The fall from grace was hard and fast. Only a fortnight ago Sam Bankman-Fried was in the stratosphere. ftx, his cryptocurrency exchange, then the third-largest, was valued at $32bn; his own wealth was estimated at $16bn. To the gushing venture capitalists (vcs) of Silicon Valley he was the financial genius who could wow investors while playing video games, destined, perhaps, to become the world’s first trillionaire. In Washington he was the acceptable face of crypto, communing with lawmakers and bankrolling efforts to influence its regulation.

墮落的過程是艱難而迅速的。就在兩周前，薩姆·班克曼-弗里德還處在風口浪尖。他的加密貨幣交易所FTX，在當時是第三大交易所，估值為320億美元; 他自己的財富估計為160億美元。對于硅谷那些滔滔不絕的風險投資家們來說，他是一個可以一邊玩電子游戲一邊讓投資者驚嘆的金融天才，也許注定會成為世界上第一個萬億富翁。在華盛頓，他是受歡迎的加密貨幣代言人，與立法者溝通，并為影響加密貨幣的監(jiān)管的活動提供資金。

Today there is nothing left but 1m furious creditors, dozens of shaky crypto firms and a proliferation of regulatory and criminal probes. The high-speed implosion of ftx has dealt a catastrophic blow to an industry with a history of failure and scandals. Never before has crypto looked so criminal, wasteful and useless.

如今，除了100萬憤怒的債權人、數(shù)十家搖搖欲墜的加密貨幣公司和大量的監(jiān)管和刑事調查外，什么也沒有留下。FTX的高速內爆，給這個有著失敗和丑聞歷史的行業(yè)帶來了災難性的打擊。加密貨幣從未像現(xiàn)在這樣可恥、損耗大以及無用。

The more that comes out about the demise of ftx, the more shocking the tale becomes. The exchange’s own terms of service said it would not lend customers’ assets to its trading arm. Yet of $14bn of such assets, it had reportedly lent $8bn-worth to Alameda Research, a trading firm also owned by Mr Bankman-Fried. In turn, it accepted as collateral its own digital tokens, which it had conjured out of thin air. A fatal run on the exchange exposed the gaping hole in its balance-sheet. To cap it all, after FTX declared bankruptcy in America, hundreds of millions of dollars mysteriously flowed out of its accounts.

關于FTX失敗的消息傳出得越多，這個故事就越令人震驚。該交易所自己的服務條款稱，它不會將客戶的資產借給其交易部門。然而，據(jù)報道，在140億美元的此類資產中，該行向交易公司Alameda Research借出了80億美元。Alameda Research也是班克曼-弗里德所有。反過來，它接受自己憑空變出的數(shù)字代幣作為抵押品。交易所的致命擠兌暴露了其資產負債表上的巨大漏洞。更糟糕的是，F(xiàn)TX在美國宣布破產后，數(shù)億美元神秘地從其賬戶流出。

Big personalities, incestuous loans, overnight collapses—these are the stuff of classic financial manias, from tulip fever in 17th-century Holland to the South Sea Bubble in 18th-century Britain to America’s banking crises in the early 1900s. At its peak last year, the market value of all cryptocurrencies surged to the giddy height of almost $3trn, up from nearly $800bn at the start of 2021. Today it is back at $830bn.

個性張揚、過分親密的貸款、一夜之間的崩潰——這些都是典型的金融狂熱，從17世紀荷蘭的郁金香熱到18世紀英國的南海泡沫，再到20世紀初美國的銀行業(yè)危機。在去年的巔峰時期，所有加密貨幣的市值從2021年初的近8000億美元飆升至近3萬億美元的令人眩暈的高度。如今，這一數(shù)字已回升至8300億美元。

As at the end of any mania, the question now is whether crypto can ever be useful for anything other than scams and speculation. The promise was of a technology that could make financial intermediation faster, cheaper and more efficient. Each new scandal that erupts makes it more likely that genuine innovators will be frightened off and the industry will dwindle. Yet a chance remains, diminishing though it is, that some lasting innovation will one day emerge. As crypto falls to Earth, that slim chance should be kept alive.

就像任何狂熱結束時一樣，現(xiàn)在的問題是，除了騙局和投機，加密貨幣是否還能用于其他用途。當時承諾的是一種能使金融中介更快、更便宜、更高效的技術。每爆發(fā)一次新的丑聞，就更有可能嚇跑真正的創(chuàng)新者，從而導致行業(yè)萎縮。然而，機會仍然存在，盡管正在減少，但終有一天會出現(xiàn)一些持久的創(chuàng)新。隨著加密貨幣落到地球上，這種微弱的機會應該被保留下來。

Amid the wreckage of the past week, it is worth remembering the technology’s underlying potential. Conventional banking requires a vast infrastructure to maintain trust between strangers. This is expensive and is often captured by insiders who take a cut. Public blockchains, by contrast, are built on a network of computers, making their transactions transparent and, in theory, trustworthy. Interoperable, open-source functions can be built on top of them, including self-executing smart contracts that are guaranteed to function as written. A system of tokens, and rules governing them, can collectively offer a clever way to incentivise open-source contributors. And arrangements that would be expensive or impractical to enforce in the real world become possible—allowing artists to retain a stake in the profits from the resale of their digital works, for instance.

在過去一周的混亂中，我們有必要記住這項技術的潛在潛力。傳統(tǒng)銀行業(yè)需要龐大的基礎設施來維持陌生人之間的信任。這是昂貴的，而且往往被內部人士抓住，他們會從中抽成。相比之下，公共區(qū)塊鏈則建立在計算機網(wǎng)絡上，交易透明，理論上是可信的?？苫ゲ僮鞯?、開源的功能可以構建在它們之上，包括自執(zhí)行的智能合約，這些合約可以保證按照書面形式運行。一個令牌系統(tǒng)和管理它們的規(guī)則可以共同提供一種激勵開源貢獻者的聰明方法。而那些在現(xiàn)實世界中執(zhí)行起來很昂貴或不切實際的安排也成為可能——例如，允許藝術家保留轉售其數(shù)字作品所獲利潤的部分權益。

The disappointment is that, 14 years after the Bitcoin blockchain was invented, little of this promise has been realised. Crypto’s frenzy drew in talent from bright graduates to Wall Street professionals, and capital from vc firms, sovereign-wealth and pension funds. Vast quantities of money, time, talent and energy have been used to build what amount to virtual casinos. Efficient, decentralised versions of mainstream financial functions, such as currency exchanges and lending, exist. But many consumers, fearful of losing their money, do not trust them. Instead they are used to speculate on unstable tokens. Money-launderers, sanctions-dodgers and scammers abound.

令人失望的是，在比特幣區(qū)塊鏈發(fā)明14年之后，這一承諾幾乎沒有實現(xiàn)。加密貨幣的狂熱吸引了從聰明的畢業(yè)生到華爾街專業(yè)人士的人才，以及來自風險投資公司、主權財富和養(yǎng)老基金的資本。大量的金錢、時間、人才和精力被用來建造虛擬賭場。主流金融功能(如貨幣兌換和貸款)存在高效、分散的版本。但許多消費者擔心失去他們的錢，不相信他們。相反，這些錢被投機于不穩(wěn)定的代幣。洗錢者、逃避制裁者和騙子比比皆是。

Presented with all this, a sceptic might say that now is the time to regulate the industry out of existence. But a capitalist society should allow investors to take risks in the knowledge that they will make losses if their bets go sour. Even as crypto has imploded, the spillovers to the wider financial system have been manageable. ftx’s backers included Sequoia, a Californian vc firm; Temasek, a Singaporean sovereign-wealth fund; and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. All have lost money, but none catastrophically.

面對這一切，持懷疑態(tài)度的人可能會說，現(xiàn)在是時候對該行業(yè)進行監(jiān)管，使其不復存在了。但資本主義社會應該允許投資者在知道如果賭輸就會蒙受損失的情況下冒險。盡管加密貨幣已經(jīng)內爆，但其對更廣泛金融體系的溢出效應是可控的。FTX的支持者包括加州風投公司紅杉資本；新加坡主權財富基金淡馬錫；以及安大略教師退休金計劃。所有這些公司都虧損了，但沒有一個損失慘重。

Moreover, sceptics should acknowledge that nobody can predict which innovations will bear fruit and which will not. People should be free to devote time and money to fusion power, airships, the metaverse and a host of other technologies that may never come good. Crypto is no different. As the virtual economy develops, useful decentralised applications may yet appear—who knows? The underlying technology continues to improve. An upgrade to Ethereum’s blockchain in September radically reduced its energy consumption, paving the way for it to handle high transaction volumes efficiently.

此外，懷疑論者應該承認，沒有人能預測哪些創(chuàng)新會結出果實，哪些不會。人們應該可以自由地把時間和金錢投入到核聚變、飛艇、元宇宙和其他許多可能永遠不會成功的技術上。加密貨幣也不例外。隨著虛擬經(jīng)濟的發(fā)展，有用的去中心化應用可能會出現(xiàn)——誰知道呢? 底層技術在不斷改進。9月份以太坊的區(qū)塊鏈升級大大降低了其能源消耗，這為高效處理巨額交易鋪平了道路。

Instead of over-regulating or stamping out crypto, regulators should be guided by two principles. One is to ensure that theft and fraud are minimised, as with any financial activity. The other is to keep the mainstream financial system insulated from further crypto-ructions. Although blockchains were explicitly designed to escape regulation, these principles justify regulating the institutions that act as gatekeepers for the cryptosphere. Requiring exchanges to back customer deposits with liquid assets is an obvious step. A second is disclosure rules that reveal if, say, a gargantuan and dubiously collateralised loan has been made to the exchange’s own trading arm. Stablecoins, which are meant to hold their value in real-world currency, should be regulated as if they were payment instruments at banks.

監(jiān)管機構應該遵循兩個原則，而不是過度監(jiān)管或壓制加密貨幣。一個是確保盜竊和欺詐最小化，就像任何金融活動一樣。另一個是保持主流金融體系不受加密貨幣進一步動蕩的影響。盡管區(qū)塊鏈的設計明確是為了逃避監(jiān)管，但這些原則證明了監(jiān)管作為加密領域看門人的機構是合理的。要求交易所用流動資產支持客戶存款是顯而易見的一步。其二是披露規(guī)則，披露是否有一筆巨額且可疑的抵押貸款發(fā)放給了交易所自己的交易部門。穩(wěn)定幣旨在以現(xiàn)實貨幣保持其價值，應該像銀行的支付工具一樣受到監(jiān)管。

Tulip bulb or light bulb?

Whether crypto survives, or becomes a financial curiosity like the tulip bulb, will not ultimately depend on regulation. The more scandals ensue, the more the whole enterprise and its aspirations become tainted. The lure of innovation means nothing if investors and users fear their money will disappear into thin air. For crypto to rise again, it must find a valid use that leaves the dodginess behind.

加密貨幣是能存活下來，還是成為像郁金香球莖一樣的金融珍品，最終并不取決于監(jiān)管。丑聞越多，整個企業(yè)及其抱負就越被玷污。如果投資者和用戶擔心他們的錢會憑空消失，創(chuàng)新的誘惑就毫無意義。加密貨幣要想再次崛起，就必須找到一個有效的用途，把它的危險性拋在腦后。