2018年经济学人 自由交流:疯狂，恐慌和ICO(1)（在线收听）

Finance and Economics

财经

Free exchange: Manias, panics and ICOs

自由交流：疯狂，恐慌和ICO

Crypto-coin mania illustrates the crazy and not-so-crazy sides of bubbles.

加密货币狂热诠释了泡沫的疯狂一面和不那么疯狂的一面。

Every market mania reaches a point when pitches to would-be investors enter the realm of the surreal.

每一次市场狂热都是在针对潜在投资者的花言巧语进入超现实领域时到达临界点。

So it goes for “initial coin offerings”, or ICOs.

“货币首次发行”（initial coin offerings 简称ICO）亦是如此。

A new one by a firm called POW invites Facebook users to claim tokens for nothing; when they later become convertible into other tokens, the first to take advantage of the offer could “become worth $124bn…making them the richest person on Earth”, the blurb says.

由一家叫做POW的公司发起的一次新ICO邀请脸书用户为不存在的东西申领代币；当它们以后变得可以转换成其他代币时，头一批利用这次发行的人可能“变得价值1240亿美元......使他们成为地球上最富有的人”，推介宣传上如此写道。

Not a bad return for no money invested and no risk borne.

对于没有钱被投入、没有风险要承担的投资来说，这不算是一个糟糕的回报。

However bizarre, bubbles are hard to resist: no one wants to be the only one of their friends left out.

不管如何荒诞，泡沫是难以抗拒的：没有人想成为自己朋友圈中唯一掉队的人。

They can also be financially ruinous.

它们在财务方面也可能是毁灭性的。

But gambling on a craze, even a highly dubious one, can be about more than blind greed.

但是，为一场狂热，甚至是一场高度可疑的狂热赌上身家性命，可能更多地涉及到盲目贪婪。

The ICO boom is an outgrowth of the emerging, occasionally inscrutable world of cryptocurrencies.

ICO繁荣是新兴的、偶尔也是不可思议的加密货币世界的一个产物。

These are a form of money (bitcoin and ether are examples) used in transactions which are recorded on a distributed public ledger called a blockchain.

这些加密货币是用在被记录在一种叫做区块链的分布式公共总帐目中的交易中的一种钱（比特币和以太币）。

An ICO is a scheme to raise funds for an enterprise written into a contract on a blockchain.

ICO是为被写入区块链上的合同中的公司筹集资金的项目。

To buy in, punters use cryptocurrency to pay for tokens.

为了买入，投机客使用加密货币支付代币。

Those tokens become the working currency within the new enterprise.

这些代币在新企业内部成为运转货币。

A new social network, for instance, might fund itself through an ICO, then allow users to spend their tokens on goods or services on the network once it is up and running.

例如，一家新的社交网络可能通过ICO为自己筹集资金，之后，一俟网络上线运行，就允许用户把代币花在该网络的各种商品和服务上面。

In successful projects, demand for tokens should rise and early investors should profit.

在成功的项目中，对代币的需求应当上升，早期投资者应当获利。

ICOs resemble both a new form of crowdfunding, and a technological leapfrog over the regulations that hem in more orthodox funding strategies.

ICO既类似于一种全新的众筹形式，也代表着一种对于把范围限制在正统筹资策略之内的监管的技术飞跃。

They are also all the rage.

同时，他们还一路高歌猛进。

Ether, the currency used on the ethereum blockchain, is up by more than 2,400% against the dollar over the past year and boasts a market capitalisation of nearly $28bn.

以太币，这种用在以太坊区块链上的货币，在过去的一年中对美元上涨了2400%多，并且还自我夸耀称，有将近2800亿美元的市值。

ICOs have so far raised nearly $2bn in 2017.

到目前为止，各种ICO在2017年已经筹集了将近2000亿美元。