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The U.S. has the dollar, Japan, the yen. Countries in the eurozone have the euro. Now some people have come up with a currency not tied to any country or government. It’s called bitcoin, and a number of online stores now accept bitcoins as payment.
David Kestenbaum (Reporter): Bitcoins don’t actually exist in the physical world. You can’t hold one in your hand. They’re just on computers.
Jacob Goldstein (Reporter): We wanted to try to buy lunch with bitcoins. So we talked with Gavin Andresen, a programmer who’s done a lot of work on bitcoin. He didn’t actually create the bitcoin system, though. In fact, he said there’s a strange story behind that.
Gavin Andresen: The idea started with a guy named Satoshi Nakamoto. He’s a bit of a mysterious figure. We’re not sure if Satoshi Nakamoto is his real name.
Kestenbaum: Whoever Satoshi Nakamoto is came up with a pretty clever system. Everybody who uses bitcoin has a digital wallet. And when you buy something, you send your bitcoins to someone else’s wallet. It’s what computer geeks call a 1)peer-to-peer system.
Goldstein: There’s no center to the whole thing. It’s not like there’s one computer somewhere storing all the information. The system is run by everybody. Bitcoin is money backed by the people who use it—independent of any government. For Gavin Andresen, that’s a big part of the appeal.
Andresen: For me, that’s more comforting than thinking that politicians or central bankers won’t screw it up. I actually trust the wisdom of the crowds more.
Kestenbaum: Bitcoin is a lot like cash—but an online version. There are no big fees. And 2)transactions are 3)anonymous. That makes it hard to know how many people are using bitcoins, but every day, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoins are trading in online currency exchanges.
Goldstein: Satoshi set up the system so that there’s a finite number of bitcoins that can ever be created. In that way it’s a bit like gold.
Kestenbaum: Gavin Andresen says the best way for us to get some bitcoins is to buy some. In the same way you can trade dollars for British pounds, you can also trade dollars for bitcoins in online exchanges. The website 4)Gawker ran a story about an online market where you could use bitcoins to buy heroin, 5)LSD, and other illegal drugs. After that story ran, the exchange rate for bitcoins started rocketing up.
Goldstein: Then someone posted online that they’d had half a million dollars worth of bitcoins stolen. Kestenbaum: A few days later, the main bitcoin exchange website got hacked and had to shut down for a while. So we couldn’t buy bitcoins there. Gavin gave us the name of a guy, who was actually just ten blocks away: Bruce Wagner.
Goldstein: We sit in Bruce Wagner’s office where he has two computers. He has me go to this website mybitcoin to set up an account. I signed up for an account at mybitcoin. All I had to do was create a username and password. I didn’t have to provide my name or any other personal information. Then I gave Bruce $40 in cash, and he looked up the exchange rate.
Wagner: That comes out, my calculator, to 2.352941176. You might wonder why we go that many 6)decimal places. And the reason is because we expect the bitcoin, one day, could be worth$100,000 a bitcoin. So those decimal places will matter in the future.
Goldstein: Oh there it is. My account balance is 2.35294117 bitcoins. We had our bitcoins. But before we used them, we had an important question. Are they legal? Can you just create and use some new currency?
Kestenbaum: We called Ronald Mann, at Columbia Law School. And he said, it is legal—for now. If it turns out bitcoins are used mostly for illegal stuff, the government could shut the whole thing down.
美国有美元,日本有日元。欧元区国家有欧元。如今有人创立了一种不依附于任何国家或政府的货币。人们称之为“比特币”,现在有不少网上商店都接受比特币作为支付货币。
大卫·克斯滕鲍姆(记者):比特币其实并不存在于物质世界里。你不能拿捏把玩。那只是存于电脑中的货币。
雅各布·哥尔德斯坦(记者):我们想试试用比特币来买份午餐。于是,我们和加文·安德烈森进行了交谈。他是一名程序师,在比特币上花了很多的工夫。不过,他其实并没有创立比特币系统。事实上,他说那个系统背后有个奇怪的故事。
加文·安德烈森:这个想法始于一个名叫中本聪的人。他是个身份神秘的人物。我们不确定中本聪是不是他的真名。
克斯滕鲍姆:不管中本聪是谁,他想出了一个极为聪明的系统。每个使用比特币的人都有一个电子钱包。当你购物时,你就将你的比特币发送到别人的钱包里。这种做法被电脑极客们称为对等系统。
哥尔德斯坦:整个系统并没有中心。并不是某台电脑在某处储存所有的信息。这个系统由众人共同运作。比特币是一种用家本位的货币——独立于任何政府。对于加文·安德烈森来说,那是最具吸引力的地方。
安德烈森:对我来说,这更为令人宽慰,因为不用去想政客或者中央银行会把它搞砸。我其实更相信群众的智慧。
克斯滕鲍姆:比特币跟现金有许多相似之处——不过是在线版本。不会有大笔的交易费用。交易过程是匿名的。这样使得人们很难知道有多少人在使用比特币,但是每天,都有价值数以十万美元计的比特币于在线货币兑换场所进行交易。
哥尔德斯坦:中本建立的这个系统,限定了比特币的数量。这种情况有点像黄金。
克斯滕鲍姆:加文·安德烈森说,我们要得到比特币的最好方法就是去买几个。就像你可以用美元兑换英镑,你也可以在在线交易所用美元兑换比特币,其道理是一样的。高客网曾登过一篇报道,关于一个在线市场可以用比特币来购买海洛因、迷幻药LSD和其他非法毒品。这个报道刊出以后,比特币的兑换率随即开始飞速飙升。
哥尔德斯坦:接着就有人在网上发帖称,他们有价值50万美元的比特币遭盗窃。
克斯滕鲍姆:几天后,主要的比特币兑换网站被黑,不得不关闭数天。所以我们就无法从那里买来比特币了。加文给了我们一个人名——布鲁斯·瓦格纳,他就在离我们只有十个街区远的地方。
哥尔德斯坦:我们坐进布鲁斯·瓦格纳的办公室,里面有两台电脑。他让我登录网站“mybitcoin”,建立一个账户。我就在mybitcoin上注册了一个账户。我所要做的只是建立一个用户名和密码。并不需要提供我的姓名和其他任何个人信息。然后我给了布鲁斯40美元现金,他就去查看兑换率。
瓦格纳:我的计算器得出是2.352941176。你可能觉得奇怪,为什么我们要用那么多的小数位?原因是我们希望比特币有一天能价值10万美元一个。所以,这些小数位在未来就很有意义了。
哥尔德斯坦:噢,看到了。我的账户余额是2.35294117个比特币。我们有比特币了。但在使用之前,我们有一个重要的问题。它们合法吗?你可以就这么创造和使用一些新的货币?
克斯滕鲍姆:我们致电哥伦比亚法学院的罗纳德·曼恩。他说,那是合法的——目前来说。要是比特币被发现主要用来做非法的事,政府就可能封杀整个体系。
·小资料·
比特币“扫盲”须知
符号
BTC或?
起源
2008年,一个署名为“中本聪”的人在一个密码学网站的邮件组列表中发表了一篇论文,描述了比特币的电子现金系统。2009年1月3日,中本聪发行了有史以来的50个比特币。
生成方式
比特币没有中央发行机构,任何人都可以下载运行比特币客户端,通过处理全网的交易数据,得到比特币作为奖励。整个过程被称之为“挖矿(Mining)”,而参与者就是“矿工(Miner)”。
交易方式
比特币的交易双方需要类似于电子邮箱的“比特币钱包”和类似于电邮地址的“比特币地址”。和收发电子邮件一样,汇款方通过电脑或智能手机,按收款方地址将比特币直接支付给对方。
兑换方式
国内外有很多网上的比特币交易机构,接受比特币与法定货币的兑换。2013年10月底,世界首部比特币ATM机在加拿大投入使用。用户可以通过ATM机上的扫描仪扫描掌纹,开设一个数码钱包,然后只需通过扫描智能手机上的一个方形条码,便可完成比特币的汇兑。
Goldstein: But Ronald Mann said bitcoin faces a much more basic challenge. For it to take off, a critical mass of people has to prefer using bitcoins to using dollars.
Mann: That’s why I see its future as a real currency as being very limited.
Goldstein: We used our bitcoins to buy lunch, which you can do in Midtown Manhattan at Meze Grill. At the cash register, it took me a few minutes to log in on my iPhone and send my bitcoins to the restaurant. But eventually it worked.
Kestenbaum: The owner says he gets a handful of people paying in bitcoins every day.
哥尔德斯坦:但罗纳德·曼恩说比特币面临一个更为基本的挑战。它要流行起来,就得有足够多的人喜欢使用比特币多于美元。
曼恩:那就是我认为它未来作为真实货币的前景非常有限的原因。
哥尔德斯坦:我们用比特币购买午餐,这在曼哈顿市中心的梅泽烤肉餐厅可以做得到。在收银台前,我花了几分钟才能用我的苹果手机登录,然后将我的比特币发给餐厅。但最后都成功了。
克斯滕鲍姆:店主说,每天都会有几个人用比特币来付费。
David Kestenbaum (Reporter): Bitcoins don’t actually exist in the physical world. You can’t hold one in your hand. They’re just on computers.
Jacob Goldstein (Reporter): We wanted to try to buy lunch with bitcoins. So we talked with Gavin Andresen, a programmer who’s done a lot of work on bitcoin. He didn’t actually create the bitcoin system, though. In fact, he said there’s a strange story behind that.
Gavin Andresen: The idea started with a guy named Satoshi Nakamoto. He’s a bit of a mysterious figure. We’re not sure if Satoshi Nakamoto is his real name.
Kestenbaum: Whoever Satoshi Nakamoto is came up with a pretty clever system. Everybody who uses bitcoin has a digital wallet. And when you buy something, you send your bitcoins to someone else’s wallet. It’s what computer geeks call a 1)peer-to-peer system.
Goldstein: There’s no center to the whole thing. It’s not like there’s one computer somewhere storing all the information. The system is run by everybody. Bitcoin is money backed by the people who use it—independent of any government. For Gavin Andresen, that’s a big part of the appeal.
Andresen: For me, that’s more comforting than thinking that politicians or central bankers won’t screw it up. I actually trust the wisdom of the crowds more.
Kestenbaum: Bitcoin is a lot like cash—but an online version. There are no big fees. And 2)transactions are 3)anonymous. That makes it hard to know how many people are using bitcoins, but every day, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoins are trading in online currency exchanges.
Goldstein: Satoshi set up the system so that there’s a finite number of bitcoins that can ever be created. In that way it’s a bit like gold.
Kestenbaum: Gavin Andresen says the best way for us to get some bitcoins is to buy some. In the same way you can trade dollars for British pounds, you can also trade dollars for bitcoins in online exchanges. The website 4)Gawker ran a story about an online market where you could use bitcoins to buy heroin, 5)LSD, and other illegal drugs. After that story ran, the exchange rate for bitcoins started rocketing up.
Goldstein: Then someone posted online that they’d had half a million dollars worth of bitcoins stolen. Kestenbaum: A few days later, the main bitcoin exchange website got hacked and had to shut down for a while. So we couldn’t buy bitcoins there. Gavin gave us the name of a guy, who was actually just ten blocks away: Bruce Wagner.
Goldstein: We sit in Bruce Wagner’s office where he has two computers. He has me go to this website mybitcoin to set up an account. I signed up for an account at mybitcoin. All I had to do was create a username and password. I didn’t have to provide my name or any other personal information. Then I gave Bruce $40 in cash, and he looked up the exchange rate.
Wagner: That comes out, my calculator, to 2.352941176. You might wonder why we go that many 6)decimal places. And the reason is because we expect the bitcoin, one day, could be worth$100,000 a bitcoin. So those decimal places will matter in the future.
Goldstein: Oh there it is. My account balance is 2.35294117 bitcoins. We had our bitcoins. But before we used them, we had an important question. Are they legal? Can you just create and use some new currency?
Kestenbaum: We called Ronald Mann, at Columbia Law School. And he said, it is legal—for now. If it turns out bitcoins are used mostly for illegal stuff, the government could shut the whole thing down.
美国有美元,日本有日元。欧元区国家有欧元。如今有人创立了一种不依附于任何国家或政府的货币。人们称之为“比特币”,现在有不少网上商店都接受比特币作为支付货币。
大卫·克斯滕鲍姆(记者):比特币其实并不存在于物质世界里。你不能拿捏把玩。那只是存于电脑中的货币。
雅各布·哥尔德斯坦(记者):我们想试试用比特币来买份午餐。于是,我们和加文·安德烈森进行了交谈。他是一名程序师,在比特币上花了很多的工夫。不过,他其实并没有创立比特币系统。事实上,他说那个系统背后有个奇怪的故事。
加文·安德烈森:这个想法始于一个名叫中本聪的人。他是个身份神秘的人物。我们不确定中本聪是不是他的真名。
克斯滕鲍姆:不管中本聪是谁,他想出了一个极为聪明的系统。每个使用比特币的人都有一个电子钱包。当你购物时,你就将你的比特币发送到别人的钱包里。这种做法被电脑极客们称为对等系统。
哥尔德斯坦:整个系统并没有中心。并不是某台电脑在某处储存所有的信息。这个系统由众人共同运作。比特币是一种用家本位的货币——独立于任何政府。对于加文·安德烈森来说,那是最具吸引力的地方。
安德烈森:对我来说,这更为令人宽慰,因为不用去想政客或者中央银行会把它搞砸。我其实更相信群众的智慧。
克斯滕鲍姆:比特币跟现金有许多相似之处——不过是在线版本。不会有大笔的交易费用。交易过程是匿名的。这样使得人们很难知道有多少人在使用比特币,但是每天,都有价值数以十万美元计的比特币于在线货币兑换场所进行交易。
哥尔德斯坦:中本建立的这个系统,限定了比特币的数量。这种情况有点像黄金。
克斯滕鲍姆:加文·安德烈森说,我们要得到比特币的最好方法就是去买几个。就像你可以用美元兑换英镑,你也可以在在线交易所用美元兑换比特币,其道理是一样的。高客网曾登过一篇报道,关于一个在线市场可以用比特币来购买海洛因、迷幻药LSD和其他非法毒品。这个报道刊出以后,比特币的兑换率随即开始飞速飙升。
哥尔德斯坦:接着就有人在网上发帖称,他们有价值50万美元的比特币遭盗窃。
克斯滕鲍姆:几天后,主要的比特币兑换网站被黑,不得不关闭数天。所以我们就无法从那里买来比特币了。加文给了我们一个人名——布鲁斯·瓦格纳,他就在离我们只有十个街区远的地方。
哥尔德斯坦:我们坐进布鲁斯·瓦格纳的办公室,里面有两台电脑。他让我登录网站“mybitcoin”,建立一个账户。我就在mybitcoin上注册了一个账户。我所要做的只是建立一个用户名和密码。并不需要提供我的姓名和其他任何个人信息。然后我给了布鲁斯40美元现金,他就去查看兑换率。
瓦格纳:我的计算器得出是2.352941176。你可能觉得奇怪,为什么我们要用那么多的小数位?原因是我们希望比特币有一天能价值10万美元一个。所以,这些小数位在未来就很有意义了。
哥尔德斯坦:噢,看到了。我的账户余额是2.35294117个比特币。我们有比特币了。但在使用之前,我们有一个重要的问题。它们合法吗?你可以就这么创造和使用一些新的货币?
克斯滕鲍姆:我们致电哥伦比亚法学院的罗纳德·曼恩。他说,那是合法的——目前来说。要是比特币被发现主要用来做非法的事,政府就可能封杀整个体系。
·小资料·
比特币“扫盲”须知
符号
BTC或?
起源
2008年,一个署名为“中本聪”的人在一个密码学网站的邮件组列表中发表了一篇论文,描述了比特币的电子现金系统。2009年1月3日,中本聪发行了有史以来的50个比特币。
生成方式
比特币没有中央发行机构,任何人都可以下载运行比特币客户端,通过处理全网的交易数据,得到比特币作为奖励。整个过程被称之为“挖矿(Mining)”,而参与者就是“矿工(Miner)”。
交易方式
比特币的交易双方需要类似于电子邮箱的“比特币钱包”和类似于电邮地址的“比特币地址”。和收发电子邮件一样,汇款方通过电脑或智能手机,按收款方地址将比特币直接支付给对方。
兑换方式
国内外有很多网上的比特币交易机构,接受比特币与法定货币的兑换。2013年10月底,世界首部比特币ATM机在加拿大投入使用。用户可以通过ATM机上的扫描仪扫描掌纹,开设一个数码钱包,然后只需通过扫描智能手机上的一个方形条码,便可完成比特币的汇兑。
Goldstein: But Ronald Mann said bitcoin faces a much more basic challenge. For it to take off, a critical mass of people has to prefer using bitcoins to using dollars.
Mann: That’s why I see its future as a real currency as being very limited.
Goldstein: We used our bitcoins to buy lunch, which you can do in Midtown Manhattan at Meze Grill. At the cash register, it took me a few minutes to log in on my iPhone and send my bitcoins to the restaurant. But eventually it worked.
Kestenbaum: The owner says he gets a handful of people paying in bitcoins every day.
哥尔德斯坦:但罗纳德·曼恩说比特币面临一个更为基本的挑战。它要流行起来,就得有足够多的人喜欢使用比特币多于美元。
曼恩:那就是我认为它未来作为真实货币的前景非常有限的原因。
哥尔德斯坦:我们用比特币购买午餐,这在曼哈顿市中心的梅泽烤肉餐厅可以做得到。在收银台前,我花了几分钟才能用我的苹果手机登录,然后将我的比特币发给餐厅。但最后都成功了。
克斯滕鲍姆:店主说,每天都会有几个人用比特币来付费。