把比特幣當禮物送人?

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house not a creature was stirring — except for me, sitting in bed, frantically checking the price of bitcoin.

聖誕前夜，家裏空蕩蕩的，只有我一個人在家——坐在牀上，瘋狂地查看比特幣的價格。

A couple of weeks earlier, I had had the bright idea of buying my family cryptocurrency for Christmas. With hours to go, my gift was looking rather less generous than I had hoped.

在此幾個星期前，我想到了一個絕妙的主意，用加密貨幣作爲聖誕節禮物送給家人。距聖誕節只剩下幾個小時的時間，我的禮物看起來遠沒有我原本希望的那麼慷慨了。

It all started, as these things often do, at a dinner party. A couple of friends, both of whom work in the tech industry, had said they were sitting on tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of bitcoin gains after investing only a few months ago.

一切源於一次晚餐聚會，這種事情通常都是這樣發生的。我的朋友中有一對夫妻，兩人都在科技行業工作。他們說，幾個月前買了比特幣，現在已經賺了好幾萬美元。

At this point in mid-December, the price of a single bitcoin was hovering around $17,000. Having increased many times over in the previous months, there seemed little reason to doubt that the bubble would keep inflating.

當時是12月中旬，比特幣價格徘徊在17000美元左右。在那之前的幾個月裏，價格上漲了好幾倍，似乎沒有理由認爲泡沫不會繼續膨脹。

I have never previously dabbled in buying cryptocurrency, which I still struggle to see having many practical uses, and I am usually rather more risk-averse in my investments. But I thought giving my parents and parents-in-law their first taste of bitcoin might spark some conversation around the Christmas dinner table, while also providing a modest fallback in the event of the total collapse of the traditional financial system and descent into crypto-anarchy.

我以前從未涉足過購買加密貨幣，至今我仍然看不到它有什麼實際用途，而且我在投資時，通常會採取更爲安全的策略。但我的想法是，送父母和岳父母比特幣讓他們嚐嚐鮮，可能會爲聖誕節晚餐創造一些餐桌上的話題，同時，如果傳統金融體系全面崩潰，陷入加密-無政府狀態(crypto-anarchy)，這也算給他們開闢了一條小小的退路。

So I downloaded Coinbase, the cryptocurrency wallet app, and set about buying some bitcoin. (At the time, I felt reassured by the fact that Coinbase was at the top of the iPhone’s App Store rankings; perhaps I should have realised it was a sign a market top was approaching.)

於是，我下載了加密貨幣錢包應用Coinbase，並準備購買一些比特幣。（當時，Coinbase在iPhone的App Store的排行榜上名列前茅，這一點讓我更覺踏實； 也許，我當時就應該意識到，這是市場即將見頂的信號。）

Setting up a Coinbase account was straightforward, but I was limited initially to a $400 purchase using my credit card, so I settled on buying $100 per parental unit — too little to worry about if it disappeared in a flash, but enough to pay for a nice dinner or two if it continued doubling on a regular basis.

建立一個Coinbase賬戶非常簡單，但首次用信用卡交易的限額是400美元。所以，我最終給父母和岳父母每人買了100美元的比特幣——這筆金額太小，即使它們瞬間化爲烏有，也不用擔心。但是，如果比特幣繼續定期翻番，也足夠他們外出吃一兩頓像樣的晚餐。

All too soon, I was glued to the bitcoin price chart. Within days, it had leapt again to within a few bucks of $20,000 apiece. My plan was to wrap a bag of chocolate coins to present on Christmas Day, before nabbing my family’s phones to help them set up wallets into which I could deposit their virtual riches.

很快，我的眼睛就粘在了比特幣走勢圖上。幾天之內，比特幣價格再次跳漲， 距離20,000美元只差幾美元。我的計劃是，在聖誕節那天，包上一包硬幣巧克力，作爲禮物送出，然後拿起家人的電話，幫助他們設置錢包，這樣我就可以把他們的虛擬財富存入其中。

The bitcoin price began to fall to earth before I had even made it home for the holidays. The topic came up over the breakfast table by December 23, when my father waved a copy of the FT Weekend’s front page, unhelpfully splashed with news of its abrupt “30 per cent drop”.

還沒等到我回家過節，比特幣的價格就開始暴跌。12月23日，這個話題出現在我家的早餐桌上，當時我父親揮動一份《金融時報》週末版的頭版，上面正是我不願看到的比特幣突然“下跌30%”的消息。

Still, the Redditors cried “hodl!” (a bitcoiner meme that has become a maxim) — so hold on I did.

然而，Redditor網站的用戶還在喊“繼續持有！”（hodl，比特幣玩家圈中一個已成爲信條的模因(meme)）——所以，我也繼續持有了。

By Christmas morning, my $100 of bitcoin had been transformed into an $80 gift. Yet I still felt it had value as a glimpse into the techno-future. The Queen in her annual televised speech may have marvelled at video being beamed to mobile phones, but soon my parents would be slinging Satoshis!

到聖誕節早上，我價值100美元的比特幣貶值成了一件80美元的禮物。然而，作爲窺探技術未來的一個窗口，我仍覺得它有其價值。英國女王在年度電視講話中可能對用手機看視頻驚歎不已，不過，我父母很快就會玩比特幣了！

Instead, the slow and painful gifting process merely exposed me as a crypto newbie.

不過，此次緩慢而痛苦的送禮過程恰恰暴露了我是加密貨幣的菜鳥一枚。

Initially, my parents seemed amused, if also a little bemused, by the investment opportunity I had created for them. But when it came to transferring the bitcoin to their account — the part that is supposed to be so disruptively simple — it was me who felt disintermediated.

起初，對我爲他們創造的投資機會，父母似乎感到很好玩，可能也有些困惑。但是，在把比特幣轉入他們賬戶的過程中——這本應該是超級簡單的操作—— 領教到“去中介化”是怎麼回事兒的是我。

First, the Coinbase sign-up process seemed more complicated than it had been for me. Text messages sent to verify phone numbers never arrived. The app demanded an array of legal documents to prove the new users’ identity. “This is a funny sort of Christmas present,” my father-in-law said as he handed me his credit card and driving licence to scan into the app.

首先，在Coinbase上爲我父母註冊的過程似乎比我註冊時更爲複雜。爲驗證電話號碼而發出的短信一直收不到。該應用需要一系列法律文件來證明新用戶的身份。 “這聖誕禮物挺有意思，”我的岳父在把信用卡和駕照遞給我時說，我需要將這些信息掃描到應用中。

Once the accounts were finally active, I scanned the QR code on my father’s Coinbase app to transfer the bitcoin from my wallet to his. A message informed me there was a “mining fee”, priced in some minute fraction of a bitcoin. “This fee is paid to the digital currency miners, who process the transactions and secure the respective network,” Coinbase’s help page explained. This seemed odd for such a small, peer-to-peer transaction, but I agreed.

待帳戶最終激活之後，我掃描了父親的Coinbase應用的二維碼，將比特幣從我的錢包轉入他的賬戶。我收到一條短信說，需要支付一筆微不足道的“挖礦費”。 “這筆費用將支付給數字貨幣的礦工，他們負責處理交易，並保證交易雙方網絡的安全，” Coinbase的幫助頁面解釋說。對於如此小規模的點對點交易，這似乎有點怪異，但我同意了。

The minute fraction of a bitcoin, it turned out, was worth about $30 — more than a third of the value I was transferring. I later learned that, had I transferred to his Coinbase username instead of scanning the QR code, there would have been no fee — but there was nothing to warn me of that before it was too late.

結果，這筆“微不足道”的挖礦費居然相當於約30美元—— 超過我轉賬價值的三分之一。後來我才瞭解到，如果我在轉賬時不掃二維碼，而是直接輸入他的Coinbase用戶名，就不收任何費用了——但是，我事先沒看到任何提示信息。

At least, I thought, there would be none of the traditional banking nonsense about waiting for the cheque to clear.

我想，比特幣轉賬至少不會像傳統銀行業務中那樣，還要等待支票入賬。

Not so fast.

我想當然了。

Hours went by, and the transaction was still listed as “pending”. I turned to Coinbase’s in-app customer support. “Ada the Coinbase Support Bot” was unable to explain where my digital currency was, so I tried again by email. “Thank you for submitting your request. Due to increased volume, it may take several days to receive a response,” came the reply. My Christmas present, apparently delayed by some sort of blockchain blockage, seemed in danger of slipping into the new year.

時間一分一秒地過去了，交易仍處於“待執行”狀態。我向Coinbase應用的內置客戶支持尋求幫助。“Coinbase客服機器人Ada”無法解釋我的數字貨幣在何處，所以，我通過電子郵件再次嘗試。得到的答覆是：“感謝您提交請求。 由於問詢量增加，可能需要幾天的時間纔會收到回覆”。看上去，由於被某種區塊鏈阻塞所延誤，我的聖誕節禮物有可能得到明年才能送到了。

Coinbase’s online explainer was no more encouraging. “Usually the delay is under an hour,” it read. “Occasionally, transactions are not accepted by the rest of the network and therefore are never considered to be ‘confirmed’.” Moving money around, the phrase “never considered to be confirmed” was not the reassurance I had hoped for.

Coinbase的在線解釋同樣令人失望。“通常情況下，延遲時間不會超過一個小時，”解釋文字寫到。“有時候，交易未被網絡的其他部分接受，因此，這些交易從未被視爲‘已確認’”。在轉錢過程中，“從未被視爲已確認”這種說法並不是我希望得到的定心丸。

By Boxing Day, my father’s bit-pittance had finally landed — by which time, their value had increased slightly. “I’ve got $90 worth of bitcoins according to my app. So — wealthy,” my dad texted me to say. He was so excited, he went for a nap.

到了節禮日（Boxing Day，指聖誕節次日——譯者注），我給我父親的這個微不足道的聖誕禮物終於到賬了——而且當時，價值還略有增加。“我的應用顯示，我有價值90美元的比特幣。太——有錢了，”我爸發短信給我說。他興奮得要去打個盹。

Two weeks later, bitcoin is still stubbornly refusing to return to the $17,000 price at which I had started. If they ever do make money, I hope my family continues to hodl — if only so I do not have to figure out how to convert the bitcoin back into simple, familiar fiat currency.

兩個星期後，比特幣仍然固執地拒絕回到我的買入價17,000美元。如果有朝一日比特幣真的漲了，我希望我的家人繼續持有—— 這樣我就不必去弄清楚如何將比特幣轉換成簡單而熟悉的法定貨幣了。