correction, becoming the highest-gaining token among first and second-tier exchanges since December. This indicates that Efforce's unexpected choice has its inevitable reasons, which have led to a beneficial outcome for both parties in this listing collaboration.

It is understood that HBTC is a business under the CoinCore Group, which also owns CoinCore Cloud Technology Services and HBTC Chain, making it a leading global blockchain financial information technology service provider, currently serving over 300 well-known enterprises worldwide with blockchain financial technology.

In terms of exchange operations, HBTC is the world's first platform with 100% asset reserve proof, maintaining good levels in security records, trading performance, trading depth, and business types, providing clients with a full range of services including spot trading, contracts, OTC, options, and wealth management. Additionally, the unique HBC platform token model created by HBTC has attracted significant user recognition, with thousands of users locking up 1000 HBC to become Hobbit Captains, and daily platform revenue data being published along with HBC buybacks.

At the same time, HBTC has a good eye for selecting quality projects, with WOZX being just the latest example. Other high-quality projects like NEST, Unfi, and DF have also launched on HBTC, making it a gathering place for quality project launches, bringing significant wealth effects to platform users.

Stimulated by the substantial rise of the WOZX token, HBTC's trading volume has also surged recently. According to Coinmarketcap's statistics on December 10, HBTC's 24-hour spot trading volume reached 51.3 billion yuan, ranking third, only behind Huobi and Binance.

In the cloud service sector, CoinCore Cloud has become the world's largest technology service provider for cryptocurrency trading platforms, helping over 320 clients worldwide build cryptocurrency trading systems, offering various system services including spot, contracts, and options. Currently, it manages over $6 billion in assets, covering 15 million users globally.

In terms of public chains, HBTC Chain is the first decentralized public chain focused on cross-chain custody, having achieved heterogeneous cross-chain capabilities, supporting cross-chain custody and trading of over ten mainstream assets including BTC, ETH, LTC, and DOT. It also enhances asset protection through private key sharding technology. Additionally, the Hobbit public chain has developed cross-chain DEX SaaS services, providing decentralized OTC functions and supporting NFT asset trading, while also meeting the needs of many participants for secondary development through an open multi-layer API protocol.

"The next bull market will definitely be driven by cross-chain applications," said HBTC founder James Ju, emphasizing that cross-chain not only connects chains and assets but also serves as a more effective channel for the traditional world to connect with and use blockchain.

According to the plan, the HBTC Chain mainnet is scheduled to launch in December, initially focusing more on decentralized secure asset circulation and exchange, with future considerations for developing digital asset derivatives, providing users with a one-stop decentralized secure on-chain digital asset solution, becoming a new generation of DeFi ecological infrastructure.

From these achievements, Woz and Efforce's choice to launch their token on HBTC is entirely reasonable. The exchange has shown good performance in trading depth, user base, compliance, and security, aligning well with Efforce's innovative qualities, enhancing the project's cold start effect.

Overall, the rise of the WOZX token is a result of HBTC's years of deep cultivation and continuous efforts in the industry, bringing HBTC into the sight of a large number of users both within and outside the blockchain industry, and providing an opportunity for HBTC to elevate its industry status once again through this collaboration.

However, the more significant meaning of this event lies in Woz's formal entry, which has shown the concrete possibilities of blockchain technology landing in real scenarios, bringing more attention and recognition to the blockchain industry through his identity, something that the currently popular DeFi and Bitcoin have struggled to achieve.

Therefore, the specific development of Efforce in the future will be particularly noteworthy. As a case of combining blockchain technology with crypto assets to address real societal pain points, its development will undoubtedly inspire more blockchain technology applications, promoting the collective progress of the industry.