颠覆大会——比特币是什么？[TIOM1-01]

下午好，雅典。感谢今天邀请我。你们想要颠覆？我有颠覆。不。

Good afternoon, Athens. Thank you for having me today. You want disrupt? I got disrupt. No.

我带来的是彻底的革命。我们将讨论过去二十年来计算机科学领域最激动人心、最有趣、也可能是最重要的技术创新——不，是发明。我来这里是要谈谈比特币。或许你们之前听说过比特币。我们先快速了解一下。

I've got downright revolution. We're going to talk about the most exciting, most interesting, and probably the most important technological innovation, no invention in computer science of the last twenty years. I'm here to talk about Bitcoin. And perhaps you've heard about Bitcoin before. Let's do a quick check.

在座有多少人在今天之前听说过比特币？好的。看来不少人知道。那有多少人拥有比特币？更好。

How many of you here have heard of Bitcoin before today? Alright. We've got a good crowd. How many of you own Bitcoin? Even better.

好的。比特币是数字货币，但它远不止于此。说比特币是数字货币就像说互联网是个花哨的电话，或者说互联网全是关于电子邮件的。货币只是它的第一个应用场景。

Alright. Bitcoin is digital money but it is so much more than that. Saying bitcoin is digital money is like saying the internet is a fancy telephone. It's like saying that the internet is all about email. Money is just the first application.

比特币是一项技术，是一种货币，更是一个完全去中心化的国际支付与交易网络。它不依赖银行。不依赖政府。在人类历史上我们从未做到过这一点。这项发明真正具有革命性。

Bitcoin is a technology, it is a currency, and it is an international network of payments and exchange that is completely decentralized. It doesn't rely on banks. It doesn't rely on governments. We have never done this before in the history of humanity. This invention is truly revolutionary.

当我们回顾此刻，我们会发现这不仅是计算机科学发展的历史性时刻，更是一场正在形成的社会政治革命。让我们开始吧。比特币是数字货币。它就像欧元或美元一样是钱，只是它不属于任何政府。你可以从世界任何地方即时、安全地发送到其他任何地方，费用极低甚至免费。

When we look back at these moments, we will see that this is a historic moment in the evolution of computer science, but also a social and political revolution in the making. Let's get started. Bitcoin is digital money. It's money just like euros or dollars, only it's not owned by a government. You can send it from any point in the world to any other point in the world, instantaneously, securely, and for minimal or no fees at all.

两天前，我们见证了比特币网络上有史以来最大的一笔交易——有人在一秒内零费用转账了150个比特币。仅此就足以让你理解这项技术对国际支付体系将产生多么颠覆性的影响。但这只是开始。比特币是一种数字货币，诞生于2008年，由名为中本聪的人发明。他发表论文提出，已经找到方法创建无需中央控制机构就能达成共识的去中心化网络。

Two days ago, we saw one of the largest transactions ever recorded on the Bitcoin network, where someone transferred a 150 between two Bitcoin accounts in one second for zero fees. And just that allows you to grasp how disruptive this technology is going to be in terms of international payment systems. But this is just the beginning. Bitcoin is a digital currency that came into existence in 2008 as an invention by a person called Satoshi Nakamoto. He published a paper where he posited that he had found a way to create a decentralized network that could achieve consensus agreement without any central controlling authority.

如果你学过计算机科学或分布式系统，就会知道这就是著名的'拜占庭将军问题'。该问题于1975年首次提出，直到2008年都悬而未决。但我们立刻意识到解决这个问题的重要性。中本聪宣称'我已解决它'，猜猜接下来发生了什么？

Now, if you have studied computer science or distributed systems, this is known as the Byzantine Generals Problem. It was first posited in 1975, and until 2008, it was an unsolved problem. But we immediately understood the importance of solving this problem. Satoshi Nakamoto said, I have solved it. And guess what happened next?

所有人都嘲笑他、忽视他、否定他。而他发表论文后三个月，又发布了能让人们搭建比特币网络的软件。比特币不是公司，不是组织，它就像TCP/IP协议或互联网一样，是一种标准协议。

Everybody laughed and ignored him and dismissed him. And he published his paper and then three months later, he published software that allowed people to start building the Bitcoin network. Bitcoin is not a company. It's not an organisation. It is a standard or protocol just like TCPIP or the Internet.

它不属于任何人，运行规则基于所有参与者共同认可的简单数学原理。通过这个简单机制和中本聪的发明，比特币实现了完全去中心化的计算机网络对交易记录的共识——本质上就是达成对资金归属的共识。在这个完全点对点的去中心化网络中转账，就像发送电子邮件一样简单。

It's not owned by anyone. It operates by simple mathematical rules that everyone who participates in the network agrees on. Through this simple mechanism and through the invention of Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin is able to allow a completely decentralized network of computers to agree on what transactions have occurred on a network. Essentially, agreeing on who currently has the money. So if I send money from my account to somebody else's account in this peer to peer completely decentralized network, is just like sending an email.

没有中间环节。资金直接从存储它的计算机转移到接收方计算机，无需任何干预。整个网络每十分钟通过电子投票机制，在没有中心化权威的情况下对交易达成共识。这个解决方案、这项发明的意义远超过货币本身——货币只是分布式共识系统上构建的第一个应用。

There's no one in the middle. It just goes from my computer, where the money is stored, to the recipient's computer with no intervention. And the entire network, every ten minutes, agrees on what transactions have happened without any centralized authority by a simple election that occurs electronically. This particular solution, this invention, is far more important than currency. Currency is just the first app, just the first application that you can build on a distributed consensus system.

其他应用还包括分布式公平投票、股权登记、资产公证等，以及许多我们尚未想到的用途。2011年我初识比特币时，自互联网时代以来首次感受到这种可能性爆棚的震撼。1991年互联网商业化前夕我就参与其中，当时就预见它将改变世界，但没人相信。

Other applications include distributed fair voting, stock ownership, asset registration and notarization, and also many other applications we've never thought of before. I discovered bitcoin for the first time in 2011. Since the internet, I have not felt this feeling of being overwhelmed by the possibilities that I saw. I was there at the dawn of the internet in 1991 when it was pre commercial. I could see that this was going to change the world but couldn't tell everyone because no one believed me.

对比特币我怀有同样的预感。你们可能只把比特币视为价格暴涨暴跌的货币系统。但我想说：请忽略价格，忘记比特币的货币属性，去理解它作为技术发明所构建的网络。即便货币实验失败，我们还能重启新币种。但比特币背后的技术发明一旦问世，就再无法被抹去。

I have that exact same feeling about bitcoin. Some of you may have heard of bitcoin as a currency, as a system of money that is currently going wildly high in price one day wildly low in price the other day. What I'm here to tell you is to ignore the price, to ignore bitcoin the money, and understand bitcoin the technology, the invention, and the network it creates. Because if we mess up the money, we'll just reboot another currency. The invention of bitcoin, the technology that makes it possible, cannot be uninvented.

它开创了这颗星球上前所未有的去中心化组织形态。对我而言其重要性在于：当今全球约10亿人（主要是西方国家的上层阶级）能使用银行信贷和国际金融服务，而65亿人仍被隔绝在货币体系之外，他们生活在现金社会，几乎接触不到国际资源。

And it creates the possibility for a decentralized organization on a scale never before on this planet. Here's why it's important to me. Today in the world, approximately 1,000,000,000 people have access to banking, credit, and international finance capabilities, primarily the upper classes, the western nations. Six and a half billion people on this planet have no connection to the world of money. They operate in cash based societies with very little access to any international resources.

他们不需要银行。已有20亿人接入互联网。只需下载一个简单的应用程序，他们就能立即参与国际经济，使用一种无手续费、不受政府管制的国际货币进行全球转账。他们还能接入完全点对点的国际金融体系。因此比特币是人民的货币。

They don't need banks. 2,000,000,000 of these people are already on the internet. And with a simple application download, they can immediately become participants in an international economy, using an international currency that can be transmitted anywhere with no fees and no government controls. And they can connect to a world of international finance that is completely peer to peer. So bitcoin is the money of the people.

其核心是所有人都认同的简单数学规则，且不受控制。通过将65亿人连接到世界其他地区，使他们融入生产型社会，这种可能性具有真正的革命性。首先，我们将开始影响支付处理商。这些大公司使得汇款成本越高，目的地国家就越贫穷。这种局面充满剥削与腐败。

At its centre, simple mathematical rules that everyone agrees on and no controls. The possibility of bringing six and a half billion people into productive society by connecting them to the rest of the world is truly revolutionary. First, we're going to start affecting the payment processors. These enormous companies that make it more expensive to send money, the poorer the destination country is. A situation that is exploitative and corrupt.

这些机构通过一项比特币可以免费实现的功能赚取巨额利润。正如互联网格言所说：'我只用100行Python代码就取代了你们整个行业'。这正是我们用比特币在做的事。如今如何使用比特币？简言之，比特币可作为货币使用，你可以视其为购买外汇。

These organisations make enormous amounts of profits for a function that can be done in bitcoin for free. So as the adage of the internet once went, I just replaced your entire industry with a 100 lines of python code. And that's exactly what we're doing with bitcoin. How can you use bitcoin today? Simply speaking, bitcoin can operate as a currency and you can think of it as buying a foreign currency.

你可以通过网络连接交易所，汇出部分欧元，然后按当前汇率用欧元购买比特币。但这不是正确方式，因为我们是创业者，对吧？我们想要颠覆。最佳方式是找到你能提供的、比特币持有者想购买的产品或服务，从而开始赚取比特币。

You can connect to an exchange over the web, you can wire some of your euros and then you can use those euros to buy bitcoins at the current exchange rate. But that's not really the right way to do it because we're entrepreneurs. Right? We want to disrupt. So the best way to do it is to find a product or service that you can offer that someone with bitcoin wants to buy and to start earning bitcoin.

若考虑在国际环境中创业，成为全球企业有两大主要障碍。第一是跨境运输产品和服务的困难。互联网已解决这个问题，因为我们现在可以创造虚拟产品和服务销往全球。我们能交付产品，但仍面临一个重大问题。

If you think about starting up a business within an international environment, there are two primary barriers to becoming a global business. The first barrier is that it is difficult transport products and services across borders. And with the internet, we solved that because we can now create products and services that are virtual, that we can sell anywhere in the world. So we can deliver the product. But we still had one big problem.

如何收款？比特币解决了这个问题。它让我们能即时接收全球任何地方的付款。比特币网络允许个人发送小至一亿分之一比特币的金额（按当前价值算是极其微小的金额），这是现有支付系统无法实现的。

How do we get paid? Bitcoin solves that part. It now allows us to receive payments from anywhere in the world instantaneously. The bitcoin network allows any individual to send an amount that is as small as one hundred millionth of a bitcoin, which in today's term is a very, very tiny amount of money. You can't do that with today's money in payment systems.

信用卡诞生于1950年代，显然不是为互联网时代设计的。但比特币专为互联网时代而生。若能发送百分之一或千分之一欧元的支付，你就能销售内容、进行微交易，从数百万人处收集小额款项并聚沙成塔。

Credit cards were made in the nineteen fifties and they were most certainly not made for an internet age. But bitcoin is made for the internet age. So if you can suddenly send payments that are 1 hundredth of a euro or 1 thousandth of a euro, you can sell content. You can do micro transactions. You can collect payments from millions of people in tiny amounts and make them in aggregate be worth something.

在同一个网络中，你既可以发送千分之一欧元甚至百万分之一欧元，也能发送十亿或万亿欧元，而手续费完全相同——因为它取决于交易数据量（千字节）而非内容。让我们回顾互联网的发展历程，从中理解比特币为何重要。互联网最重要的原则之一就是中立性，它不会区分大型机构与小型机构，无法辨别CNN与一位埃及博主之间的差异。

And on the same network where you can send 1 thousandth of a euro or even 1 millionth of a euro, you can send a billion euros or a trillion euros and the fee will be exactly the same because it depends on the size of the transaction kilobytes, not the content. So let's look back at the Internet and see what lessons we can learn about why bitcoin is important. One of the most important principles on the Internet is neutrality. The Internet doesn't distinguish between a large organisation and a small organisation. It doesn't know the difference between CNN and an Egyptian blogger.

这让埃及博主能够以与CNN同等的声音力量向世界发声。比特币对发送方、接收方乃至交易价值都保持中立。这意味着每位比特币用户都获得了创新的能力：无论是金融工具创新、支付系统创新，还是像银行那样自如地使用货币。你成为了花旗银行，并能与花旗银行同台竞技——这才是真正的革命性突破。

It gives the possibility for an Egyptian blogger to speak to the world with the same power of voice that CNN has. Bitcoin is neutral to sender and recipient and also to the value of the transaction. And that means that it gives every citizen and user of bitcoin the ability to innovate in terms of financial innovations and instruments, in terms of payment systems, and to use the currency with exactly the same facility that a bank has. You become Citibank, and you can operate on the same level as Citibank. That is truly revolutionary.

它颠覆了迄今为止通过限制准入来实现安全的国际金融等级体系——这正是现有支付系统建立信任的主要方式。未经审查不得入内？比特币将这套逻辑彻底翻转，创造出一个完全扁平化、去中心化的网络：每个节点平等，协议对交易中立，将创新推向网络边缘。正如我们在互联网见证的'无需许可的创新'现象——你不需要为上线应用向任何人申请，也不需要为用信息技术颠覆某个行业而征求同意。

It takes a hierarchical system of international finance that up to now has achieved security by limiting access because that is the main method of trust on our payment system. You can't get in unless you're vetted. It turns that on its head and creates a completely flat and decentralized network where every node is equal, where the protocol is neutral to the transactions, and it pushes innovation to the edge of the network, allowing exactly the same phenomenon we saw on the internet, innovation without permission. You don't need to ask anyone if your application can be published on the internet. You don't need to ask anyone to completely subvert a new industry with your information technology.

在比特币世界里，你无需向任何人申请就能发明新金融工具、创建新支付系统或推出新服务。你只需编写代码，就能接入这个国际金融网络，让代码运行起来，连接数百万消费者。当然，现在仍处早期阶段，我们还没有完善的用户界面。

Well, on bitcoin, you don't need to ask anyone to invent instrument, a new payment system, a new service. You can just do it. You can just write the code and you are now part of an international financial network that can run that code and put you in contact with millions of consumers. Now, it's still early days. We don't yet have the polished interfaces.

它使用门槛高、被犯罪分子利用、全球各类组织都在使用、真实用户难以追踪——这些质疑我都听过。

It's difficult to use. It's used by criminals. It's used by various organisations around the world. It's not easy to see exactly who is using bitcoin. I've heard all of that before.

1991年我刚接触互联网时，那里充斥着盗贼、色情贩子、盗版者和罪犯。但过去不重要，现在也不重要。原因在于：罪犯用来作恶的工具，同样能被我们用来行善，在全球范围创造奇迹。而我们的人数远多于他们。

When I was on the internet in 1991, it was a den of thieves, pornographers, pirates, and criminals. Right? But it didn't matter and it doesn't matter now. The reason it doesn't matter is because the same power that can be used by a criminal to promote their criminal activities can be used by all of the rest of us to do good, to do incredible things all across the world. And there's more of us.

比特币创造了这个创新沃土，因为它不仅是货币，更是技术、网络与货币的三位一体。坦白说，今天看到比特币价格飙升我很开心——毕竟我持有一些比特币，这种感觉不错。但价格无关紧要。即便明早比特币崩盘，这项技术依然具有革命性意义。

Bitcoin creates this environment that is ripe for innovation because it's not a currency. It's a technology, a network, and a currency. And I can tell you today, I'm very happy that bit coin's price is climbing very high because I own some bitcoins and it feels kind of nice. But I don't care about the price. If bitcoin crashed tomorrow morning, the technology is still revolutionary.

就像互联网上的网站或应用失效时，互联网本身不会消失一样。如果你理解比特币是技术而非货币，就能真正领会它的重要性。但重申一次，重点不在于我们，而在于全球其他65亿人。关键在于能为世界带来前所未有的金融整合水平。

Just like if a website fails on the internet or an application fails on the internet, the internet doesn't go away. So if you understand that bitcoin is technology and not a currency, you can truly grasp the importance it has. But again, it's not about us. It is about the other 6 and a half billion. It is about the ability to bring to the world a level of financial integration that the world has never seen before.

从我们的视角看，这是项伟大的技术。我们可以进行颠覆性创新，构建有趣的服务。但对一位试图筹款购买种子的肯尼亚农民而言，现在能进行去中心化的点对点借贷，触达全球贷款人——这已不仅是技术了，对吧？

And from our perspective, it's a great technology. We can do some disruptive innovation. We can build some interesting services. But if you're a Kenyan farmer who's trying to raise money in order to buy seed, and now you could do decentralized peer to peer lending and reach out to lenders all across the globe, this is not a technology. Right?

这是真正改变生活的力量。要理解比特币对世界上大多数生活在专制腐败政权下人群的影响，这些地区央行每月制造30%的恶性通胀。更重要的是看到比特币如何惠及这些人——全球20亿网民中仅10亿拥有银行账户，而我们可以改变这点。当然，这绝非易事。

This is truly life changing. So understanding the impact bitcoin has on the vast majority of the world that lives under repressive and corrupt regimes with central banks that impose hyperinflation of 30% a month, it's much more important to see the how bitcoin can affect all of those people. There are 2,000,000,000 people on the Internet and only 1,000,000,000 of them have bank accounts and we can change that. And it's not gonna be easy. Make no mistake about it.

当你将颠覆性技术抛向全球最强大的组织时，他们必然抗拒。目前我们仍处早期阶段，用老话说：先被忽视，再被嘲笑，继而遭打压，最终获胜。我们正处于被嘲笑阶段，这很好。因为当他们开始打压时，其实已经输了。

When you throw a disruptive technology into the middle of the most powerful organizations in the planet, they don't like it. Right now, we're still in the early stages. To use the trite expression, first they ignore us, then they laugh at us, then they fight us, then we win. We're still at the laughing at us stage and that's quite alright. Because by the time they get to fighting us, they've already lost.

这项技术已经全球化——随着中国投资者投入超25亿美元，形成了对美元全球储备货币霸权的制衡。全球193种货币中只有一种国际货币，193种央行控制的货币中只有当今唯一的数学货币——比特币。我们将创造更多加密货币，它们将成为未来金融的支柱。

Because this technology just went global with the introduction of more than 2 and a half billion dollars from Chinese investors who discovered a counterbalance to the world domination of the global reserve currency of the US dollar. There are a 193 currencies in the world, but there's only one international currency. There are a 193 currencies controlled by central banks and governments, but there is only one mathematical currency today, and that's bitcoin. We are going to build more of them. Cryptographic currencies are going to be a mainstay of our financial future.

它们注定成为地球未来的一部分，因为已被发明。道理就这么简单——你无法抹杀这项技术，就像煎蛋无法变回鸡蛋。该领域已有超100种竞争货币，可见创新爆发之迅猛，甚至已超越比特币本身作为货币的范畴。

They are going to be part of the future of this planet because they have been invented. And it is as simple as that. You cannot uninvent that technology. You cannot turn that omelet back into eggs. So understanding that we already have more than a 100 competing currencies in that space shows how quickly innovation has exploded and even beyond bitcoin, the currency.

还有许多所谓的'山寨币'，它们采用相同的基础技术：通过中本聪算法实现网络共识的去中心化资产账本，从而创造各类新型货币——通胀型、通缩型、采用滞期费或负利率的货币、将部分收入捐赠慈善的货币。我们可以无止境地发明货币形式。归根结底，比特币是可编程货币，而一旦货币可编程，可能性将永无止境。

There are many other altcoins, alternative coins as they're known, that use the very same basic technology of a decentralized asset ledger using consensus in the network with Satoshi's algorithm in order to achieve other forms of currency. Currencies that are inflationary, currencies that are deflationary, currencies that use demurrage or negative interest, currencies that are charitable and redistribute a proportion of the income to charitable organizations. We can invent money nonstop and create new forms of money and instruments. At the end of the day, bitcoin is programmable money. And once you have programmable money, the possibilities are truly endless.

我们可以将现有系统中许多依赖法律合同的基本概念转化为算法合同，转化为可以在比特币网络上执行的数学交易。正如我之前所说，这里没有第三方，也没有对手方。如果我选择将价值从网络的一部分转移到另一部分，这是点对点的，中间没有任何人。如果我发明了一种新的货币形式，我可以将其部署到全世界，并邀请其他人加入。

We can take many of the basic concepts of our current system that depend on legal contracts and we can convert these into algorithmic contracts, into mathematical transactions that can be enforced on the bitcoin network. And as I said before, there is no third party. There is no counterparty. If I choose to send value from one part of the network to another part of the network, it is peer to with no one in between. And if I invent a new form of money, I can deploy it to the entire world and invite others to come and join me.

因此，如果你看到比特币有可能不仅为互联网带来货币——是的，它就是为互联网而生的货币。它是互联网的完美货币：即时、安全且免费。

And so if you see that bitcoin has the possibility to introduce not money for the internet, because yes, it is money for the internet. It's perfect money for the internet. It's instant. It's safe. It's free.

没错，它是为互联网而生的货币，但它的意义远不止于此。比特币是货币的互联网，而货币只是它的第一个应用。如果你理解了这一点，你就能超越价格波动，超越一时热潮，认识到其核心是一项将永远改变世界的革命性技术。谢谢。请加入这场革命。

Yes, it is money for the internet, but it's so much more. Bitcoin is the internet of money and currency is only the first application. So if you grasp that, you can look beyond the price, you can look beyond the volatility, you can look beyond the fad, and understand that at its core is a revolutionary technology that will change the world forever. Thank you. Join me in this revolution.