本文翻译自：《The History of Money & the Future of Bitcoin and the Cryptocurrency Economy》
译者：区块链中文字幕组 白马少年
作者：Kenny Li（本文已获得作者授权）

The History of Money & the Future of Bitcoin and the Cryptocurrency Economy

货币历史&比特币的未来和加密货币经济

This article is an examination into the historical and current use of money and how Bitcoin and/or other cryptocurrencies can fit into the the future of money. This is not a price-prediction piece, nor are the arguments implied as a guarantee of the future of cryptocurrency.

本文是对货币历史和当前使用情况以及比特币和/或其它加密货币如何适应货币的未来进行的一次调查研究。本篇不作为其价格预测，也不作为对加密货币未来前景判断的依据。

Money was created many times in many places. Its development required no technological breakthroughs — it was purely mental revolution. It involved the creation of a new inter-subjective reality that exists solely in people’s shared imagine.

货币在许多地方被创造出来很多次。它的发展不需要技术上的突破——它纯粹是思想认识领域的变革。它涉及到一种多数人能了解的且只存在于人们的共同想象中的实物。

Money is not coin and banknotes. Money is anything that people are willing to use in order to represent systematically the value of other things for the purpose of exchanging goods and services.

货币不是硬币和纸币。货币是人们愿意使用的任何东西，并通过交换商品和服务的形式，系统地反映其它东西的价值。

Sapiens (2011) by Yuval Noah Harari

Bitcoin’s value proposition is not digital currency — 90% of existing money only exists as digital currency; Bitcoin’s value proposition is its methodology in guaranteeing the trustworthiness of digital currency.

比特币的价值主张（value proposition）不是数字货币——90%的现有货币只是作为数字货币而存在；比特币的价值来源是它在保证数字货币安全可信不可篡改方面的技术。

Act 1: The History of Money
第一部分 货币的历史

Supposedly, it began with hunting and gathering, which dominates over 90% of modern human history. During that epoch, humans were considered a jack-of-all-trades, learning all necessary skills for survival. Arguably, the image of the earliest supposed form of trading comes to mind: a cave man trying to initiate a trade by giving away his rabbit fur in exchange for what he really wants, some boar meat. Today, that exchange practice is called the barter system, and it is well-accepted as the earliest form of transaction.

据推测，货币出现于原始部落狩猎和采集时期，这一阶段占据了现代人类历史90％以上的时间。那时人类被认为是神一样的存在，因为他们需要学习掌握生存必备的所有技能。我们可以在脑海中想象人类最早交易形式是什么样子：一个住在山洞里的男人，试图通过赠送他的兔子皮毛来换取他真正想要的东西——一些野猪肉。今天，这种交换形式被称为物物交换系统，它也被公认为是最早的交易形式。

I say well-accepted because anthropologist David Graeber argues that the earliest supposed predecessor of money, bartering, didn’t actually exist before money. But even if the barter system did exist, it wouldn’t have been practical as a sustainable daily practice like the exchange of money; after all, imagine how hard it would be if no one wanted anything you had to offer — you wouldn’t last very long. Or if your only bartering item was a dead mammoth — what would you do?

我上面说的之所以被人们普遍接受，是因为人类学家大卫格雷伯认为，最早想象中的货币前身——物物交换，实际上并不存在于货币之前。但即使物物交换系统确实存在，类似于货币交换的这种持续的日常行为，也是不切合实际的；毕竟，可以想象一下，如果没有人想要你提供的任何东西，那么生活将是举步维艰的一件事——在这种情况下，你又能坚持多久呢？或者如果你唯一的交易对象是一头死去的猛犸象——你会怎么做呢？难道你要把它拽起来和你交换浆果吗？

Bread Winning

养家糊口

Around the end of the Pleistocene Epoch (commonly referred to as the most recent ice age, which ended around 10,000 years ago), domestication of wheat, grains and animals emerged as humans spread across the globe. Domestication led to the emergence of farming, which centralized and increased population density. With centralized population density, it was no longer necessary to be the jack-of-all-trades that the hunting and gathering lifestyle demanded; instead, individuals began to start focusing on specialization.

在最近一次大冰川末期（通常称为最近的冰河期，大约在1万年前结束），当人类的足迹遍布全球时，种植小麦、谷物和饲养动物的行为应用而生。这种驯化的结果促成了农业的出现，也使得人口密度进一步集中和增加。由于人口密度的集中和增加，狩猎和聚集的生活方式已不能满足人们的要求；与此相反的是，个人分工开始细化。

Bartering only works if all participants get something they want or need.

只有当所有参与者都能获得他们想要或需要的东西时，物物交换才能有效运行。

Some farmed, others tailored, and pretty soon, some became accountants because a barter system would not sustain a civilization of individuals with only one specialty to offer. A clothing trader could offer a farmer some clothes for wheat, but a farmer doesn’t need new clothes every day like a clothing trader needs food. To get food through the barter system, a tailor would have to get pretty creative in exchanging one thing after another before seeing bread. It would become a game to try to win bread. Literally, bread-winning.

有的人务农，有的人做衣服，很快的有些人成为了会计师，因为物物交换系统无法维持一个只有一个专业人才能提供的文明。一个服装商人可以给农民提供一些衣服换取小麦，但是农民不是每天都需要新衣服，如同服装商人不是每天都需要其它食物一样。要想通过物物交换系统获得食物，一个裁缝在养家糊口前，必须在一个接一个的交易中变得非常有创造性。想要谋得生计(win bread)就成了一种游戏。因此不夸张的讲，为了养家活口你不得不到处奔波。

The Ancient Rules of Deciding What’s Money

决定什么是钱的古老规则。

Cowry Shells were the first known major form of money.

贝壳是已知最早的主要货币形式。

The demand for a controlled transaction system paved the way for the emergence of money, which was used as both a measurement of value (money of accounting) and for transacting (money of exchange). But the emergence of money didn’t start with the paper and coins we know and love today. Cowry shells were one of the first and most popular forms of money, and were used to conduct trade around Africa and Asia; in fact, these shells were used as a currency in Africa (Uganda, specifically) until the the 19th century (1801–1900).

对一个可控交易系统的需求为货币的出现铺平了道路，货币被用来衡量价值(记账货币)和交易(货币兑换)。但是货币的出现并不是从我们今天所知道和喜爱的纸币和硬币开始的。贝壳是最早也是最受欢迎的货币形式之一，常常用来在非洲和亚洲进行贸易;事实上，直到19世纪(1801-1900)，这些贝壳在非洲(特别是乌干达)被用作货币。

A ledger from Mesopotamia

来自美索不达米亚(译者注:古代亚洲西部地区，亦称“两河流域”，现为伊拉克一部分)的分类帐

Prehistoric banks emerged in civilizations like Mesopotamia, where people could deposit their valuables for safekeeping and trading. With this new system came the necessity to record a history of all the transactions coming in and going out, which also resulted in the first known use of a ledger for recording transaction history.

史前银行出现在诸如美索不达米亚这样的文明社会，人们可以将他们的贵重物品存放于银行进行保管和交易。有了这个新系统，就有必要记录下所有进出交易的历史记录，这也导致了第一次使用分类账记录交易历史的产生。

But the emergence of money wasn’t a concerted effort initiated through global agreement that stemmed from Mesopotamia. Just like today there are different forms of currency, cowry shells were not the universal banknote. Grains, cloth, and other items were also used as money. While they all sound different, each had three major features in common:

但是，货币的出现并不是源于美索不达米亚的全球协议所引发的协同努力。就像今天有不同形式的货币，贝壳不是万能的钞票。谷物、布料和其它物品也被用作货币。虽然它们听起来都不一样，但它们都有三个共同的特点。

Currency should be resilient; if it just disappears, it is a huge risk

汇率应该有弹性；如果它消失了，那将是一个巨大的风险。

They have to be physical. Ideas can’t be money. Sure, they can make money, but they can’t be money.

它们必须符合基本法则。想法不能当钱用。当然，它们(贝壳等)可以作为钱，但它们不可能是货币。

They have to be resilient. Just being tangible isn’t enough. Any civilization transacting with leaves might be left bankrupt by a strong wind. Better yet, try to put 50 leaves in your pocket.0

它们必须有韧性。仅仅是具体有形的是不够的。任何与树叶有关的文明交易都可能因强风而破产。如果可以，试着在你的口袋里放50个叶子。

The community has to agree. After all, without consensus, the stability of the currency is undermined as individuals aren’t sure if people they want to transact with will even accept the money.

社区（社会）必须同意。毕竟，在没有共识的情况下，货币的稳定性被削弱了，因为个人不确定他们想要交易的人是否会接受这笔钱。

While the first two features could easily be found in items like shells, grains, and cloth, the third was a little trickier. Without some sort of overseeing entity that enforced acceptance, stability of the currency could not be guaranteed. In around 600 B.C., the last problem was solved with the emergence of the coin.

虽然前两个特征在贝壳、谷物和布料等物品上很容易找到，但第三个特征有点棘手。如果没有某种监督实体来强制接受，货币的稳定性是无法保证的。大约在公元前600年左右，最后一个问题随着硬币的出现才得到了解决。

Central Governance of Money Through Coins

货币的中央管理（通过硬币对货币进行中央管理）

There is a problem with using grains — you can just go farm more grains. Same with shells, just go to the beach! How could a currency system be truly trustworthy if anyone can just go out and make more of the currency at any time? This was one of the big issues that coins tackled.

使用谷物是有问题的——你可以去种植更多的谷物。贝壳也是一样，去海滩就行！如果任何人都能在任何时候制造更多的货币，那么一个货币体系怎么可能是真正值得信任的呢?这个是硬币解决的其中一个大的问题。

The first known coins of human history (Lydia, 600 B.C.)
人类历史上第一个已知的硬币（莉迪亚，公元前600年）

The Lydians of Ancient Greece were the first known group of people to start using coins. 500 years later, larger cities like Athens started to catch on. Unlike shells and grains, citizens couldn’t just go out and find more gold and silver to melt and shape into coins with intricate stamps. Even in today’s world, that’s still quite a specialized task despite the abundance of tools at our disposal.

古希腊的利亚人是第一批开始使用硬币的人。500年后，像雅典这样的大城市才开始流行起来。与贝壳和谷物不同的是，市民们不可能出门去寻找更多的金银来铸造复杂图章的硬币。即使在今天，尽管我们有大量的工具可供使用，但这仍然是一项非常特殊且专业的工作。

With each coin came a literal stamp of approval on the coin itself. Rulers printed their faces or national symbols on them as guarantee that they and the civilizations they commanded would guarantee the worth of the coin; i.e., as long as their civilization existed, the currency would still be worth something. The shift to using coins made the circulation controllable by the rulers and the currency more trusted by the citizens.

每枚硬币上都有一个批准文字图章。统治者们将他们的头像或国家标志印在上面，以保证他们和他们控制下的文明能够保证硬币的价值；即，只要他们的文明存在，货币就仍然是有价值的。使用硬币的好处是统治者可以控制其流通，且货币更受公民的信任。

The Emergence of Paper
纸的出现

While the invention of coins solved many problems for money, there were still disadvantages. For one, coins were molded from precious metals including gold. Circulation and supply growth was limited by the availability of those precious metals. Furthermore, they took up space and were heavy, which made storing them and carrying them inconvenient. The inconvenience and lack of supply became a growing problem until the emergence of paper.

虽然硬币的发明解决了许多问题，但仍然存在一些缺点。首先，硬币是由包括黄金在内的贵重金属制成的。流通和供应增长受到这些贵金属供应的限制。此外，他们不仅占地方，而且很重，这使得储存和携带极为不便。因此可以看到，在纸张出现之前，储存和携带不便以及供应不足成为一个日益严重的问题。

In 100 B.C., the Chinese invented the first form of paper. Not long after, the first use case emerged. Rather than carrying coins everywhere, people could leave their valuables at the bank, and the bank would provide a signed note that verified the value of the item(s) a person had in the bank; i.e., the first banknote. This system was based on trust that the note could be exchanged for actual valuables. Instead of exchanging for the tangible valuables at any time, people could continue to exchange the notes.

在公元前100年，中国人发明了第一种形式的纸。不久之后，第一个应用就出现了。人们不再是随身携带硬币，而是可以将他们的贵重物品存在银行，银行会提供一张签名的纸币，用于证明一个人在银行中物品的价值。即，第一种纸币。这个系统是建立在信任的基础上的，即纸币可以兑换为实际的贵重物品。因此人们可以便利的交换钞票，而不在是交换那些有形的贵重物品。

With Mongolia’s invasion of China, the Mongol Empire picked up on the practice of paper currency as well. In the 13th century, Marco Polo brought paper money back to Europe. By the 17th century, Europe had caught on to the trend and goldsmiths adopted the practice of using notes as a security, backed by the goldsmiths’ gold itself.

随着蒙古对中国的入侵，蒙古帝国也开始接受纸币的使用。在13世纪，马可波罗把纸币带回了欧洲。到了17世纪，欧洲已经抓住了这一趋势，金匠们采用了一种更为安全的方法——以其拥有的黄金为支撑来发行货币。

Because people were using and holding the paper note rather than exchanging everything for the backed valuables, European banks started to issue more notes than could be all backed up at once, betting on the hypothesis that every individual holding their notes would not all come knocking on their door the next day asking for gold. This became the first practice of the expansion of money supply in what we would consider modern money.

因为人们宁可使用和持有纸币也不愿交换那些有价值支撑的贵重物品，欧洲银行开始发行更多的纸币，很快就超过了其背后所支撑的黄金的价值，他们基于这样一种假设，即每一个持有纸币的人第二天都不会都来敲他们的门，要求兑现黄金。因此这成为了货币供应扩张的第一次实践，某种意义上来说这也是现代货币的开端。

The Move Away from Gold
脱离黄金

Today’s money is not redeemable for gold or silver. But this wasn’t the case until the 1930s. Prior to that, every dollar printed was backed by $0.40 worth of gold. Just as the Europeans believed that the entire population wouldn’t all withdraw at once, the US gave leniency on the amount of available gold supply to exchange for its dollars.

今天的钱不可兑换(译者注:可以购买)为黄金或白银。但20世纪30年代以前，情况并非如此。在此之前，印刷的每一美元背后都有价值0.40美元的黄金支撑。就像欧洲人认为所有人不会立即全部提现一样，美国对可用的黄金供应量进行宽松处理以换取美元。

But the early 1930s was not a good financial time for the United States. The Great Depression struck in 1929 with the stock market crash.

但是30年代初期对美国来说并不是一个好的财政时期。1929年股市暴跌后产生了经济大萧条。

In an effort to reinvigorate the US economy, Franklin D. Roosevelt (president at the time) decided to print money in an effort to initiate his spending program. Unfortunately, with the limited supply of gold, his hands were tied — he couldn’t increase taxes during this economic tragedy, and he couldn’t print more money because there wasn’t enough gold. The Great Depression had turned individuals into gold hoarders in fear of a rush to the banks that would collapse the entire economy (the banks only had $0.40 of gold per dollar, so it couldn’t possibly pay everyone).

为了重振美国经济，富兰克林·罗斯福(时任美国总统)决定印钞，以启动他的消费刺激计划。然而不幸的是，由于黄金供应有限，他难以施展拳脚——在这场经济大萧条中，他不能增加税收，不能印更多的钱，因为国家没有足够的黄金。大萧条使得个人倾向于囤积黄金，因为他们害怕银行会倒闭，从而导致整个经济崩溃(银行每美元只有0.40美元的黄金，所以它不可能支付给每个人)。

So in 1933, President Roosevelt made private ownership of gold illegal. To prevent any more gold from being withdrawn from banks, he closed their doors for three days. He then made it illegal for any citizen to privately own gold — it became a crime with a heavy sentence up to 10 years in prison. Citizens were instructed to turn over their gold back to the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Reserve would issue them paper money.

所以在1933年，罗斯福总统使得私自拥有黄金成为非法行为。同时为了防止更多黄金从银行被取出，全国银行停止营业三天。然后，他将任何公民私自持有黄金的行为定为非法行为——这一罪行被判处高达10年的监禁。公民被要求将黄金归还给美联储，美联储将发行纸币。

Depositors outside of Guardian National in Michigan, 1933

1933年，在密歇根州的《卫报》外的储户。

Despite the arguably authoritarian move, the plan failed. The damage had been done, and in 1971, President Richard Nixon officially moved the US dollar away from any gold backing. It wasn’t until 1977 that private ownership of gold was legalized again. Ironically, President Ford, the one who repealed the Gold Prohibition set forth by President Roosevelt, didn’t even know that owning gold was illegal.

尽管有争议，但该计划还是失败了，但损害已经造成，1971年，尼克松总统正式将美元与以黄金为支撑的发行支制度中脱离出(即美元脱离了金本位)。直到1977年，私人拥有黄金的所有权再次合法化。具有讽刺意味的是，废除了罗斯福总统提出的黄金禁令的福特总统甚至不知道拥有黄金是非法的。

Today’s Money System

今天的货币体系

Now we’ve reached fairly modern-day monetary practices. We’ve seen what started off as arguably a barter system transform into a currency system based on value with items such as grains, shells and cloth. The value was then guaranteed by an established government through the minting of coins. When coins became a burden, paper replaced it.

如今我们已经达到了相当现代化的货币政策。我们已经看到，一种物物交换系统从一开始就形成为一种基于价值的货币体系，如谷物，贝壳和布料。然后，一个主权政府通过铸造钱币来保证其价值。而当硬币成为一种累赘时，纸币就自然而然的取代了它。

With the majority of transactions handled primarily through paper, governments became more lenient on the ratio of paper-currency to precious metals available. Not long after, paper currency became completely dissociated with the precious metals that the currency derived value from; instead, paper currency became purely a promise from the government that it is worth something.

由于大多数交易主要是通过纸币来处理的，各国政府对纸币与贵金属的比例变得越来越宽松。不久之后，纸币就完全脱离了贵金属价值的束缚（基于此而发行的货币）；相反，纸币变成了政府指定的货币，并保证它是有价值的。

Today, even paper currency is only arguably true currency anymore. In Sapiens (2011), Anthropologist Yuval Noah Harari states:

如今，即便是纸币也只能算是真正的货币。Sapiens(2011)，人类学家尤瓦尔·诺亚·哈拉里说:

…Even today’s coins and banknotes are a rare form of money. The sum total of money in the world is about $60 trillion, yet the sum total of coins and banknotes is less than $6 trillion. More than 90 per cent of all money — more than $50 trillion appearing in our accounts — exists only on computer servers.

即使是今天的硬币和纸币也是一种罕见的货币形式。世界上的货币总量约为60万亿美元，而硬币和纸币的总和还不到6万亿美元。超过90%的资金——超过50万亿的美元出现在我们的账户——只存在于计算机服务器上。

In other words, 90% (perhaps even higher because this statistic was published in 2011) of the entire globe’s currency is, in fact, digital currency.

换句话说，90%(甚至更高，因为这个统计数据来源于2011年)的全球货币实际上是数字货币。

Act 2: Enter Bitcoin

第二部分 比特币的出现

Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym for the person or group that invented Bitcoin

中本聪是发明比特币的人或团体所使用的化名。

In 2009, an unknown person or group under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto introduced a paper. Within the document contained the idea of a decentralized, trustless, peer-to-peer system of currency called Bitcoin. A few things to define:

2009年，化名为中本聪(Satoshi Nakamoto)的一个不知名人士或团体发表了一篇论文。在这份文件中包含了一种被称为比特币的去中心化的、无需信任的可信系统、点对点的货币体系。

以下是一些定义:

Decentralized: there is no central authority; it’s the participants in the economy that preserve the existence of the economy.

去中心化：没有权威中心；即经济的参与者保持了经济的运转。

Trustless: an approach to guaranteeing accuracy and integrity without the need for trust. In traditional centralized systems, the community relies on trust; e.g., I trust that my bank will not lose my money.

无需信任的可信系统:一种可以保证准确性和完整性而不需要信任的方法。在传统的中心化系统中，社区依赖于信任；比如，我相信银行不会弄丢我的钱。

Peer-to-peer: a transaction approach that cuts out the middle-man, so an exchange can be conducted directly between the parties.

点对点:一种将中间人排除在外的交易方式，这样双方就可以直接进行交易。

The document proposed using a proof-of-work system by Adam Back’s Hashcash, which was actually invented back in 1997. If you didn’t understand what that meant, basically, it means that Satoshi Nakamoto repurposed Adam Back’s system to make Bitcoin work.

该文件建议使用Adam Back（英国密码学家）的哈希的工作量证明系统，该系统实际上是在1997年发明的。如果你不明白这意味着什么，也就是说，这意味着中本聪重新利用了Adam Back系统来让比特币正常运行。

The major value proposition with Bitcoin is not that it was the world’s first digital currency. As mentioned before, 90% of the world’s current existing money is already digital and only exists as digital. Just as the United States once backed $1 with only $0.40 worth of gold, today a similar situation exists such that only one physical dollar exists for every nine digital dollars. The concept of digital currency is already in use today when you swipe your debit or credit card.

比特币的主要价值定位并不是要作为世界上第一个数字货币。如上文所述，目前全球90％的现行货币已经是数字化的，且仅以数字化形式存在。正如美国曾经1美元背后只有0.40美元黄金的支撑一样，今天也存在类似的情况，即每9美元的背后就只有1美元的实物存在。今天数字货币的概念已经广泛使用且你也有切身感受，比如当你刷你的银行借记卡或信用卡时（实际上就是数字货币交易而已）。

The major value proposition with Bitcoin, blockchain, and many other decentralized cryptocurrencies is how they manage the digital currency experience: decentralized, trustless, direct peer-to-peer transacting. This importance is often lost in the frenzy of price hype. When you peak beneath the hood, though, you can see the potential for the next shift in currency: movement away from circulation control by government.

比特币，区块链和许多其它去中心化加密货币的主要价值需求是它们如何使用数字货币体验？？：去中心化，不可篡改，直接的点对点交易。这种重要性常常在价格炒作狂热中被忘记。然而，当你经历从波峰到波谷的震荡后，你可以看到下一次货币周期交替的可能性：远离政府的流通管制。

The New Money System Will Facilitate Global Growth

新的货币体系将促进全球经济增长。

As connected as we feel today with services such as the Internet, the reality is that much of the world is still isolated. Globalization is little more than a romantic vision at this point, but it is just available enough for us to believe it can be taken for granted as much as your phone’s battery life; 39% of the world’s population, which is almost 3 billion people, do not have access to banks. That’s almost every other person in existence. We’re just blessed to be part of the more privileged half.

正如我们今天所使用的那些服务，比如互联网的互通互联，而现实是，世界上的许多地方仍然是一片孤岛。在这一点上，全球化只不过是一种理论上想象中的景象，但它的存在足以让我们相信，它可以被视为理所当然，就像你手机的电池寿命一样（即实际上并不是真的如此）；世界上39%的人口，大约30亿左右，他们无法使用银行服务。我们很幸运能成为那一半享有这些福利的人。

Who says connectivity brings us closer together?

谁说互联互通让我们走得更近?

The inter-connectivity of the world and globalization of human interaction applies pressure for the need of a trusted currency on a global scale. Try to move large amounts of money across borders, and you can feel the friction depending on the country you’re in, and you’ll realize how expensive and slow it can be. Despite the fact that 90% of currency is all digital, the process of transferring it is still inefficient and creates inconvenient barriers that inhibit the growth of a global system.

世界的互联互通和人类相互影响的全球化，在全球范围内使用一种可信任货币的需求越来越强烈。你试着把大量的钱转移到不同的国家，可以感觉到你所身处的国家给你带来重重阻力，同时你会体会到跨国转账死贵而且慢。尽管90%的货币都已是数字化的，但是转账的过程仍然是低效的，而这将会阻碍全球化系统的增长。

The evolution of money and transacting throughout human existence has historically trended towards optimization. Barter systems (arguably) became shell-based currencies to standardize value and facilitate easier exchange. Shell currencies were replaced by minted coins molded from precious materials to control supply and provide better guarantee of value. Coin transactions shifted to bank notes backed by precious materials for more convenience. Recently, bank notes have dissociated from valuable materials and backed by governments for easier control of money supply and inflation. Nowadays, bank notes are used less and less as currency is becoming digital.

在人类历史上，货币和交易的演变史一直趋向于最优化解。物物交换系统(可以说是)基于贝壳作为货币，以实现价值标准化和便于交换的目的。贝壳被使用珍贵材料铸造的硬币所代替，以实现控制流通和提供更好的价值保证为目的。硬币交易行为逐渐转换为基于贵金属的钞票，以获得更多的便利。时至今日，钞票已经脱离了贵金属的价值支撑，并获得了政府的支持，以便更容易控制货币发行量和通货膨胀现象。如今，随着货币越来越数字化，使用钞票的越来越少。

While borders still exist on a political level, they are beginning to break down on a social one. The human effort to connect extends beyond political or corporate relationships; this struggle will drive the existing monetary system, which is circulated by corporate and political institutions, to an inflection point where its users must decide to continue trusting or to abandon it. The latter requires an alternative solution to transition into the next system of money.
虽然边界仍然存在于政治层面，但他们开始在社会层面上分崩离析。
人与人之间的链接超越了政治或社群关系；这场斗争将推动由企业和政治机构发行的现有货币体系进入一个转折点，即它的用户必须决定是继续信任或是放弃它。而后者需要另一种解决方案过渡到下一个货币体系。

Bitcoin May Not Be the Answer

比特币可能不是答案

The blockchain methodology provided by Bitcoin is one alternative solution. Designed to be decentralized, Bitcoin essentially distributes a copy of every piece of transaction history to anyone who wants one. Those people can then participate in checking historical and future transactions. By doing so, it is no longer a single entity that is the deciding factor for the validity of supply and transaction history, but an entire community. Furthermore, participating in Bitcoin makes it more impervious to exploitation — the larger the community, the more secure Bitcoin’s blockchain is against malicious intentions like hacks.

比特币提供的区块链方法是另一种解决方案。比特币的设计是去中心化的，它本质上是将每一段交易历史的副本分发给任何想要的人。这些人可以参与检查以前和后续的交易。通过这样做，它不再是一个单一的为了保证流通和交易历史数据正确的有决定性因素的个体，而是形成了一个完整的社区，此外，参与比特币使其更不容易受影响——社区规模越大，比特币的区块链就越能抵御黑客的恶意攻击。

As the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin has reputation and early-stage value. It also set the stage for what a decentralized currency should look like, and proved that the concept can, in fact, work. Within a decade, it became a global experiment.

比特币作为首个加密货币，具有良好的信誉和先发优势。它还为去中心化货币的定型提供了平台，并证明了这个概念实际上是可行的。不到十年时间，它成为了一个全球性的现象(实验)。

That being said, Bitcoin may not be the answer. While Satoshi Nakamoto’s original vision of Bitcoin was for ordinary citizens to participate in the transaction-updating process and be rewarded with Bitcoins using little more than an Internet-connected computer, some users realized that more powerful processors had an advantage of being faster in updating transactions (to be a little more technical, Bitcoin uses the SHA-256 hashing algorithm, which can be parallelized by the processors to speed up the hashing process), which would result in more rewards. Nowadays, only very expensive specialized computers called Application-specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) have a chance at earning Bitcoin rewards.

话虽如此，但比特币可能不是答案。虽然中本聪设计比特币的初衷是让普通公民使用部分互联网电脑参与交易记账，并获得比特。但后来越来越多用户认识到更快的处理器有一个优势:即在哈希碰撞中更容易胜出(比特币使用sha - 256哈希算法，可并行处理加快哈希过程)，而这将带来更多的回报。如今，只有非常昂贵的专用计算机(ASICs，今天被称为矿机)才有机会获得比特币的奖励。

Mining Bitcoin is the process of updating Bitcoin’s ledger. The fastest computer(s) to accurately provide the next piece of the ledger are rewarded with Bitcoin.

比特币挖矿是更新比特币账本的过程。最快的计算机能够准确地(大概率上是，哈希碰撞是随机的)打包当前区块，将会得到比特币奖励。

The downside of this hashing advantage, though, isn’t that ordinary citizens can’t participate; rather, it consumes a lot of energy. According to Digiconomist, maintaining the Bitcoin blockchain current consumes about the same amount of energy per year as the country of Algeria. The estimated costs are currently at a little under $3 billion. And the carbon footprint of a single Bitcoin transaction is equal to the same carbon footprint of about 510,000 VISA card transactions.

不过这种“哈希”优势的不利之处并不在于普通公民不能参与；相反，它消耗了大量的能量。根据Digiconomist网站的数据显示，维护比特币区块链，目前每年消耗的能源相当于阿尔及利亚全国每年消耗的能源总量。目前的估计费用大概在30亿美元左右。而一个比特币交易的碳排放量则相当于大约51万笔信用卡交易产生的碳排放量。

Bitcoin Energy Consumption can power almost 50% of the Netherlands

比特币的能源消耗量相当于几乎50%荷兰人的消耗量。

The reality is, the Bitcoin blockchain does not need to consume this much energy. It is designed so that the race to update transactions will always result in a winner approximately every 10 minutes, whether it’s one computer or a million computers. The energy consumption is largely driven by competition for profit, i.e., greed. If the Bitcoin blockchain can solve this issue, it can be a stronger candidate for global adoption.

事实是，比特币区块链不需要消耗这么多能源。它的设计是10分钟左右产生一个交易记录区块，并诞生一个打包记录者（获得区块和手续费奖励），因此不管是一台电脑还是一百万台电脑，都是如此。而能源消耗很大程度上是受到利利益争的驱动，比如：贪婪。如果比特币区块链能解决这一问题，它可能成为全球货币体系使用对象中更强大的候选者。

A separate common, but flawed, argument that critics reference to question the legitimacy of Bitcoin is that it is a money used for illicit activities. But illegal activities have existed long before Bitcoin, and will continue to exist regardless of Bitcoin’s fate. The same tools can be an instrument of progress or destruction in different hands. Just as Bitcoin transacting is suspicious when buying drugs on the Internet, cash transactions are suspicious when buying guns of Craigslist. As the saying goes, when there’s a will, there’s a way.

另一种常见但有缺陷的观点是，批评人士提到比特币的合法性时，认为比特币是一种用于非法活动的资金。但非法活动早在比特币之前就存在了（即使没有比特币，非法活动依然存在），不管比特币的前途命运如何，它都将继续存在。同样的工具在不同的人手中产生的结果截然不同。就像在网上购买毒品时，使用比特币交易是可疑的，在购买Craigslist的枪支时，使用现金交易是可疑的。

The reality is that the need for an eventual replacement of current money systems is inevitable. That statement isn’t a promise to Bitcoin hopefuls, or a threat to existing institutions. It’s just an observation from a glimpse into the evolution of money.

现实情况是，最终取代现有货币体系这一需求是不可避免的，也是势在必行的。这一说法并不是表明一定会是比特币，也不是对现有体系的否定（威胁）。这只是对货币演变过程的一种观察而已。

The Emergence of Value
价值的显现

Despite no longer being backed by gold, the U.S. dollar is still worth $1 because the United States government’s existence backs the U.S. dollar. The same argument is made for the existence of essentially every currency today — they are government-backed.

尽管不再有黄金支撑，美元仍然值1美元，因为这基于其背后有美国政府的存在。今天基本上每一种货币的存在都是一样的——它们都是基于政府背书（基于政府的信用）。

Ultimately, though, the argument of value existing due to government consensus and promise is an argument of collective imagination and acceptance — it can be said that equally as important as government backing is the nation (in many cases today, global) agreement that the currency is worth something and therefore transact it.

但最终由于政府共识和承诺而存在的价值逻辑是基于集体创造和信任的一个证据——可以说，与政府支持同样重要的是国家认可这种货币是有价值的并且可用于交易。

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An ICO is a fundraising event where early adopters of a new coin can get what they believe would be a special price by buying in on the early stages of the project using an existing cryptocurrency like Ethereum. For example, if I wanted to create a coin called FoodieCoin, I can launch an ICO to tell people about my vision for the importance of FoodieCoin, and set an early buy-in price of 500 FoodieCoins for 1 Ethereum. Investors who are interested and see the potential value can then buy in. Currently, ICOs walk a fine line between what can and can’t be done under regulation, so if you do intend on participating, tread with caution — I’m not a lawyer or accountant and this should not be misconstrued as legal or investment advice, I’m simply providing a definition and example of what an ICO is.
ICO（首次代币发售Initial Coin Offering）是一项筹款活动，通过使用现有的加密货币（如以太坊），在项目的早期（公募/私募）众筹新的Token，希望获得他们期望的特殊（较低）的价格。例如：我想要发行一个叫做FoodieCoin的Token，那么我可以发起一个ICO，并向大众宣传FoodieCoin的愿景多么牛逼，并规定1个ETH早鸟兑换500个FoodieCoin Token。那些有兴趣并且看到潜在价值的投资者就可以参与。目前，ICO在打政府监管的擦边球，所以如果你打算参与，请谨慎行事——因为我不是律师或会计师，这不应该被误解为合法的或投资建议，我只是提供一个ICO的定义和事例而已。
Today, when you browse CoinLib.io, you’ll see over 3,300 different cryptocurrencies. A majority of them exist as an Ethereum token, born out of ICOs. While many of them can arguably be labeled as a “shitcoin” (a coin with no actual value that was created for pure financial gain of its creators), new and interesting projects are emerging purely in the cryptocurrency space. From marketplaces similar to eBay to ride-share platforms similar to Uber, a new economy is being constructed that can only be used by transacting cryptocurrency. In its infancy, many of the ideas are likely to fail, and the majority of all ideas are not entirely original; rather, they are a transference of existing ideas from the existing realm of technology, ported over to the cryptocurrency economy.

今天，当您浏览CoinLib.io网站时（译者注：加密货币信息查询网站），您将看到超过3,300种不同的加密货币。它们中的大多数都来自基于以太坊智能合约而继续的ICO。而其中有许多Token可能被贴上“shitcoin”的标签（一种没有实际价值的token，纯粹是为了经济利益而发行的），但新的有吸引力的项目在加密货币领域逐渐浮现。从类似eBay的市场到类似共享的Uber平台，一个新的只能通过交易加密货币来使用的经济体制正在逐步形成。在其发展初期，许多想法可能会流产，并且大多数想法也都不完全是颠覆性的；相反，它们是将现有技术领域的一些理念转移到加密货币经济中而已。

With technology, innovation is the sincerest form of transformation.
凭借科技，创新是最真诚的转型形式。

But this type of transformation layers the foundation for innovation moving forward. We have seen it many times in economic transformations of nations; the most recent example is China. After adopting an open-door policy in 1978 that enabled it to more easily trade with other nations, China became the world’s industrial empire. As its economy grew, the nation started to become more technologically savvy, not initially through innovation, but from copying business models of existing technology companies in the rest of the world. Essentially, it had begun the process of transferring over existing technologies and ideas into its nation. Fast-forward to today, and China’s technology innovation and prowess is what other countries are trying to replicate. It’s not unusual to see a feature on Facebook that was in a similar Chinese app years before. Cryptocurrency innovation may soon become privy to the same fate.

但这种转型为创新的发展奠定了基础。这个我们在国家经济转型中多次见过它；最近的例子就是中国。

中国在1978年采取改革开放政策后，打开了与其它国家进行贸易的窗口，这使得国际贸易更为容易，时至今日，中国成为世界工业帝国。随着经济的增长，国家开始走向技术创新，但最初并不是通过创新，而是通过复制（照抄照搬）世界其它地区科技公司的商业模式。从本质上说，它已经开始将现有技术和理念输出到其它国家。快速发展到今天，其它国家正在试图复制中国的技术创新和实力。在Facebook上看到一个类似的中国应用的功能是很正常的。加密货币的创新可能很快就会变成同样的命运。

What are the Next Steps?
下一个步是什么？

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect….

你不能预先把经历的点点滴滴串在一起；唯有未来回顾时，你才会明白那些点点滴滴是如何串在一起的。

——Steve Jobs

Cryptocurrency is a barely regulated space that exists on a collective user consensus of value. Whether the future will be Bitcoin, some other existing cryptocurrency, or one that’s yet to be created, the reality is that the turbulent path of the crypto market is on the right track for a potentially huge transformation for innovation on a global scale.

加密货币是一个存在于集体用户价值共识之上且几乎未受到监管的事物。不管未来比特币以及其它现有的加密货币，还是尚未创建的加密货币，现实情况是，加密市场的动荡之路逐步向正确的轨道，可能会在全球范围内实现巨大的创新转型。

Economically, money has evolved over thousands of years from trading shells to rectangular plastic, each to suit the needs of its time and population. Today’s time involves not a national population, but a global one; as a result, the eventual replacement of a current money system is under pressure. That statement isn’t a promise to Bitcoin hopefuls, or a threat to existing institutions. It’s just an observation from a glimpse into the evolution of money.

从经济角度来说，货币已经从数千年来的贝壳演变为银行卡，每一种都适合其时代和人口的需求。如今涉及的不再是某国人口，而是全世界人口；因此，最终取代当前货币体系的做法正面临压力。本文以上内容不是表明未来的世界货币一定会是比特币，也不是对现有体系进行威胁。这只是对货币演变过程的一种观察而已，仅供参考。