加密货币的光明前景?

The madness of crowd

一群人的愤怒

The flaws revealed by the cryptocurrency bust make a lasting revival unlikely

加密货币泡沫破灭，相关漏洞恐致其难以为继

“Be more brenda,” said the ads for CoinCorner, a cryptocurrency exchange. They appeared on London’s Underground last summer, featuring a cheery pensioner who had, apparently, bought Bitcoins in just ten minutes. It was bad advice. Six months earlier a single Bitcoin cost just under $20,000. By the time the ads appeared, its value had fallen to $7,000.

“更加布兰达”是加密货币交易所“硬币角”的一句广告语。去年夏天，这个广告出现在伦敦地下区域，其刻画了一位退休人员在十分钟内就买到了比特币。不得不说，这不是个好主意。六个月前，购买一枚比特币需要花费两万美元，到这个广告出现的时候，比特币的价格已经跌到了七千美元一枚。

These days, it is just $4,025 (see chart). While the price was soaring, big financial institutions such as Barclays and Goldman Sachs flirted with opening cryptocurrency-trading desks. Brokerages sent excited emails to their clients. The Chicago Board Options Exchange (cboe), one of the world’s leading derivatives exchanges, launched a Bitcoin futures contract. Hundreds of copycat cryptocurrencies also soared, some far outperforming Bitcoin itself. Ripple rose by 36,000% during 2017. The bust has been correspondingly brutal. Those who bought near the top were left with one of the world’s worst-performing assets. Cryptocurrency startups fired employees; banks shelved their products. On March 14th the cboe said it would soon stop offering Bitcoin futures. Bitmain, a cryptocurrency miner, appears to have pulled a planned ipo. (Miners maintain a cryptocurrency’s blockchain—a distributed transaction database—using huge numbers of specialized computers, and are paid in newly minted coins).

最近，这个价格是4025美元（见图表）。随着价格迅速上涨，一些大的金融集团，如巴克利和高盛开始玩弄初期的加密货币，程序化广告交易平台。芝加哥期权交易所（CBOE），是一所全球领先的衍生品交易所，它曾推出了比特币期货交易协议。一时间，数百种加密货币模仿品纷纷大涨，其中一些的涨幅甚至超过比特币本身。涟漪币在2017年间上涨了36000%。可想而知，随后泡沫的破灭也是十分残酷的。那些加密货币的最大买家同时也是世界上最差资产的拥有者。加密货币初创公司开始裁员，银行将其产品搁置。今年3月14日，CBOE表示，他们可以马上停止比特币期货的交易。比特曼是一件加密货币“矿工”组织，据传他们取消了原本计划中的IPO。（“矿工”能够维护加密货币的区块链，它一种分散式的交易数据库，其操作需要使用数量庞大的专用计算机，其支付的货币都是最新产出的。）

The speed with which the bubble inflated and then popped invites comparisons with past financial manias, such as the Dutch tulip craze in 1636-37 and the rise and collapse of the South Sea Company in London in 1720. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts like to claim a more flattering comparison—with the 1990s dotcom bubble. They point out that, despite the froth, viable businesses emerged from that episode. But the cryptocurrency fiasco has exposed three deep and related problems: the extent of genuine activity is hugely exaggerated; the technology does not scale well; and fraud may be endemic.

这次泡沫不断膨胀直到最终破灭的速度十分引人注目，人们将其与历史上几次出现的金融狂热现象进行了比较。比如，1636至37年间的荷兰郁金香狂潮，以及1720年伦敦南海公司的崛起和覆灭。加密货币爱好者更喜欢与一个另一种版本进行比较，比如，上世纪90年代的互联网经济泡沫。他们指出尽管泡沫存在，这段时间还是出现了一批切实可行的公司。但加密货币的这次惨败暴露了三个严重且彼此关联的问题：实际的活动参与程度被极大夸大；科技水平没有实质性进展；欺骗行为已经十分普遍。

Consider the overstatement of activity, first. Ten years after their invention, using cryptocurrencies to pay for goods and services remains a niche pastime. Bitcoin is the original cryptocurrency and still the most popular. In January Satoshi Capital Research, a cryptocurrency firm, declared that Bitcoin transactions in 2018 added up to $3.3trn, more than six times the volume handled by PayPal. But such figures include an awful lot of double-counting, mostly related to the way Bitcoin handles change, says Kim Grauer at Chainalysis, a firm that analyses Bitcoin’s blockchain. Strip that out, and Chainalysis reckons that Bitcoin accounted for around $812bn of genuine transfers of value.

首先，可以看看这一活动的夸张程度。在诞生的10年后，使用加密货币进行商品服务的支付还十分小众。比特币是最初的加密货币，也仍然是最流行的一种。今年一月份，禅洲资本研究，一家比特币公司，它宣布2018年的比特币交易额达到了33万亿美元，是Paypal交易额的六倍还要多。但是这个数字包括很大程度的重复计算，原因可能是比特币独特的交易处理方式，金·格兰尔如此推测到，她是一家比特币区块链分析机构“链析”公司的员工。忽略不计重复计算的影响，比特币占有大约8120亿美元的真实交易额。

Of that, Ms Grauer reckons, only a fraction was used to buy things. Around $2.4bn went to merchant-service providers, which handle payments for businesses—a pif fling sum compared with the $15trn of transactions in 2017 on Alipay and WeChat Pay, two Chinese payment apps. Darknet markets, which sell stolen credit-card details, recreational drugs, cheap medicines and the like, made up $605m, and gambling sites $857m. Most of the rest was related to speculation.

基于此，格兰尔女士推测到，可能只有一成左右的加密货币用于商品流通领域。约有24亿美元流入了商品服务端，其主要为了商务活动而进行交易处理，这和2017年微信支付以及支付宝支付（中国两大支付应用）的150万亿交易额相比简直是微不足道。其次使用比特币交易的平台还包括暗网市场，它是一个主要销售信用卡盗窃资料，软性毒品，廉价药品等商品的网络平台，它的交易额可以达到6.05亿美元，赌博网站可以达到8.57亿美元。而剩下的交易额可能都是商业投机产生的。

Even for speculators, business is less brisk than it seems. “Wash trading”, in which traders buy and sell to each other (or themselves) to create the illusion of volume, is widespread. Bitwise Asset Management, a cryptocurrency-fund manager, analysed 81 cryptocurrency exchanges for a presentation on March 20th to the Securities and Exchange Commission, an American financial regulator. The firm estimated that 95% of trading volume could be artificial. The Justice Department is investigating claims of price manipulation.

对投机者而言，商业发展的前景并没有它看起来那样美好。“洗牌交易”是一种交易者同时买入和卖出制造的数据假象，这种行为十分普遍。“按位财产管理”，一家加密货币基金管理公司，它分析了81起加密货币的交易记录，并在3月20日向期权交易委员会呈递了相关结果，这一机构负责管理美国金融业。这家公司估计95%的交易额可能都是人为操作，司法部门也在对一些价格操控的提案进行调查。

The second problem is that the technology is too clunky to operate at scale. Cryptocurrencies are unlikely ever to achieve mass adoption, says Nicholas Weaver, a computer scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. Unlike Alipay or WeChat Pay, cryptocurrencies are in- tended as new financial systems rather than extensions to the current one. But they have serious design flaws.

第二个问题是目前的科技水平还很难实现规模化运作。加密货币很难实现大范围使用，加州大学伯克利分校的计算机科学家尼古拉斯·韦尔表示，不像阿里支付或微信支付，加密货币是一种新型的金融系统，而不是当前系统的延伸。然而，这个系统有非常严重的构造缺陷。

Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, wanted it to be resistant to control by tyrannical governments and banks. Payment records are therefore not held centrally, but broadcast to all users. A new batch of Bitcoin is issued every ten minutes on average. That limits the network to processing about seven transactions per second (Visa, by contrast, can handle tens of thousands per second). In 2017, as the crypto-bubble was inflating, the system became clogged. To ensure that transactions went through, users had to pay miners—at one point, as much as $50 per transaction.

比特币的匿名创造者，三本聪想让比特币能够抵抗专制政府和中央银行的控制。交易记录因此是分散化的，因此所有使用者都能收到交易报告。平均每十分钟就有新的一批比特币发行。这一网络每秒钟最多只能同时处理7笔交易，相比之下，Visa可以处理的交易数量可达到每秒钟上万笔。在2017年，随着加密货币的泡沫不断膨胀，这一系统的效率也越发低下。为了保证交易顺利进行，使用者每进行一笔交易就需要向矿工支付50美元左右的服务费。

Moreover, Bitcoin is designed such that only 21m Bitcoins will ever be created, making it inherently deflationary. Mining, essentially a self-adjusting lottery in which participants compete to buy tickets, is energy-hungry. At the height of the boom it was thought to consume as much electricity as Ireland (these days, it merely consumes as much as Romania).

此外，比特币在构造之初就只有2100万枚的上限，这一特性使得其具有内在紧缩的特点。挖矿实质上是一种自我调整的中奖事件，参与者们为了买票相互竞争，但是矿产总是处于能量不足的状态。在其运转的巅峰时期，人们认为这些挖矿设备的耗电量将可以媲美爱尔兰整个国家的耗电量，但最近，这个值已经跌到了罗马尼亚的水平。

The final problem is fraud. Transactions are irreversible—a boon for con-artists. Ponzi schemes are common, as is incompetence. Cryptocurrency exchanges often collapse or are hacked. In February Quadrigacx, a Canadian exchange, filed for bank- ruptcy, saying it had lost $165m in deposits when its founder, Gerard Cotton, died, since only he had known the encryption keys protecting Quadrigacx’s deposits. But on March 1st Ernst & Young, which was appointed to handle the bankruptcy, said that the deposit addresses seem to have been empty for at least eight months before the date Mr Cotton is said to have died.

最后一个问题是诈骗。因为使用加密货币产生的每笔交易都是不可撤销的，诈骗犯因此有了可乘之机。庞氏骗局十分普遍，系统宕机也时常发生。加密货币交易常常面临崩溃和数据窃取的风险。在今年2月，加拿大交易公司QuadrigaCX 向银行提交了破产申请，报告显示，在其建立者Gerard Cotton死亡后，该公司损失了1650亿美元抵押金。然而，在3月1日，安永会计师事务所在处理其破产业务时表示，该公司的押金储蓄地址在Cotton先生死亡前八个月就已经不存在了。

When Lambos?

兰博基尼什么时候买？

Attempts are under way to get round some of these limitations. Some Bitcoin enthusiasts are testing an add-on called the Lightning Network, which tries to speed things up by moving many transactions off the blockchain. Stablecoins, whose value is supposedly pegged to something else, are touted as a way to rein in speculation. Once again, promise often falls short of reality. On March 14th Tether, the most popular stablecoin, with $2bn-worth in circulation, said that it might not be fully backed with dollars after all. None has achieved even Bitcoin’s limited take-up.

加密货币的设计缺陷正在努力得到克服。一些爱好者正在测试一种名叫闪电网络的附加系统，这个系统旨在移除区块链中的一些交易，使其运行速度能够加快。“稳定币”的币值和其他币种挂钩，因此它被捧为一种限制投机的手段。然而期望往往和现实之间有很大的差距。在3月14日，泰达币，最为著名的一种稳定币，目前处于流通中的价值约为20亿美元，他们表示其并未没有完全获得美元兑换的支持。目前还没有任何一种加密货币可以达到比特币的有限领受程度。

Most fans simply want cryptocurrency prices to start rising again. In 2017 John McAfee, a cryptocurrency enthusiast who made his money in antivirus software, said that if Bitcoin was not worth $1m in 2020 he would eat an intimate part of his anatomy on television. On March 20th he tweeted that losing that bet was “not mathematical- ly possible”. Last year Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s boss, said he thinks Bitcoin will be the world’s “single currency” within a decade. Facebook is working on some kind of cryptocurrency project. Market analysts and pundits provide cheery reassurance that the currency will soon soar again.

许多爱好者都希望加密货币的价格能够再次涨起来。在2017年，加密货币爱好者约翰·迈克菲在抗病毒软件中赚到一笔钱，他表示如果比特币到2020年时的价值不足100万美元，他将在电视上公开吃自己的“隐私部位”。3月20日，他发推表示输掉这个赌注“在数学上是不可能的”。去年，推特总裁杰克·多西表示，他认为加密货币在10年内会成为世界上唯一的货币。脸书目前在进行一个和加密货币有关的项目。一些市场分析员及专家也十分看好加密货币，表示近期其币值就会上涨。

Mr Weaver is sceptical, at least in the short term. The very visible boom and bust, and more attention from regulators, have probably cut the number of willing new punters, he says. But boosters are trying their best. They have taken to referring to the post-bust period as a “crypto winter”. The intended analogy is with artificial in- telligence: the “ai winters” were funding crunches in the 1970s and 1980s after hype outstripped reality. The implication is that, one day, summer will return.

韦弗先生至少在短期内还是持怀疑态度。他表示，所有人都见证了这场泡沫的膨胀和破灭，来自监管机构的压力也与日俱增，新入局的赌徒们可能会越来越少。但是坚定的爱好者正在作出最大的努力。他们提出了一个“加密寒冬”的概念，用来指代后泡沫时期。这个概念内设的一个类比就是人工智能：在上世纪七八十年代，对于AI的夸大宣传掩盖了其真实的发展水平，“AI寒冬”概念应运而生。这些人其实想说的是，总有一天，加密货币的夏天是会到来的。