华尔街为什么看上比特币
Bitcoin Technology Piques Interest on Wall St.

Most people still think of Bitcoin as the virtual currency used by drug dealers and shadowy hackers looking to evade the authorities.

大多数人仍觉得比特币不过是一种虚拟货币，被毒贩及黑客们所利用，以期避开银行机构。

But the innovations that helped turn Bitcoin into the most popular virtual currency are now being viewed as a potentially enormous disruptive force for several industries, including accounting, music and journalism.

但人们正在意识到，这种把比特币变成最受欢迎的虚拟货币的创新方法，在多个领域有着潜在的巨大颠覆力。这些领域包括会计业、音乐及新闻业。

Nowhere, though, are more money and resources being spent on the technology than on Wall Street — the very industry that Bitcoin was created to circumvent.

然而没有任何地方比华尔街花更多金钱和资源于此技术上，亦即比特币自带的规避技术。

弗雷德里克·沃斯正在领导纳斯达克使用比特币技术，交易将因此更快捷，费用也会降低。

“There is so much pull and interest on this right now,” said Derek White, the chief digital officer at Barclays, the British global bank, which has a team of employees working on about 20 experiments that explore how the technology underlying Bitcoin might change finance. “That comes from a recognition that, ‘Wow, we can use this to change the fundamental model of how we operate to create our future.’”

“现在它极具吸引力”，德雷克·怀特说。他是英国巴克莱银行首席数据官，该银行组建了一个团队并做了20个试验以研究比特币背后的技术将如何改变金融业。“这源于一种意识，‘哇，我们可以用它改变我们如何创造未来的基本模型。’”

For people like Mr. White, Bitcoin isn’t just a digital token to use for online purchases. Instead, many of the top minds in finance have come to believe that the software that brought the virtual currency into existence also enables a fundamentally new way of transacting and maintaining records online — allowing people and banks to directly exchange money and assets like stocks and bonds without having to rely on a long chain of expensive middlemen.

对许多像怀特先生这样的人来讲，比特币并不仅仅是一种用于在线购物的数字代币。相反，许多金融大鳄们开始相信这种把虚拟货币变现的软件，将会催生一种新的交易方式和在线记录保存方式，即允许私人及银行间直接进行像股票和债券类的金钱和资产交易，不必再依赖于一大串收费昂贵的中间人。

A few banks have gone public with their work, but most of the activity has been happening behind the scenes. At one private meeting, held in April at one of the Manhattan offices of Bank of America, executives from more than a dozen large banks gathered to confidentially discuss how the technology underlying Bitcoin could be used to change foreign currency trading, the largest financial market in the world, according to people who attended the meeting.

一些银行已经将此工作对公之于众，但是大部分的活动仍在幕后进行。美国银行曼哈顿办公室在四月份举行了一次非公开会议，数十家银行的大佬们齐聚一堂，据与会者透露，他们秘密商讨了如何把比特币背后的技术应用于改变世界最大的金融市场——外汇交易。

Central banks like the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have their own teams looking at the technology.

一些央行，诸如联邦储备银行及英格兰银行，有着各自的团队注视着这种技术。

“A year ago, it was more of an idea,” said Max Neukirchen, the head of corporate strategy at JPMorgan Chase. “Now, it is a real opportunity. You test it and realize that this can play a big role in our thinking about how our own infrastructure will evolve.”

“一年前，它还仅仅是一种想法”，摩根大通战略部总裁麦克斯·纽科尔逊说，“如今，它成了一种实实在在的机会。你尝试一下就会意识到，它会在我们思考对基础结构的变革时起到很重要的作用。”

This is a long way from the derision that many bankers — including JPMorgan’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon — expressed when Bitcoin burst into the public consciousness in 2013, when the price of a Bitcoin was bouncing around wildly in a speculative frenzy that was often compared to the Dutch tulip bulb mania.

自2013年突然闯入大众视线以来，比特币经历了慢慢长路。当时许多银行家极尽冷嘲热讽，这其中就包括摩根大通的执行总裁杰米·迪蒙。那年比特币的价格在疯狂的投机活动中剧烈反弹，人们甚至将其比作荷兰的郁金香狂热。

At the time, some large companies like Dell and Overstock announced that they would start taking Bitcoins for online purchases, but few consumers showed much interest in using the digital money to pay their bills, and the furor around Bitcoin largely died down.

那时，一些大的公司如戴尔和OVERSTOCK都表示他们会开始比特币支付在线购物业务，但是有兴趣用这种数字货币付款的消费者并不多，人们对比特币的狂热大量消退。

The institutions that are now becoming involved are generally not interested in selling goods for Bitcoins or owning the virtual currency. They are, instead, looking at the network and software that make it possible for Bitcoin to move around the world instantly, and almost free.

如今这些金融机构的卷入，并不是因为他们对卖商品赚比特币或者对拥有这种虚拟货币本身感兴趣，相反他们关注着这种网络和软件，它们能让比特币在全世界瞬时且几乎自由流动。 Until now, digital transactions have always gone through some sort of central authority that can move the money and update the records on both sides — as PayPal and Visa do for many online purchases.

直到目前，数字交易都会经由某种中央权威机构进行，这些机构会转移金钱并为买卖双方更新记录，就像PayPal和Visa为许多在线购物所做的那样。

The Bitcoin network, on the other hand, is run by a decentralized network of users who jointly keep track of transactions and update the records in real time, with no single user or company in charge. The records of all transactions are kept on a public ledger — essentially just a big, publicly available spreadsheet — known as the blockchain that is visible to anyone and has, at least so far, proven impossible to tamper with.

相反，比特币网络却是由去中央机构化的网络用户们运行的，他们共同保存着交易轨迹并实时更新交易记录，并不由某单个用户或者公司掌管着。所有的交易记录都被保存在一个公共的账簿里，这个账簿基本上只是一个公众可以进入的大的电子表格，亦即大家所熟知的区块链。人人可看到这个区块链，且至少到目前为止它已经被证明是不可篡改的。

Much of the work being done inside banks, and in other industries, is looking at whether the blockchain technology can be used independently of the Bitcoin virtual currency, which was the first thing to be recorded on the blockchain ledger.

银行和其他一些行业做了许多工作，他们希望这种区块链技术能独立于比特币使用。比特币是区块链账簿里记录的第一件事。

The music publication Billboard recently wrote about how several start-ups are aiming to use a digital ledger like the blockchain to keep track of musical downloads and distribute the royalties to artists without relying on a central record keeper.

音乐发行商Billboard最近提到了几家初创公司是如何致力于开发一种类似于区块链的数字账簿，以保存音乐下载轨迹并以此向艺术家们表达忠诚度，他们将不再依赖于原来的中央记录装置。

Vermont’s state government commissioned a study in June to look at how a blockchain could be used as a legal method of record keeping under state law; it is one of several governments, many of them outside the United States, looking at the technology.

福尔蒙特州政府于六月授权了一项研究，寄希望于如何在州法律条件下合法地将区块链用于记录保存。福尔蒙特州只是其中之一，还有许多美国之外的政府部门也关注着这种技术。

But the most intense work is being done by financial companies like the Nasdaq OMX Group, which has several programmers in Manhattan preparing software that the company plans to roll out this year.

但最紧张的工作仍由一些金融公司完成，譬如纳斯达克集团，其在曼哈顿有几位程序员正在打造这种软件，计划年内推出。

The Nasdaq software will allow the trading of stocks in private companies, like tech start-ups, on a new kind of blockchain. This will replace the existing system in which private companies issue and trade shares using paper certificates — a process that means that even basic trades can take weeks to complete.

纳斯达克的软件将允许私人企业—比如初创科技公司，基于一种新的数据链进行股票交易，这将取代现有系统中私人企业使用纸质证书进行股票发行和交易，这种交易意味着即使是基本的交易也需要花费数周才能完成。

Beyond the immediate trial, Nasdaq is experimenting with several other markets in which blockchain-like ledgers could be used to make trading faster and cheaper. The work is being overseen by Frederik Voss, who recently shifted from his work in the company’s commodity division to become its top blockchain executive.

除了这种快速的尝试，纳斯达克还试验了其他几种类似区块链的账簿交易，以期交易变得更快且更廉价。这个工作由弗雷德里克·沃斯监管，他刚刚由公司的产品部门调任区块链最高执行官。

“We believe that blockchain technology holds great promise in allowing capital markets to operate more efficiently while simultaneously providing greater transparency and security, all of which are fundamental to the public interest,” Nasdaq’s chief executive, Robert Greifeld, said in a July call with investors.

“我们相信区块链技术会让资本市场交易的操作更有效率，同时提供更大的透明度和安全系数，这些都是公众利益的根本。”纳斯达克首席执行官罗伯特·格雷菲尔德在七月的一个投资者电话会上说。

Financial firms first began talking publicly about Bitcoin in late 2013. Back then, though, most of the attention was negative, focused on the speculative aspect of the virtual currency.

金融公司首次公开提起比特币是在2013年末。然而，那时大部分的看法是负面的，主要集中在虚拟货币的投机方面。

More recently, banks like Goldman Sachs, Santander and BBVA have made their first investments in outside start-ups working on Bitcoin technology, several of which were started by former employees at big banks.

然而最近，一些银行诸如高盛、Standander和BBVA已经完成了对研究比特币技术的外围初创公司的首轮投资，其中一些公司由大银行的前雇员开创。

But the banks have generally been less public about the work they have been doing internally with their own employees. At Citigroup, for instance, there are six different in-house experiments, building software that harnesses the blockchain technology, according to people briefed on the company’s work. In one test, the bank has created its own virtual currency, Citicoin, that employees can experiment with.

但是这些银行使用自己的员工在内部开展这项工作，且对外鲜有提及。比如花旗银行，据介绍该项目的人讲，他们进行了六项不同的内部试验，致力于区块链技术利用软件的开发。该银行的其中一项测试，还自创一种虚拟货币-花旗币，员工们可借此展开试验。

Aside from Nasdaq’s project, there is much debate about where the technology is likely to gain its first real world use. At Barclays, some of the 20 internal experiments — most of them conducted at two Barclays offices in London dedicated to the technology — are looking at ways to use the blockchain to speed up and lower the cost of consumer payments, to compete with credit cards and direct money transfers.

抛开纳斯达克项目不讲，对这项技术将首先被现实中哪个领域利用，人们多有争论。巴克莱公司进行了有20来项内部试验，以期使用区块链技术来提升用户付款速度并降低成本，以期与信用卡和现金转账进行竞争。这些试验主要由巴克莱公司两个致力于此项技术的伦敦办公室进行。

But bankers generally say that most of the work is aimed at changing the systems that big Wall Street traders and investors use to buy and sell sophisticated assets like syndicated loans and corporate bonds.

但是银行家们通常会说这项工作目标在于改变华尔街大交易商和投资者们用于购买和销售复杂资产的交易系统，譬如联合贷款和企业证券。

Because any innovation in this area would require the cooperation of multiple banks, the banks have had joint meetings to discuss how they could work together, often led by outside start-ups looking to provide the software.

因为该领域的任何创新都会需要多家银行的合作，这些银行已经举行联合会议商讨合作细节，这样的会议通常由外围初创公司召集，他们期待供应这种软件。

One of the most advanced of those conversations has been coordinated by a start-up known as R3Cev that is led by a former Wall Street executive, David E. Rutter. R3Cev has put together models for how banks could trade foreign currencies on a communally maintained spreadsheet like the blockchain, according to people briefed on the project. It was R3Cev that convened the April meeting at Bank of America, which was attended by more than 75 people from 15 financial institutions, these people said.

这些合作对话中最有名的一次是由R3Cev公司协调主导的，这是一家初创公司，领导者是一位华尔街前高管，大卫·埃·鲁特。据介绍该项目的人讲，他已经将各银行共同维护的能进行外币交易的电子表格区块链模块整合到一起。也就是这家R3Cev公司在美国银行召集了四月份的那次会议，据与会人士讲，参会人员超过75人，分别来自15家金融机构。

This can seem like rather esoteric business, but these are the markets where huge amounts of money turn over each day, and these markets influence the profits of the largest financial institutions. For instance, more than $3 trillion changes hands each day on the foreign currency market.

这项业务看起来外人无法参透，但是其背后每天有海量的金钱交易，这些交易影响着大金融机构的收益。例如，外汇市场上每天会有超过3万亿美金的资金交易。

For many bankers, the question is not if the technology is put to use but when. Mr. Neukirchen, at JPMorgan, is one of many bankers who expect that it will take a few years for the first significant use of blockchain technology to gain traction. Mr. White at Barclays expects it even sooner, in the next year.

对许多银行家来讲，问题并非在于这项技术是否会派上用场，而是何时派上用场。许多银行家都期待这项区块链技术能在未来几年内被有效使用，摩根大通的纽科尔逊先生便是其中之一。巴克莱的怀特先生甚至期待能更快，最好是明年。

The prospect of banks capitalizing on the technology can be disappointing to early Bitcoin adherents, many of whom were drawn to the technology because it provided a way to move and store money that did not rely on banks.

比特币早期的拥趸们可能会对银行利用这项技术的前景表示失望，他们被吸引到这项技术仅仅是因为它提供了一种不依赖于银行的金钱交易和存储方法。

Many in the financial industry hope they can find a way to use the blockchain concept — what is often referred to as a distributed ledger — without using the blockchain associated with Bitcoin.

许多金融行业的人希望能找到一种方法利用区块链的理念——也就是常常说的分散式账簿——而不是使用与比特币相关的区块链。

Although the bankers working on the idea disagree on how this will happen, they show surprisingly little disagreement on whether it will happen. One of Goldman’s top Internet analysts, Heath Terry, said in a recent company podcast that “the whole blockchain tech behind Bitcoin has massive implications for really any kind of asset — and the ability to transfer ownership of digital goods.”

尽管银行家们对这件事在如何付诸实施上意见并不统一，但是在是否会付诸实施上意见惊人的一致。高盛的一位顶级英特网分析师海斯·特里在最近公司的一个播客上说：“比特币背后的整个区块链技术及数字商品产权过户的能力真的会对任何资产类型都有广泛的影响。”

“It’s hard to see a world where that blockchain technology doesn’t end up changing the way we think about asset ownership,” he said.

“区块链技术终将会改变我们对资产所有权的思维方式，不想看到那一刻都难。”他说。

翻译：Alex Heung