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本文主要介绍了近期比特币暴跌下的行业现状，指出真正的比特币金融革命还很遥远。但是，比特币在一些场景下仍有重要作用，例如黎巴嫩等货币贬值或通货膨胀严重的国家，以及尼日利亚和阿根廷等政府管制严格的国家。
Cryptocurrencies
The promise of crypto has not lived up to its initial excitement
A crypto-finance revolution looks furtheroff than ever
注："Look off" 在这里的意思是"看起来遥远"，表示加密金融革命的实现似乎比以往任何时候都更遥远。
“TWO YEARS ago everyone wanted to be us. Now everyone hates us,” laments a 24-year-old crypto founder at a gathering in New York. After once seeming as if it might threaten to remake the entire financial system, crypto has gone through a spectacular decline. The market value of all cryptocurrencies ballooned from $250bn at the start of 2020 to $3trn by late 2021. But it has since fallen back to just $1.3trn. Even more important, public trust in crypto has hit rock bottom after a string ofhigh-profile swindles and crashes, notably the downfall of FTX, a popular cryptocurrency exchange, in November 2022.
注：Lament，动词，意思是表示悲痛、哀悼或悔恨。例如：She laments the loss of her father.（她为失去父亲而悲痛。）用作名词时表示哀悼或悲叹的表达。例如：The poem is a lament for a lost love.（这首诗是对失去爱情的悲叹。）
"Rock bottom" 是一个习语，意思是到达了最低点或最底层，通常用于形容某人或某事的状态或情况已经非常糟糕，接近或已经达到了最差的状态。例如：After losing his job, his wife, and his home, he had hit rock bottom.（失去了工作、妻子和家，他已经到达了谷底。）
high-profile高调的、高知名度的
"Swindles" ，作动词时意思是欺诈、骗取。词形类似swing，大概欺骗时言语会左右摇摆。例如：The businessman swindled millions of dollars from his investors.（这位商人从投资者那里诈骗了数百万美元。）作名词时表示欺诈或诈骗行为。例如：The company was exposed for running a swindle.（这家公司因为进行欺诈行为而被曝光。）
Yet in Dubai, crypto talk remains boisterous. The emirate has opened its doors to the industry by creating a regulatory body dedicated to crypto that has created “much needed clarity”, argues Alex Chehade, the local boss of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. Binance and other exchanges such as Crypto.com and Bybit set up shop in Dubai in 2022. Big questions still hang over the industry. At one meeting in Dubai this correspondent met an indignant response when he asked if crypto would ever find its “killer app”. “We already have it,” snapped a developer.
注："Boisterous"喧闹的或精力充沛的，通常用来形容人或环境非常活跃或嘈杂。例如：The children were boisterous and noisy at the birthday party.（孩子们在生日派对上很闹腾，声音很大。）"Boisterous" 还可以用来形容天气或自然环境，表示狂风大作或波涛汹涌。例如：The boisterous wind made it difficult to walk on the beach.（狂风大作，让在海滩上行走变得困难。）
"Met an indignant response" 的意思是 "引起了愤怒的反应"。例如：The politician's remarks about immigration policy met an indignant response from the immigrant community.（政治家的移民政策言论引起了移民的愤怒反应。）
"Snap"有多个意思：（1）突然折断或断裂。例如：The tree branch snapped in the wind.（树枝在风中折断了。）（2）突然发脾气或失去耐性。例如：She snapped at her coworker when he interrupted her.（她在同事打断她时发脾气了。）（3）突然关闭或断电。例如：The lights snapped off during the storm.（在风暴期间灯突然灭了。）（4）快速拍照。例如：She snapped a picture of the sunset.（她拍了一张日落的照片。）（5）抓住或抓紧某物。例如：He snapped the lid shut on the jar.（他把罐子盖子狠狠地合上了。）
Attitudes to crypto have polarised. To some, its promise of revolutionising finance has been shattered. It was meant to sidestep a stodgy rent-seeking financial system that was expensive, inaccessible to many and possibly untrustworthy. Yet the financial system is not static: it is actively adopting new technology. And regulators are belatedly acting. Singapore, once a leading crypto hub, asked Binance to pause operations as of December 2022. It had issued just ten licences out of some 600 recent applications to set up crypto businesses. As many as 25 out of 45 countries looked at by the Atlantic Council, a think-tank, have imposed partial or complete bans on crypto.
注：Atlantic Council，美国大西洋理事会是一家设在华盛顿、致力于维持欧美关系的智囊机构。
"Stodgy"沉闷的、呆板的、过于保守的，词形和stone石头相似，通常用来形容人、事物或思想缺乏活力或创意，过于保守或陈旧，不够现代化或时髦。例如：The restaurant's stodgy menu hasn't changed in years.（这家餐厅呆板的菜单多年没变过。）
Belatedly 延迟地，其中有个late，所以很好记。例如：I sent a belated birthday card to my friend.（我给我的朋友寄了一张迟到的生日卡。）
Pockets of hope remain. The price of bitcoin is up almost 70% this year, including a surge after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. There is some evidence to suggest that cryptocurrencies win more adherents in weak countries that are afflicted by high inflation or currency depreciation, such as Argentina and Nigeria. That points to a deeper truth, which is that the strongest arguments for using crypto have always been where the alternatives are worse.
注：Pockets of hope remain. 尚存一线希望。"Pockets" 指的是一些局部区域或小范围的地方。
Adherent 拥护者。例如：The new political party gained many adherents after it promoted its platform of social justice.（新政党在推广社会公正的纲领后获得了许多拥护者。）
Afflict 受苦、受折磨。例如：The town was afflicted by a severe drought, causing a shortage of water.（这个城镇遭受了严重的干旱，导致水资源短缺。）
In 2008 Satoshi Nakamoto said in his bitcoin pitch that “What is needed is an electronic payment system…allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party.” Crypto transactions promised more efficiency and the avoidance of irksome control by governments. Yet neither benefit has reallycome about. Transactions still have to be verified by computers that maintain a copy of the associated blockchain, one reason why Coinbase, a listed American crypto-exchange, charges a 1% fee for payments. Add the expense of moving money in and out of crypto and overall costs are quite high. Why pay fees to transact on the Ethereum blockchain when India’s UPI or Brazil’s Pix is cheaper?
注："Irksome"令人厌烦的、恼人的，通常用来描述一些非常令人不悦的小问题。例如：The irksome sound of the dripping faucet kept me awake all night.（滴水的水龙头发出的恼人声音让我整夜无法入眠。）
come about发生、出现。例如：The misunderstanding came about because of a language barrier.（误解是由于语言障碍而产生的。）
It is not easy to avoid government oversight, either. To move from traditional currency into crypto, consumers must use on-ramps, which tend to be centralised platforms like Coinbase or Binance. The same holds for stablecoins that are pegged to the dollar. They must be trusted—exactly what crypto claimed not to need. Decentralised platforms like Uniswap exist, but they are hard to use and bring other risks, such as losing the private key, a password that can never be recovered. Mining bitcoin also brings huge environmental costs.
注："On-ramps"指进入某个领域的途径或方式。源于公路交通术语，表示进入高速公路的入口。例如学习某种技能、获取某种证书等。例如：The company is working to create on-ramps for more diverse candidates to enter the tech industry.（该公司正在努力为更多不同背景的候选人创造进入科技行业的途径。）
A sudden love of regulation
Crypto advocates now claim to want regulation to reduce uncertainty and regain consumer trust. But regulators often go a lot further than many had expected. The Reserve Bank of India’s governor, Shaktikanta Das, has said crypto has “no inherent value” and he may ban most of it. On January 5th American regulators (including the Fed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) declared that crypto-assets on decentralised networks were “highly likely to be inconsistent with safe and sound banking practices.” The government also seized Signature Bank, which was a prominent bank for the crypto industry, after it collapsed.
注：Advocate拥护(v.)、拥护者(n,)。例如：Environmental advocates are calling for stronger laws to protect wildlife.（环保倡导者呼吁制定更严厉的法律来保护野生动物。）
As regulation comes for crypto, it will make transactions more expensive. Mr Poon of Hong Kong Polytechnic University says much of the cost of financial transactions comes from complying with regulations like know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering laws. Yet friendlier regulation could help the industry. Binance and other crypto firms are in Dubai precisely because of the regulatory cover it provides. The question then is: if crypto faces the same regulation as fintech firms, does it offer anything uniquely valuable?
There are places where crypto may still be useful. Kim Grauer, head of research at Chainalysis, which researches data from blockchains, finds hotspots of crypto adoption “in places that suffer from currency depreciation…or severe inflation.” Crypto can act as a hedge. “Bitcoin in Lebanese currency is up something like 6,000%,” notes Mr Chehade of Binance. Governments can also raise demand. Ms Grauer says Nigerian capital controls and Argentinian restrictions on holding dollars offer reasons for people to move funds into stablecoins and bitcoin. Their governments might detect a risk to financial stability. Their citizens see an alternative to incompetent or corrupt officials.
注：本节主要讨论了尽管加密货币存在诸多问题，但是在货币贬值或通货膨胀严重的地方仍然有用。例如黎巴嫩的比特币涨幅高达6000%。此外，在政府管制严格的国家，人们也需要稳定币和比特币。例如，尼日利亚资本管制和阿根廷限制持有美元。
Another commonly cited case is cross-border payments, particularly for illiquid currency pairs. “Globalisation today has been capped at $10,000,” says Navin Gupta, a banker who is now at Ripple, a crypto firm that does international payments. Cross-border fees take a greater share of value for smaller payments because of high fixed fees, which detersome transactions entirely. Ripple’s network allows cryptocurrencies to intermediate trades between traditional currencies, reducing costs. The firm, worth $15bn at the start of 2022, has processed some $30bn through its cross-border service in five years.
注："Deter"阻止、威慑、使害怕。例如：The presence of police officers can deter crime in a neighborhood.（警察的存在可以阻止社区内的犯罪行为发生。）
By comparison Wise (formerly TransferWise), a cross-border fintech, processed $33bn in the first quarter of 2023 alone. It reduces costs by doing parallel domestic transfers in place of two cross-border ones. A study by the World Bank finds that cross-borderremittance costs have fallen from 7% a decade ago to 5%. And if consumers are savvy enough to use the best option (often a new-age fintech)? Transfer costs may then fall to just 3%.
注：Remittance汇款或汇款额。-mit就是发送，跟mission任务同源，任务会把人送到某个地方。例句：The company's remittance to their overseas supplier was delayed due to a banking error.（公司向海外供应商的汇款因银行错误而延迟。）
In 2015 Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum and crypto’s philosopher king, wrote a blog post conceding that crypto had not yet found a “killer app”. Mr Buterin’s post went beyond the payments and finance parts of crypto. Yet his point still rings true. Crypto will not remake the global financial system because it has proved neither efficient nor immune to regulation. Instead, a stronger candidate for digital change may be central banks.
注：concede承认、让步、容许。The company finally conceded to the union's demands for better working conditions and higher wages.（公司最终同意了工会要求，给予更好的工作条件和更高的工资。）
ring true指某个观点听起来真实或有道理。例如：The story she told about growing up in poverty really rang true with many people in the audience.（她讲述自己在贫困中长大的故事让很多听众感到很有共鸣。）
关注公众号，回复“易读版”领取双栏易读版PDF。
