Why the specter of blockchain will be more important to humankind than AI

I'm back with another translation, this time of a lecture that was given in Chinese at Peking University on May 5, 2018 by Wang Feng, founder of Huoxing24 (a Chinese blockchain news site), LineKong (a Chinese media and entertainment product company) and partner at GeekFounders (a tech investment firm). I found his perspective about blockchain a solid and concise consolidation of the leading thoughts about the history of blockchain and what its significance is. The way he explains it illuminates both a global way of thinking about the technology, and also a Chinese perspective of what that thinking means (starting with a straight-up quote from the Communist Manisfesto...) Having also worked on AI products myself, it was a fresh take on the significance of AI as compared to blockchain, and why people have strong feelings about the impact of these two disruptive technologies. Note that I'm not exactly translating this in a way of a direct transcription, but rather as a narrative, so I skip all the parts addressing the audience like "hello fellow alumni" and whatnot. I'll pepper my thoughts and comments throughout, so please do think about and debate those with me:) Again, kudos to the originator, and you can credit me only for the translation, dramatic flourishes and contextual comments.