比特幣戰爭(下):從投機到掌控大型礦池
The mysterious creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, released the software in early 2009. It was designed to provide both a digital coin and a new way to move and hold money, much as email had made it possible to send messages without using a postal service.
2009年初，比特幣的神祕創造者中本聰(Satoshi Nakamoto)發佈了相關軟件。它的設計意圖是既提供一種數字貨幣，又提供一種新的轉移和保存資金的方式，很像電子郵件使人們可以不使用郵政服務便能傳遞消息。
From the beginning, the system was designed to be decentralized — operated by all the people who joined their computers to the Bitcoin network and helped to process the transactions, as Wikipedia entries are written and maintained by volunteers around the world.
從一開始，它就被設計成了一個分散的系統——由所有把計算機加入比特幣網絡，並幫助處理交易的人管理，就像維基百科(Wikipedia)的條目由全世界的志願者輸入和維護一樣。
The appeal of a group-run network was that there would be no single point of failure and no company that could shut things down if the police intervened. This was censorship-free money, Bitcoin followers liked to say. Decision-making power for the network resided with the people who joined it, in proportion to the computing power they provided.
集體管理網絡的吸引力在於不會出現單點故障，並且如果警察介入的話，沒有哪個公司能夠關停業務。比特幣的支持者喜歡說，這是一種不會受到審查的貨幣。對這個網絡的決策權掌握在加入該網絡的人手中，與他們提供的計算能力成比例。
The allure of new riches provided the incentive to join: Every 10 minutes, new Bitcoins would be released and given to one of the computers helping to maintain the system. In the lingo of Bitcoin, these computers were said to be “mining” for currency. They also served as accountants for the network.
新財富的誘惑促使人們加入其中：每10分鐘，便會有新的比特幣發行並被交給幫助維護該系統的其中一臺計算機。在比特幣行話中，這些計算機被稱作是在“挖”比特幣。它們還充當着該網絡的會計。
For the first few years, aside from its use as a payment method on the Silk Road, an online drug market that has since been shut down, Bitcoin failed to gain much traction. It burst into the world’s consciousness in 2013 when the price of the digital money began to spike, in no small part because Chinese investors began trading Bitcoins in large numbers.
頭幾年，除了被已關閉的在線毒品市場“絲綢之路”(Silk Road)用作支付方式外，比特幣沒能真正有所作爲。2013年，當比特幣的價格開始飆升時，這種數字貨幣一舉進入所有人的視野。比特幣價格飆升，在很大程度上是因爲中國投資者開始大量交易比特幣。
Mr. Lee said the Chinese took quickly to Bitcoin for several reasons. For one thing, the Chinese government had strictly limited other potential investment avenues, giving citizens a hunger for new assets. Also, Mr. Lee said, the Chinese loved the volatile price of Bitcoin, which gave the fledgling currency network the feeling of online gambling, a very popular activity in China.
李啓元稱，中國人迅速喜歡上比特幣有多方面的原因。首先，中國政府嚴格限制其他潛在的投資渠道，導致民衆渴望新資產。同時，李啓元還表示，中國人喜歡比特幣價格不穩定這一點，它讓這個新興貨幣網絡給人一種在線賭博的感覺。在線賭博活動在中國非常盛行。
There has been widespread speculation that Chinese people have used Bitcoin to get money out of the country and evade capital controls, but Mr. Lee and other experts said the evidence suggests this is not a significant phenomenon.
外界普遍猜測中國人利用比特幣將資金轉移至國外，規避資本控制，但李啓元和其他專家稱，證據顯示這種現象不明顯。
“No Chinese person is pushing for Bitcoin because it’s libertarian or because it’s going to cause the downfall of governments,” said Mr. Lee, who moved to China after growing up in Africa and the United States and studying at Stanford. “This was an investment.”
“沒有中國人是因爲比特幣具有自由論屬性，或是比特幣會導致政府垮臺而支持比特幣的，”李啓元說。“這是一種投資。”李啓元在非洲和美國長大，並曾在斯坦福大學求學，之後來到中國。
The extent of the speculative activity in China in late 2013 pushed the price of a single Bitcoin above $1,000. That surge — and the accompanying media spotlight — led China’s government to intervene in December 2013 and cut off the flow of money between Chinese banks and Bitcoin exchanges, popping what appeared to be a Bitcoin bubble.
2013年末，中國嚴重的投機活動將一個比特幣的價格擡高至超過1000美元（約合6600元人民幣）。價格暴漲——連同隨之而來的媒體關注——促使中國政府在2013年12月出面干預，切斷了中國的銀行與比特幣交易平臺之間的資金流動，導致看似出現泡沫的比特幣繁榮景象一度破滅。
The frenzy, though, awakened interest in another aspect of the currency: Bitcoin mining.
但這股狂潮卻喚起了對比特幣另一方面的興趣：對比特幣的挖掘。
Peter Ng, a former investment manager, is one of the many people in China who moved from trading Bitcoins to amassing computing power to mine them. First, he mined for himself. More recently he has created data centers across China where other people can pay to set up their own mining computers. He now has 28 such centers, all of them filled with endless racks of servers, tangled cords and fans cooling the machines.
很多中國人從交易比特幣轉向爲挖比特幣而積聚計算能力。前投資經理彼得·黃(Peter Ng)便是其中之一。一開始，他是爲自己挖比特幣。後來，他在中國各地成立數據中心。在這些數據中心，其他人可以出錢配置自己的挖掘計算機。他現在擁有28個這樣的數據中心，全都擺滿了放着服務器的架子、相互纏繞的電線和給機器散熱的電扇。
Mr. Ng, 36, said he had become an expert in finding cheap energy, often in places where a coal plant or hydroelectric dam was built to support some industrial project that never happened. The Bitcoin mining machines in his facilities use about 38 megawatts of electricity, he said, enough to power a small city.
現年36歲的彼得·黃說自己已經成了尋找廉價能源的專家。有廉價能源的地方常常有火電廠或水壩。它們本是爲了支持某個工業項目而建，但後來項目未能落實。他說那些數據中心裏的比特幣挖掘機要用3.8萬千瓦電，這些電足以供應一座小城市。
The people who put their machines in Mr. Ng’s data centers generally join mining pools, which smooth the financial returns of smaller players. A popular one, BTCC Pool, is run by Mr. Lee’s company. This month it attracted about 13 percent of the total computational power on the Bitcoin network. The most powerful pool in China — or anywhere in the world — is known as F2Pool, and it had 27 percent of the network’s computational power this month.
把自己的計算機放在彼得·黃的數據中心的人通常會加入礦池。礦池會讓規模較小的玩家獲得更爲平穩的經濟回報。頗受歡迎的礦池BTCC Pool便由李啓元所在的公司運營。本月，該礦池吸引了比特幣網絡總計算能力的大約13%。中國——或許也是全世界——最有影響力的礦池叫F2Pool，本月在比特幣網絡的計算能力中佔了27%。
Big pool operators have become the kingmakers in the Bitcoin world: Running the pools confers the right to vote on changes to Bitcoin’s software, and the bigger the pool, the more voting power. If members of a pool disagree, they can switch to another pool. But most miners choose a pool based on its payout structure, not its Bitcoin politics.
在比特幣世界，大礦池的運營商大權在握：運營礦池讓它們有權對比特幣軟件的改變進行投票表決，並且礦池越大，投票權越大。如果某礦池的成員有不同意見，他們可以轉至其他礦池。但大部分“礦工”都是根據礦池的支付結構，而非比特幣政治來進行選擇的。
It was his role overseeing BTCC Pool that got Mr. Lee invited to the meeting with the American delegation in Beijing. The head of operations at F2Pool, Wang Chun, was also there.
正因爲是BTCC Pool的負責人，李啓元才受邀在北京與美國代表團召開會議。與會者還包括F2Pool的業務負責人王春。
Perhaps the most important player in the Chinese Bitcoin world is Jihan Wu, 30, a former investment analyst who founded what is often described in China as the world’s most valuable Bitcoin company. That company, Bitmain, began to build computers in 2013 using chips specially designed to do mining computations.
在中國的比特幣界，最重要的玩家或許是30歲的吳忌寒。曾是一名投資分析師的他創建了一家名叫比特大陸的公司。在中國，該公司常被稱作全世界最有價值的比特幣公司。2013年，比特大陸開始用經過特殊設計的芯片，打造用來進行挖礦計算的計算機。
Bitmain, which now has 250 employees, manufactures and sells Bitcoin mining computers, operates a pool that other miners can join, called Antpool, and also keeps a significant number of mining machines for itself, which it maintains in Iceland and the United States, as well as in China. The machines that Bitmain retains for itself account for 10 percent of the computing power on the global Bitcoin network and are enough to produce new coins worth about $230,000 each day, at the exchange rate this week.
比特大陸現有員工250名，從事的業務包括生產和銷售比特幣挖礦機，運營其他礦工可加入的螞蟻礦池(Antpool)，同時自己也保留了數量可觀的挖礦機。這些礦機分佈在冰島、美國和中國。比特大陸給自己保留的挖礦機，佔全球比特幣網絡計算能力的10%。按照本週的匯率，它們每天足以產生價值約爲23萬美元的新比特幣。
Mr. Wu and the other mining pool operators in China have often seemed somewhat surprised, and even unhappy, that their investments have given them decision-making power within the Bitcoin network. “Miners are the hardware guys. Why are you asking us about software?” is the line that Mr. Ng said he often hears from miners.
對於投資給他們在比特幣網絡內部帶來的決策權，吳忌寒和中國其他的礦池運營商常常看上去有些驚訝，甚至不悅。彼得·黃稱自己經常聽到礦工說，“礦工是做硬件的。你們爲什麼要問我們軟件的事？”
This attitude initially led most Chinese miners to align themselves with old-line Bitcoin coders, known as the core programmers, who have resisted changing the software. The miners wanted to take no risks with the money they were minting.
起初，這種態度促使大部分中國礦工與被稱作核心程序員的比特幣編程人員結成同盟。保守的核心程序員不願改變軟件，礦工則要確保自己創造的財富萬無一失。
But lately, Mr. Wu has grown increasingly vocal in his belief that the network is going to have to expand, and soon, if it wants to keep its followers. He said in an email this week that if the core programmers did not increase the number of transactions going through the network by July, he would begin looking for alternatives to expand the network.
但最近，吳忌寒越來越公開地表達自己的信念：要想留住追隨者，比特幣網絡將不得不擴大，而且要快。他本週在一封電子郵件中表示，如果核心程序員不在7月之前增加整個網絡的交易數量，他將開始尋找擴大網絡的替代方案。
However the software debate goes, there are fears that China’s government could decide, at some point, to pressure miners in the country to use their influence to alter the rules of the Bitcoin network. The government’s intervention in 2013 suggests that Bitcoin is not too small to escape notice.
不管軟件之爭將如何發展，有人擔心中國政府可能會在某個時間點上決定向國內的礦工施壓，要求他們利用自己的影響力改變比特幣網絡的規則。政府2013年的干預行動表明，比特幣問題並非小到能逃過政府的眼睛。
Mr. Wu dismissed that concern. He also said that as more Americans buy his Bitmain machines and take advantage of cheap power in places like Washington State, mining will naturally become more decentralized. Already, he said, 30 to 40 percent of new Bitmain machines are being shipped out of China.
吳忌寒對這種擔憂不以爲然。他還表示，隨着更多的美國人購買比特大陸的挖礦機並利用華盛頓州等地的廉價電力，比特幣的挖掘自然會變得更加分散。他說，比特大陸新生產的礦機中，已有30%到40%正在被運往國外。
For now, though, China remains dominant.
但目前，中國依然佔據主導地位。
“The Chinese government normally expects its businesses to obtain a leading role in emerging industries,” he said. “China’s Bitcoin businesses have achieved that.”
“中國政府通常希望自己的企業在新興行業佔據領導地位，”他說。“中國的比特幣企業做到了。”
