译者 王为
文中黑字部分为原文，蓝字部分为译文，红字部分为译者注释或补充说明
What Backs Bitcoin
by Peter St Onge
As bitcoin goes mainstream, we’re seeing a rise in strong opinions about it. It’s the mac-vs-PC of the currency world.
随着比特币日渐兴起，越来越多针锋相对的观点开始显现，在货币领域中也出现了类似于计算机界“到底是苹果机好还是PC机好” 一样的争论。
JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, famous for scoring a 25 billion dollar taxpayer bailout, thinks bitcoin is a fraud. Nobel economist Robert Shiller thinks it’s a “fad” and a bubble.
以掠走250亿美元来自纳税人的纾困资金而臭名远扬的大通摩根银行首席执行官杰米·戴蒙认为比特币是个骗局。诺贝尔经济学奖获得者罗伯特·席勒认为比特币只是个泡沫，坚持不了多久。
The always entertaining Paul Krugman thinks bitcoin is a waste of electricity. And Blackrock strategist Turnhill is afraid to price it because he says bitcoin’s got no “inherent value.”
总是喜欢语出惊人的美国经济学家保罗·克鲁格曼认为比特币纯粹是浪费电力，私募基金黑石公司的策略分析师Turnhill极不情愿给比特币做个估值，因为他曾表示比特币压根就没有任何内在固有价值。
On the other hand are the people who actually own and use bitcoins. Hodlers, [Hold On for Dear Life], who are often quite passionate about cyber-currencies. They’ve been very right so far, and don’t mind letting the world know.
但另一方面，实际持有和使用比特币的却大有人在。有一些比特币的死多头“持有比特币打死都不卖”，对虚拟货币总是热情万丈。到目前为止，他们所做的一切都是那么的正确，并且巴不得让这一成功故事变得家喻户晓。
The two sides are miles apart: skeptics think bitcoin and other cybercoins are snake-oil floating tulip-like upon the delusions of basement-dwellng anarchists. While basement-dwelling anarchists, some of whom now live on yachts in Monaco, think cybercurrencies are the wave of the future. A wave that will dethrone the devil’s very own paper money, along with that innocent if barbaric relic, gold.
这两拨人的看法好比水火不相容：怀疑论者认为比特币和其他虚拟货币是栖身于地下室里的无政府主义者空想出来的东西。而那些被认为是躲在地下室里的无政府主义者，其中一些人如今正躺在摩洛哥的自家游艇上晒太阳，则认为虚拟货币代表着未来的潮流，这股潮流将把魔鬼般的旧势力牢牢掌握的纸币体系扔进历史的垃圾堆，而本不相干的被认为是“史前遗迹”的黄金也难逃此命运。
So who’s right? Is it cybertulips or is the US dollar about to get crushed like Amazon destroying a bookstore?
哪一种观点是正确的？是虚拟货币不过就是历史上曾出现过的荷兰郁金香泡沫？还是就像亚马逊横扫实体书店一样美元的霸主地位终将迎来末日？
Today I’m going to address one main concern of critics, that there’s nothing “backing” bitcoin. This is what Turnhill was getting at with “no inherent value” and it’s a fundamental misperception of how currencies work.
在此我将针对一种主流批判观点进行探讨，即认为比特币的背后没有任何东西作为支撑，这是Turnhill关于“比特币没有任何内在固有价值”的观点产生的基础，同时也是对货币运行机制根本性的理解错误。
The key here is a currency — like anything else in the economy including goods, services, or assets — doesn’t get its price from some mythical “inherent value.” Rather, prices come from simple supply and demand. Supply is the amount of the currency in circulation, and demand is how much do people want it. In the case of currencies, people demand them for two main reasons: to enable transactions, and to act as a store of value — for savings.
最关键的地方在于，像实体经济中的其他一切事物一样，诸如商品、服务或资产，货币的价值并不是来自于那些玄而又玄的“内在固有价值”，而是仅仅来自于供求关系的变化。货币供应指的是流通中货币的数量，货币需求指的是人们需要多少这样的货币。对于货币，人们的需求主要来自两个方面：一是应有助于完成交易，即发挥交易媒介的作用；二是扮演储藏手段，比如存款就可以储存起来。
This means any valuable currency, including bitcoin, has value for the simple reason that it offers a feature bundle that beats competing currencies for some people, for some transactions, or for some savings. The currency to beat for bitcoin is, of course, physical dollars, electronic dollars, and to a lesser extent gold or new cybercurrencies with better features.
这就意味着任何一种具有价值的货币，包括比特币在内，之所以具有价值仅仅是因为这种货币对于某些人来说，在某些交易场景中或某些需要发挥储藏手段的情况下比其他的货币选项展现出了更高的竞争力。以比特币为例，比特币需要打败的对手，毫无疑问包括以实体货币形式存在的美元，以电子货币形式存在的美元以及更小范围意义上的其他货币形式，比如黄金和自身的某些特性更有吸引力的新的虚拟货币。
Value comes from usefulness, not from melting
货币真正的价值来自于使用，而非天然被赋予的价值
So, first off, what does it mean to “back” a currency? The term comes from the olden days when paper money could be exchanged for something you can drop on your foot — typically gold or silver. You’d take your paper to a bank and trade it for gold — in the case of the US dollar, 20 bucks would buy an ounce of gold.
先来回答这么一个问题，是什么东西支撑了一个货币的价值？“支撑”这个词可有老鼻子的历史了，最早的时候纸币随时可以置换成看得见摸得着的东西,通常是黄金或者白银。拿着纸币到银行去换黄金，比如20美元可以换一盎司黄金。
Now, this world is long gone at this point; first the Fed, then Richard Nixon repudiated backing. Which is why today the dollar can’t be traded for any backing commodity — if you give it to the bank they’ll just give you another dollar in its place, and give you a funny look.
如今，这都是老皇历了。先是美联储，然后是尼克松总统拒绝外国拿着美元到美国来兑换黄金。这就是为什么现如今美元不能直接换商品的原因了，如果你拿着美元到银行柜台换东西，他们只会照着原样给你同样多的美元，然后带着关爱傻子一样的眼神看着你。
Of course, you can still buy gold with dollars, just as you can buy a car or a pleasant night on the town. And you’ve probably noticed 20 bucks no longer buys an ounce of gold nor, for that matter, does it buy a very pleasant evening on the town unless your date likes McDonalds.
当然了，用美元还是能买到黄金的，就像你可以用美元买一台小汽车或者在城里潇洒一夜。你可能会注意到用20美元已经买不到一盎司黄金了，而且也不够在城里潇洒一夜的了，除非你安排好的约会地点是在麦当劳。
In the case of bitcoin, like the dollar, it is backed by precisely nothing. You can’t “redeem” a bitcoin for ounces of gold. And, also like a dollar, you can buy all sorts of things with a bitcoin — a coffee, a car, a house. And, of course, unlike the dollar bitcoins have gone up in value, not down, so you can buy a very pleasant evening on the town with a bitcoin today.
与美元一样，比特币的背后同样也没有什么具体的东西作为价值的支撑。比特币不能直接兑换黄金，而是像美元一样，比特币也可以被用于购买各种各样的东西，买咖啡，买小汽车，买房子。当然有一点是美元比不了的，比特币的价值在涨而不是跌，因此你今晚可以拿着一个比特币可以在城里过一个非常有档次的夜生活。
Stepping back for a moment, if we’ve learned one thing from the much-feared unbacking of paper money, it’s that backing mattered suprisingly little. It matters for controlling inflation, yes, but not for the actual price of a currency: dollars, pounds, yen still hold value decades after complete unbacking.
静下心来好好想一想，如果我们已经从纸币的信用没有任何东西作为支撑的可怕现实中悟到了什么，那就是货币背后的支撑竟然是可有可无的。一个货币最关键的地方在于能否制住通货膨胀，而不是本身具有多少实际的价值。在失去实物作为信用支撑的几十年后的今天，美元、英镑、日元照样保住了自己的地位。
So backing is nice but it’s overwhelmed by supply and demand. Just as the main value of a shovel is its ability to dig dirt, not the melt-value of its iron, the main value of a given currency is its ability to enable transactions and savings. Transaction demand representing what’s in your wallet, and savings demand representing what’s in your bank or under your bed if you swing that way.
因此说，货币背后有东西作为信用支撑固然很好，但最重要的是供求关系的影响。就好比一个铲子的价值来自于能用来挖地，而不是打造这把铲子时用了多少铁，一个货币之所以广为接受是因为其能保证交易顺利完成和作为储藏手段。货币的交易需求决定钱包中货币的价值大小，货币的贮藏需求决定银行存款或床垫底下藏钱（如果有人好这口的话）金额的多少。
Value is in the eye of the beholder
货币的价值取决于旁人怎么看
Now note the currency doesn’t have to win at everything; it merely has to be best for some transactions, for some savings applications, and only for some people. If so, it has value — it’s worth something. Specifically how much value depending on how many people, how many transactions, how much savings, all set against the supply in circulation. If, on the other hand, nobody uses the currency to transact or save then, yes, it’s worthless.
现在明白了吧，一个货币没有必要“包打天下”解决所有的问题，只需满足一些交易场景，一些存款以及一部分人的需求就可以了。只要能做到这一点，这个货币就具有价值，就有了用武之地。尤其需要指出来的是，一个货币具有多少价值取决于有多少人在多少交易中和多少存款需求中使用，这些因素决定了流通中货币的供应量。假如是另一番景象，如果一种货币没有任何人用于交易或用来存钱，没错，该货币就不具有任何价值。
In the next bitcoin video I’ll get into real-world numbers, asking precisely what transactions or savings are best suited to bitcoin, to other cryptocurrencies, or to gold for that matter. But for now the point is that, given its quasi-fixed supply, bitcoin has value not because tulips or ponzi, rather because it’s useful to some people for some transactions or some savings.
在下一篇文章中，我会用实际的案例来说明有哪些交易或存款的需求适合采用比特币作为中介，而不是其他的虚拟货币或黄金。但这里要指出来一点，由于比特币的供应量几乎是封顶的，因此比特币的价值并非来自于投机炒作或旁氏骗局，而是因为比特币能够满足某些人在某些交易中或某些存款的需求。
As for the debate itself, because we can see usage of bitcoin continues to grow along with the price, there’s nothing fundamentally odd or worrying about bitcoin’s soaring price, even granting that short-term bubbles are always happening across financial markets. Finally, getting out the crystal ball, it follows that bitcoin’s long-term price will tend to simply follow that demand: more or less transactions, more or less savings, for more or less people.
至于围绕比特币的争论，由于在价格上涨的同时比特币的应用也在变得日益广泛，就算知道金融市场上总会有这样或那样的短期资产泡沫，比特币行情的暴涨也根本没啥可奇怪可担忧的。最后，应停止无根据的瞎猜，长期来看比特币的价格一般就是由需求端的变化决定的：交易量的大还是小，存款需求的多还是少，使用人群的范围怎样。