Crypto-Currencies —— New Money
加密货币：新兴货币
Bitcoin, its imitators and the risk of a crypto-bubble.
比特币，其仿冒者，以及加密货币泡沫风险。
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It is hard to predict when bubbles will pop, in particular when they are nested within each other.
很难预测泡沫何时会破裂，尤其是它们互相嵌套的时候。
It helps to keep this image in mind when considering one of the biggest surges in asset values of recent years: the market value of all the world's crypto-currencies has trebled since the beginning of the year, and is now worth more than $60bn.
当考虑近年来资产价值最大骤增幅度时，它有助于记住这种印象：自从今年年初，世界上所有的加密货币的市场价值已经增加了两倍，且现已超过 600 亿美元。
Bitcoin is the best known of these currencies, especially after hackers this month instructed victims to pay ransoms in the anonymous digital cash in order to get their computer files decrypted.
比特币是最有名的货币，特别是在本月黑客指示受害者支付匿名的数字赎金以获得他们计算机文件的解密后。
Not that many bitcoins exist: there are about 16.3m of them, with only 1,800 new ones minted every day.
比特币并没有那么多：大约有 1630 万，一天只发行 1800 个新币。
But growing demand has pushed bitcoin's price to a record recent high of about $1,830, up from $450 a year ago.
但不断增长的需求推动比特币的价格达到了纪录最新高，约为 1830 美元，高于一年前的 450 美元。
Problems abide.
各种问题仍然存在。
Earlier this year some of the biggest exchanges, such as Bitfinex, experienced problems with their correspondent banks and were unable to pay out real-world currencies to account-holders.
今年年初，最大的一笔票据交换业务 ( 如 Bitfinex ) 与其合作的银行出现了一些问题，并且无法向开户人支付真实货币。
To get their money out, they had to buy bitcoin and exchange them elsewhere.
为了取出他们的钱，业内人士不得不购买比特币并且在其他地方进行交易。
Yet the market is becoming more mature: institutional investors, from family offices to hedge funds, have become more comfortable with crypto-currencies, says Mike Komaransky of Cumberland Mining, which arranges over-the-counter trades.
然而，市场更加成熟，坎伯兰矿业的场外贸易主任迈克称：从家族理财室到避险基金的各类机构投资人都对加密货币更加放心，他们安排着场外交易。
Other factors driving demand include fluctuations of China's yuan, the French elections and, in a small way, the ransomware attack ( when The Economist went to press, only about $80,000 had been sent to the bitcoin accounts held by the hackers ) .
当然，推动需求还有许多其他因素，比如中国人民币的波动，法国大选以及一些小规模勒索软件的攻击。 ( 当《经济学人》在出版的时候，只有 8 万美元被发送到黑客拥有的比特币账户。 )
Counter-intuitively, bitcoin's biggest weakness — the system's limited capacity — has also increased demand for crypto-currencies.
反常的是，比特币最大的劣势——系统容量的限制，也促进了对加密货币的需求。
Its developers have argued for years about how to expand the system, which can only handle seven transactions per second, compared with thousands on conventional payment services.
它的开发者已经就如何扩展系统容量努力多年，与成千上万的传统支付服务比较，它每秒只能处理七笔交易。
Even before worries surfaced that the currency could split in two over the disagreement, bitcoin holders started to diversify into some of the many other crypto-currencies, or "alt. coins", to emerge in recent years.
甚至在货币可能分裂成两种的担忧显露出来之前，比特币持有者就已经开始多元化到其他的加密货币，或者近年来出现的 " 山寨币 "。
CoinMarketCap, a website, lists more than 800, from ArcticCoin, an obscure Russian currency, to ZCoin, which boasts added privacy.
CoinMarketCap 这个网站列出了超过 800 种货币，从 ArcticCoin —一个不起眼的俄罗斯货币，到自称拓宽隐私的 Zcoin。
The latest beneficiary is Ripple, which saw its market value explode from $2bn early this month to over $13bn.
最新的受益人是 Ripple，它见证了其市场价值由本月早期的 20 亿美元，骤增至超过 130 亿美元。
Ethereum, which issues "ether", has jumped from $700m in January to $8.6bn.
以太坊，一个发行以太币的平台，已从一月的 7 亿美元跃升至 86 亿美元。
Ethereum's surge in turn helped inflate another bubble.
以太坊的激增反过来助长另一个泡沫。
Feeling richer, holders of ether started investing in what have come to be called initial coin offerings.
这种感觉更深，以太的持有人初始投资被称为 ICO ( ICO 也是一种 ' 公开发行 '，只是把所发行的标的物由证券变成了数字加密货币 ) 。
Startups sell "tokens", sub-currencies of sorts, which exist on top of Ethereum.
初创公司出售 " 代币 "，各种各样的子货币存在于以太坊内。
A total of 38 such ICOs have already been launched this year, raising more than $150m, according to Smith+Crown, a research firm.
通过一家研究公司 Smith+Crown 得知，今年共推出了 38 个这样的 ICO，募集资金超过 1.5 亿美元。
This has lured even more money into crypto-currencies.
这诱使更多的资金涌入加密货币行列中。
Some of the gains have found their way back into bitcoin and alt.coins.
部分获益已经以其自己的方式回到比特币和山寨币。
Trading between crypto-currencies has grown tenfold to $2bn on average a day, says Erik Voorhees, the founder of ShapeShift, a crypto-to-crypto exchange.
ShapeShift ( 一家进行加密密码交换的公司 ) 的创始人 Erik Voorhees 指出，虚拟货币的交易平均每天增长 10 倍，达到 20 亿美元。
The question is not if but when the market will turn.
问题不在于市场何时会转向。
Even crypto-aficionados may run for the exits should bitcoin bifurcate or if one of the ICOs, which are completely unregulated, goes badly wrong — if issuers, for example, abscond with the money.
即便加密者可能因为比特币分叉而退出，又或者如果一个完全不受监管的 ICOs 系统出现严重错误，比如发行方携款潜逃。
Prices will also suffer should regulators start clamping down on such offerings.
如果监管机构开始取缔这些产品，价格也将受到冲击。
On the other hand, although it is now easy to buy crypto-currencies for real cash, selling big amounts can be hard — as the woes of Bitfinex and others show.
另一方面，根据 Bitfinex 和其他方面显示，尽管现在很容易用真实货币购买加密货币，出售大量加密货币是困难的。
This makes sudden outflows unlikely.
这使得突然流出不太可能。
And the price surges have shown how the crypto-currency system is no longer just about bitcoin.
而价格飙升已经显示了加密货币系统不再只是关于比特币。
Although it is still the biggest kid on the blockchain and functions, in effect, as a crypto-reserve currency, it now makes up under half the combined market capitalisation of all crypto-currencies.
它是一个算法上的最大欺骗。实际上，作为一个加密的储备货币，现在总市值的一半被加密。
Come a crash, they may not all fall.
即使崩溃，它们也可能不会完全下降。
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