几乎每天都有一个新的加密货币诞生。
疯狂的加密货币市场
译者：邓小雪 & 陈怡蓓
校对：倪婷
策划：鲁城华 & 周润发
Bitcoin is no longer the only game in crypto-currency town
比特币不再是加密货币的唯一选择
文选自 The Economist | 取经号原创翻译
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IT STARTED as a joke. Dogecoin was launched in 2013 as a bitcoin parody, using as its
mascot
a Japanese shiba inu dog, a popular internet meme. The crypto-currency was never really used, except for tipping online, and one of its founders has called it quits. But recently its price has soared: on January 7th the dollar value of all Dogecoins in circulation reached $2bn, a sign of how crazy crypto-currency markets have become. It is also a reminder that, for all the focus on bitcoin, it is no longer the only game in town. Its market capitalisation now amounts to only about one-third of the crypto-market (see chart).
狗狗币的诞生源于一个笑话。2013年推出的狗狗币是山寨版的比特币，使用了网红的日本柴犬作为
吉祥
图标。该加密货币除了在网上打赏外，并没有真正投入使用，并且其中一位创始人已退出币圈。然而最近，狗狗币价格暴涨：1月7日，狗狗币流通市值达到20亿美元，可以看出现在加密货币的市场已经变得非常疯狂。另外，这也提醒了所有只关注比特币的人——比特币不再一枝独秀，其市值目前只占了加密货币市场总额的三分之一。
mascot
['mæs.kɒt] noun a person, animal or object which is believed to bring good luck, or which represents an organization 吉祥物
A new crypto-currency is born almost daily, often through an “initial coin offering” (ICO), a form of online crowdfunding. CoinMarketCap, a website, lists about 1,400 digital coins or tokens, including PutinCoin, Sexcoin and InsaneCoin (worth $7m). Most are no more than curiosities, but by January 10th, around 40 had a market capitalisation of more than $1bn.
几乎每天都有一个新的加密货币诞生，大部分都利用ICO（首次代币发行）进行融资。在加密货币数据分析网站CoinMarketCap上列出了约1400种电子货币或代币，包括普京币、性币、疯狂币等（市值700万美元）。大部分货币都很小众，但截至1月10日，约有40种币的市值超过10亿美元。
First on the list, after bitcoin, was Ethereum, whose coin, called ether, reached a market capitalisation of $137bn. Ethereum’s claim to fame is that it is also a platform for “smart contracts”—business rules encapsulated in software. Most ICO tokens, for instance, are issued by such contracts. Its success has attracted crypto-copycats: Cardano ($20bn) and NEO ($8bn), a Chinese version.
继排名第一比特币之后的是以太坊。以太币的市值达到了1370亿美元。以太坊的成功是因为它同时也是“智能合约”平台，将一些商业规则封装于程序里面。大部分的ICO代币通过这种智能合约发行。以太坊的成功已经吸引了众多山寨者：比如市值200亿美元的卡尔达诺币（Cardano）以及市值80亿美元的中国版以太坊——小蚁（NEO）。
Ripple, too, is defying gravity. It is all the rage in crypto-crazy South Korea, which this week
roiled
crypto-markets with plans to ban trading on exchanges. Ripple sells software to move money between countries; more than 100 banks have signed up to its technology, based on a coin called XRP. Its market capitalisation jumped by more than 40,000% in 2017, reaching nearly $149bn on January 4th, before falling back to $78bn. That still makes Chris Larsen, a Ripple co-founder, one of the world’s richest people, at least on digital paper.
瑞波币也在逆势而行。在为加密货币疯狂的韩国，瑞波币受到追捧，但由于当局计划停止加密货币交易，导致本周加密货币市场震动。瑞波网络可以进行跨境资金转移，超过100家银行与瑞波签约使用基于瑞波币（XRP）的该项技术。2017年瑞波币市值跳涨超过400倍，截止1月4日达到将近1490亿美元，随后跌回到780亿美元。即便是在暴跌之后，瑞波币联合创始人克里斯•拉森也成为了世界最富有的人之一，至少从虚拟资产看来是如此。
roil
[rɔɪl] verb Something that roils a state or situation makes it disturbed and confused. 扰乱;搅乱;使混乱
Less well-known coins have also
taken wing
. Monero ($6bn) and Zcash ($2bn) focus on privacy. Stellar ($9.8bn) has developed a system to transfer funds cheaply that is used by charities, particularly in poor countries. IOTA ($10.1bn) allows connected machines to exchange information and payments securely. And then there is Bitcoin Cash ($46bn), whose founders split from bitcoin in August 2017 because they were unhappy with how it was run.
一些不知名的加密货币也开始
起飞
。门罗币（Monero ，60亿美元）和零币（Zcash，20亿美元）注重隐私，恒星币（Stellar，98亿美元）开发了一套低成本转账系统，在慈善组织中尤其是贫穷国家广泛应用。埃欧塔币（IOTA，101亿美元）则允许所有互相连接的机器都能安全地进行信息交换和支付行为。此外还有比特币现金（Bitcoin Cash ，460亿美元），由于运行理念不合，2017年8月它的创始人从比特币分离了出来。
take wing
：
起飞；逃走；兴高采烈 to begin to fly, often used figuratively
Might any of these one day replace bitcoin as crypto-land reserve currency, something insiders call the “flippening”? Given bitcoin’s governance problems (another “fork”, or split, may be in the offing) and limited capacity (a transaction now costs nearly $30, on average, in fees), this cannot be excluded. But the others have problems, too. Ethereum’s user fees have soared and the system has again hit technical
s
nags
. As for Ripple, some question the extent to which XRPs are actually used.
有朝一日这些货币是否能取代比特币成为加密世界的储备货币？内行人将之称为"大反转"。考虑到比特币的管理问题（另一个"分叉"或者说分裂可能即将到来）和有限的容量（现在平均交易一次需花费近30美元），被取代并非不可能。但是其他货币也有问题。以太坊的用户费用飙升，系统也再次遭遇了技术
障碍
。至于瑞波币，有人质疑它实际的使用程度。
snag
/ snA^ / noun a problem or difficulty, especially six that is small, hidden or unexpected (尤指潜在的、意外的、不严重的)问题,困难,障碍,麻烦
Come what may
, the field will only get more crowded. Kodak, the archetypal victim of digital disruption, wants to jump on the crypto-wagon: on January 9th it announced that it will launch a coin to allow photographers to charge for their works. More ambitious will be the ICO of Telegram, a messaging service with 180m users: it aims to raise $1.2bn and issue a token called Gram that can be used to pay for a range of services from online storage to virtual private networks. Even Facebook has reportedly started looking into creating a token. Should the world’s biggest social network ever make that move, bitcoin’s days as the leading crypto-currency would almost certainly be numbered.
