Buttonwood: A Lot of Zeros

梧桐：长长一串0

 

Investors are piling into an illiquid asset. What can possibly go wrong?

投资者争相投资于一种缺乏流动性的资产。可能出什么问题呢？

 

Most money these days is electronic – a series of ones and zeros on a computer. So it is rather neat that bitcoin, a privately created electronic currency, has lurched from $1,000 to above $10,000 this year, an epic journey to add an extra zero.

 

如今大部分货币都是电子的，也就是计算机上的一串0和1。对比特币这一私人创建的电子货币来说，其价格今年从1000美元一路跌跌撞撞涨到10000美元以上，又添上了一个0，可谓史诗般的旅程。

 

On the way, the currency has been controversial. Jamie Dimon, the boss of JPMorgan Chase, has called it a fraud. Nouriel Roubini, an economist, plumped for “gigantic speculative bubble”. Ordinary investors are being tempted into bitcoin by its rapid rise – a phenomenon dubbed FOMO (fear of missing out). Both the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, America’s largest futures market, and the NASDAQ stock exchange have seemingly added their imprimaturs by planning to offer bitcoin-futures contracts.

 

这种货币一直以来都是争议的焦点。摩根大通（JPMorgan Chase）的老板杰米·戴蒙（Jamie Dimon）曾斥之为骗局。经济学家努里埃尔·鲁比尼（Nouriel Roubini）认定它是“巨大的投机泡沫”。越来越多的普通投资者被其迅速上涨的价格吸引入场——这种现象被称为FOMO（fear of missing out，害怕踏空）。美国最大的期货市场芝加哥商业交易所以及纳斯达克证券交易所都计划提供比特币期货合约，似乎是在为比特币背书。

 

It is easy to muddle two separate issues. One is whether the “blockchain” technology that underpins bitcoin becomes more widely adopted. Blockchains, distributed ledgers that record transactions securely, may prove very useful in some areas of finance, and beyond. The second is whether bitcoin will become a widely adopted currency in everyday life. Here the evidence is weak.

 

人们很容易把两个不同的问题混淆起来。一个问题是支撑比特币的“区块链”技术是否应用日益广泛。区块链是一种安全记录交易的分布式分类账，它可能在某些金融或其他领域非常有用。第二个问题是比特币是否会成为日常生活中广泛采用的货币。这方面的证据则很薄弱。

 

Bitcoin can be used to buy a few things. But a currency has three main functions: store of value; means of exchange; and unit of account. Bitcoin’s volatility, seen when it fell 20% within minutes on November 29th before rebounding, makes it both a nerve-racking store of value and a poor means of exchange. Imagine buying an iPhone X with bitcoin in January. You would by now be cursing as the same coin could buy ten phones – Christmas gifts for the whole family.

 

比特币可以用来买一些东西。但是货币有三个主要职能：价值储备、流通手段和计价单位。11月29日，比特币在几分钟内下跌20%之后又反弹，这种波动性使得比特币若充当价值储备会让人神经紧绷，作为流通手段也十分糟糕。想象一下，如果你在1月份用比特币买了一个iPhone X，现在肯定会想骂人，因为同一个币如今可以买十台手机，够全家人的圣诞礼物了。

 

A currency is also a unit of account for debt. Paul Mortimer-Lee of BNP Paribas, a French bank, tartly remarks: “Imagine if you had financed your house with a bitcoin mortgage.” This year your debt would have risen tenfold. Your salary, paid in dollars, euros or whatever, would not have kept pace. Put another way, had bitcoin been widely used, the last year might have been massively deflationary.

 

货币也是债务的计量单位。法国银行法国巴黎银行（BNP Paribas）的保罗·莫蒂默-李（Paul Mortimer-Lee）尖锐地评论道：“想象一下，要是你的住房贷款是用比特币来还，会是什么样子。” 今年你的债务可能已经涨了十倍。无论你拿的是美元、欧元或其他什么货币的工资，都跟不上它的步伐。换句话说，要是比特币已得到广泛使用，过去一年可能已经出现了大规模通货紧缩。

 

Such issues will be of minor concern to those who managed to buy bitcoin earlier in the year. They will just be delighted with the profits. But why has the price risen so fast? One justification for the existence of bitcoin is that central banks, via quantitative easing (QE), are debasing fiat money and laying the path to hyperinflation. But this seems a very odd moment for that view to gain adherents. Inflation remains low and the Federal Reserve is pushing up interest rates and unwinding QE.

 

对于那些在今年早些时候购买比特币的人来说，这些问题根本不重要。他们只会为利润感到高兴。但为什么价格上涨这么快？比特币存在的一个理由，是中央银行正在通过量化宽松（QE）让法定货币贬值，为恶性通货膨胀铺路。但是，现在也不像是这种观点能吸引追随者的时候。通货膨胀率仍然很低，美联储正在推高利率并逐步退出QE。

 

A more likely explanation is that as new and easier ways to trade in bitcoin become available, more investors are willing to take the plunge. As the supply of bitcoin is limited by design, that drives up the price.

 

更可能的解释是，随着比特币出现更新、更容易的交易方式，更多的投资者愿意冒险。由于比特币在设计上就限制了供应，这会推高价格。

 

But it is worth remembering that the cost of using bitcoin is going up. Each transaction has to be verified by “miners” who need a lot of computing power to do so, and a lot of energy: 275kWh for every transaction, according to Digiconomist, a website. In total, bitcoin uses as much electricity a year as Morocco, or enough to power 2.8m American households. All this costs much than processing credit-card transactions via Visa or MasterCard.

 

但同时也应该记得，使用比特币的成本正在上升。由于每笔交易都必须经由“矿工”验证，这需要大量计算能力。根据Digiconomist网站的数据，每笔交易需要275度电。比特币每年的总用电量与摩洛哥持平，或者足够为280万户美国家庭供电。所有这些都比通过Visa或万事达处理信用卡交易的成本高得多。

 

The miners are rewarded for their efforts by being paid in bitcoin; they are delighted by the rise in the currency’s price. But some are finding ingenious ways to cut back on their energy costs; one even put computers in his Tesla car so he could mine bitcoins using its free charging stations. Much mining is done in parts of China where electricity is cheap.

 

矿工们会获得比特币作为工作酬劳，他们为比特币价格的上涨感到高兴。但有些人正在寻找巧妙的方法来削减能源成本。有人甚至把电脑放在自己的特斯拉车上，这样就可以使用免费充电站来挖掘比特币。很多挖矿工作是在中国电价便宜的地方完成的。

 

There are two ways of thinking about this. One is that the eventual price of bitcoin will equal the marginal cost of mining, which may be rising but is well below the current price. The second is that institutions will not want to use the technology if it relies on such a “Wild West” process; banks are already looking at cheaper forms of blockchain technology.

 

对此有两种思考方式。一是比特币的最终价格将等于挖矿的边际成本，这一成本可能在上涨，但远低于现在的价格。第二，如果这种技术依赖于这样一个如“狂野西部”般的进程，机构就不会希望使用它；银行已经在研究更廉价的区块链技术形式。

 

Whether the investors driving the price higher are pondering all this is open to doubt. It looks like a re-run of the dotcom craze. Adverts for trading digital currencies are appearing on the London tube and celebrities have piled onto the bandwagon. As seen many times before, when lots of investors buy an illiquid asset, the price can rise exponentially.

 

推高价格的投资者是否考虑了这一切不得而知。这看起来像是互联网泡沫的重演。交易数字货币的广告出现在伦敦地铁上，名人也争相上车。正如历史上多次出现的，如果很多投资者购买一种缺乏流动性的资产，价格就可能呈指数级上涨。

 

The top is hard to call. At some point, the urge to turn all those digital zeros into cars and iPhones will prove too great. Getting out of an illiquid asset – as this week, when exchanges struggled to cope with trading volumes – can be harder than getting into it. Some remember Nathan Rothschild’s remark about the secret of his wealth: “I always sold too soon.”

 

什么时候到顶很难说。总有一天，将所有这些虚拟的0变成汽车和iPhone的冲动将变得太过强烈。逃出流动性不足的资产——就像本周交易所难以应付交易量时那样——可能要比进场困难。一些人记得纳森·罗斯柴尔德（Nathan Rothschild）谈及自己财富秘诀时的说法：“我总是卖得太早。”

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