比特幣戰爭(上):中國操盤手
A delegation of American executives flew to Beijing in April for a secret meeting at the Grand Hyatt hotel, just blocks from Tiananmen Square.
4月，一個美國企業高管代表團飛到北京，在東方君悅大酒店參加了一次祕密會議，那裏距天安門廣場僅幾個街區之遙。
They went to meet with the new kingmakers in what has become one of the grandest and strangest experiments in money the world has seen: the virtual currency known as Bitcoin.
和他們會面的是業內新晉的實權人物，而他們所在的這個行業，是人類歷史上最宏大、最古怪的一場金錢實驗：被稱爲“比特幣”的虛擬貨幣。
Against long odds, and despite an abstruse structure, in which supercomputers are said to mine the currency via mathematical formulas, Bitcoin has become a multibillion-dollar industry. It has attracted major investments from Silicon Valley and a significant following on Wall Street.
比特幣有一個令人費解的體系，據稱要利用超級計算機作數學計算來開採貨幣，然而出人意料的是，它已經成爲一個數十億美元的產業。硅谷向它注入了大筆投資，還引起了華爾街的密切關注。
Yet Bitcoin, which is both a new kind of digital money and an unusual financial network, is having something of an identity crisis. Like so many technologies before it, the virtual currency is coming up against the inevitable push and pull between commercial growth and the purity of its original ambitions.
然而，作爲一種新型的數碼貨幣和獨特的金融網絡，比特幣正面臨一場身份危機。和此前的許多技術一樣，虛擬貨幣也不可避免地要面對一種推拉效應：一方面要商業增長，另一方面要維持其初心的純潔性。
In its early conception, Bitcoin was to exist beyond the control of any single government or country. It would be based everywhere and nowhere.
根據最初的設想，比特幣是不受任何單一政府或國家控制的。它無處不在，又無處可尋。
Yet despite the talk of a borderless currency, a handful of Chinese companies have effectively assumed majority control of the Bitcoin network. They have done so through canny investments and vast farms of computer servers dispersed around the country. The American delegation flew to Beijing because that was where much of the Bitcoin power was concentrated.
然而，雖然被認爲是一種無國界貨幣，比特幣網絡的多數控制權實際上已經落入幾家中國公司手中。他們是通過精明的投資和分佈於該國各地的巨型計算機服務器礦場實現這一點的。美國代表團要飛到北京，正是因爲比特幣的相當一部分權力就集中在那裏。
At the time of the meeting, over 70 percent of the transactions on the Bitcoin network were going through just four Chinese companies, known as Bitcoin mining pools — and most flowed through just two of those companies. That gives them what amounts to veto power over any changes to the Bitcoin software and technology.
在會議舉行之時，比特幣網絡七成以上的交易是通過四家中國公司進行的，也就是所謂的比特幣礦池——而大多數的流通只涉及其中的兩家公司。這樣一來，他們對比特幣軟件和技術上的任何改變就有了否決權。
China has become a market for Bitcoin unlike anything in the West, fueling huge investments in server farms as well as enormous speculative trading on Chinese Bitcoin exchanges. Chinese exchanges have accounted for 42 percent of all Bitcoin transactions this year, according to an analysis performed for The New York Times by Chainalysis. Just last week, the Chinese internet giant, Baidu, joined with three Chinese banks to invest in the American Bitcoin company Circle.
中國形成了一個西方世界無法比擬的比特幣市場，巨量投資進入服務器礦場，中國的比特幣交易所裏進行着大宗投機交易。據《紐約時報》委託Chainalysis進行的分析，中國交易所今年的交易額佔了總額的42%。就在上週，中國互聯網巨頭百度還和三家中國銀行聯手，投資了美國比特幣公司Circle。
But China’s clout is raising worries about Bitcoin’s independence and decentralization, which was supposed to give the technology freedom from the sort of government crackdowns and interventions that are commonplace in the Chinese financial world.
但是，中國的影響力讓人開始擔心比特幣的獨立性和去中心化。這些特性本應讓比特幣技術不需畏懼政府的打壓和干預。而政府打壓和干預又在中國金融界司空見慣。
“The concentration in a single jurisdiction does not bode well,” said Emin Gun Sirer, a professor at Cornell and a Bitcoin researcher. “We need to pay attention to these things if we want decentralization to be a meaningful thing.”
“集中在一個單一轄區不是什麼好兆頭，”康奈爾大學教授、比特幣研究者埃明·古恩·希拉爾(Emin Gun Sirer)說。“這些是我們需要留意的，否則去中心化就會流於表面。”
The power of Chinese companies has already come to play a major role in a civil war that has divided Bitcoin followers over the last year and led to the departure of one of the top developers of the virtual currency. The dispute has hinged on technical matters but also on bigger questions of what Bitcoin should look like in 10 or 20 years.
去年的一場內戰導致這種虛擬貨幣的信徒出現分裂，其中一位頂尖開發者因此離開了社區，中國公司在那一戰中已經扮演了重要的角色。爭執是圍繞一些技術問題展開的，但事關比特幣未來10年、20年發展的大問題也牽扯其中。
The American companies that journeyed to the Grand Hyatt — including venture capital-funded start-ups like Coinbase and Circle — are fighting to make Bitcoin bigger. They hope to expand the capacity of the Bitcoin network so that it can process more transactions and compete with the PayPals and Visas of the world.
前往東方君悅的美國代表包括Coinbase、Circle等創投基金支持的創業公司，他們在力求擴大比特幣的規模。他們希望對比特幣網絡進行擴容，可以處理更多的交易，與PayPal、Visa等服務抗衡。
The current size of the network goes back to the early days, when Bitcoin’s founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, limited the amount of data that could travel through the network, essentially capping it at about seven transactions a second. As Bitcoin has grown more popular, those limits have caused severe congestion and led to lengthy transaction delays.
目前的網絡規模是早年決定的，當時比特幣的創始人中本聰（Satoshi Nakamoto，音）對在網絡中流通的數據總量進行了限制，本質上就是給交易設定了每秒七次左右的上限。隨着比特幣的日漸普及，這些限制導致了嚴重的阻塞，交易處理會有大幅延時。
The American delegation in China had a software proposal, known as Bitcoin Classic, that would change all that.
前往中國的美國代表提出了一個軟件方案叫做“比特幣經典版”(Bitcoin Classic)，可以徹底改變這種局面。
The Chinese companies, though, had the ultimate decision-making power over any changes in the software, and they did not agree with the American delegation. The Chinese had thrown in their lot with another group of longtime programmers who wanted to keep Bitcoin smaller, in part to keep it more secure. The Americans hoped to persuade the Chinese to switch sides.
然而中國公司對軟件的任何改動有着終極裁決權，他們不同意美國代表的想法。中國人選擇站在另一個程序員羣體一方，這些人一直都想讓比特幣保持在較小的規模，一定程度上是爲了保障安全。美國人希望勸說中國人改弦更張。
In a hotel conference room, the American team of about a half-dozen people cycled through its PowerPoint slides, in English and Chinese, arguing for expansion of the network, most notably pointing to the long delays that have been plaguing the system as a result of the congestion. The Chinese companies listened and conferred among themselves. The group took a break for a lunch of lamb and dumplings at a nearby mall.
在一間酒店會議室裏，五六人組成的美國代表團圍着中英雙語的PowerPoint幻燈片，陳述他們擴張網絡的理由，其中主要的一點是長延時，這個由阻塞導致的問題正困擾着整個系統。中國公司聽了美方陳述，彼此間也商量了一番。中午大家到附近的購物中心吃了羊肉和餃子。
“We kept coming back and saying, ‘For better or worse, you have this leadership in the industry, and everyone is looking to you to show some leadership,’” said Brian Armstrong, chief executive of Coinbase.
“我們反覆說，‘不管怎麼說，你們是這個產業的領導者，大家都期待你們有領袖的作爲，’”Coinbase首席執行官布萊恩·阿姆斯特朗(Brian Armstrong)說。
Ultimately, Mr. Armstrong said, “We were unable to convince them.”
最終，“我們沒能說服他們，”阿姆斯特朗說。
Some Bitcoin advocates have complained that the Chinese companies have been motivated only by short-term profit, rather than the long-term success and ideals of the project. Bobby Lee, chief executive of the Bitcoin company BTCC, which is based in Shanghai, bristled at that — and at the notion that the Chinese companies represent any sort of united front. He attended the April meeting and pointed out that the Chinese companies had disagreed among themselves on how urgent it is to make changes to the Bitcoin software.
一些比特幣倡導人士指責中國公司只受短期利潤的驅使，不在乎長遠的成功和該計劃的理想。總部在上海的比特幣公司BTCC首席執行官李啓元被這種言論激怒了——包括把中國公司當作一個同仇敵愾的羣體來看待。他參加了4月的會議，並指出在改變比特幣軟件的緊迫性上，中國公司之間是存在分歧的。
He said the American companies failed to understand the power dynamics in the room that day. “It was almost like imperialistic Westerners coming to China and telling us what to do,” Mr. Lee said in an interview last week. “There has been a history on this. The Chinese people have long memories.”
他說那天在會議室裏，美國公司對權力的消長沒有認識。“給人感覺就像高高在上的西方人來到中國，對我們指手畫腳，”李啓元在上週接受採訪時說。“這種事以前發生過。中國人記性很好的。”
