2019年经济学人 Facebook推出“天秤币”(2)（在线收听）

If the project lives up to the mock-ups, buying, selling, holding, sending and receiving Libras will become a doddle. It can be done in Facebook’s Messenger app or WhatsApp, another messaging-servicecum-social-network it owns—and, later next year, in a stand-alone app.

如果该项目符合实物模型的要求，那么购买、出售、持有、发送和接收天秤币将变得轻而易举。这些功能可以在脸书的MSN应用程序或另一款脸书自己的社交网络WhatsApp中实现，明年晚些时候，还可以在一个独立的应用程序中实现。

So far, so familiar. Messenger already offers payments to Americans. WhatsApp is testing a similar function in India. But these services do not cross borders, and require users to have a bank account. Fintech firms like TransferWise, which offer international transfers, take a 4-5% cut to wire $200, a third less than Western Union. But Libra will be much cheaper, and require no bank accounts: more Bitcoin than Venmo.

到目前为止，一切都很熟悉。MSN已经向美国人提供支付服务。WhatsApp正在印度测试类似的功能。但这些服务不跨越国界，且要求用户拥有银行账户。像TransferWise这样提供国际转账服务的金融科技公司，电汇200美元的费用减少了4-5%，比西联汇款少了三分之一。但天秤币会便宜得多，而且不需要银行账户：比Venmo的比特币交易额更多。

Except that, unlike Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies, Libras will change hands in seconds, not minutes, for next to nothing, not a few dollars. The system should handle 1,000 transactions a second at its launch, and more later, compared with no more than seven a second for Bitcoin. The virtual coins will be bought with real money, which will top up the reserve backing the currency. This should prevent wild price swings from speculation.

不过，与比特币和其他加密货币不同，天秤币的易手时间是几秒钟，而不是几分钟。该系统启动时每秒应处理1000笔交易，之后还会处理更多交易，而比特币每秒的交易量不超过7笔。虚拟货币将用真金白银购买，这将补充货币的储备。这应该可以防止投机导致价格的剧烈波动。

If it works, Libra could be a money-spinner for Facebook, albeit not directly. Notional transaction fees would not generate much revenue. But Libras should allow Facebook to charge more for online ads, by making purchases of advertised products quicker and simpler. It could furnish a new source of data to target adverts, making up for user information Facebook will forgo with the “pivot to privacy”, which Mark Zuckerberg, its boss, proclaimed in March in respect of messaging. Facebook may catch up with WeChat, a Chinese super-app which offers payments and other services, and whose foreign ambitions are on hold as the Sino-American trade war rages on.

如果成功了，天秤币可以成为脸书的摇钱树，尽管不是直接的摇钱树。但天秤币应该会让脸书对在线广告收取更高的费用，方法是更快、更简单地购买广告产品。脸书的老板马克?扎克伯格在今年3月宣布了“转向隐私”战略，由此放弃的用户信息可以由天秤币弥补新的数据来源。脸书可能会赶上微信，微信是提供支付和其他服务的中国超级应用程序，随着摩擦的继续，其海外野心被搁置。