由千禧一代打造的比特幣泡沫

There was a pattern to conversations with friends and family over the Christmas holidays. It went something like this: “Are your kids buying bitcoin?” before moving on to: “Have they convinced you to invest?”

聖誕節期間和親友們聊天有一種模式。比如：“你們家孩子買比特幣了沒？”接着再問：“他們勸了你買點沒？”

One relative who graduated from university two years ago and was hoping to work in the restaurant business was now in the “bitcoin business”. A friend heard another tell of the small fortune her 24-year-old had amassed in less than a year of cryptocurrency investing and immediately asked for the young man’s contacts.

我的一個親戚大學畢業才兩年，以前他想從事餐飲業，現在卻在做“比特幣業務”。一位朋友得知這個年僅24歲的年輕人在不到一年時間裏靠投資加密貨幣賺了大錢，馬上就來詢問他的聯繫方式。

There were also a few people I met who were still struggling to understand the fundamentals. What is bitcoin in the first place, they asked, and how does it relate to blockchain, the underlying decentralised technology? One person ventured that blockchain was the casino and bitcoin the chips — an apt description since investing in cryptocurrencies is very much like gambling.

還有一些我認識的人還在努力弄明白關於比特幣的基本原理。他們問，首先比特幣是什麼，它跟作爲基礎分散技術的區塊鏈又有什麼關係？有個人大膽地提出，區塊鏈是賭場，而比特幣是籌碼——這一描述恰如其分，因爲投資加密貨幣非常像賭博。

My holiday conversations anecdotally confirmed a rather worrying trend that digital currency experts have noticed in the past year, as bitcoin swung wildly from $1,000 at the start of 2017 to a $19,000 peak at one point (and all over the place in between): millennials, and particularly male ones, are riding the speculative wave. So there might be many young men right now who can’t believe their bitcoin luck, but parents should brace for tears when the bubble bursts.

隨着比特幣從2017年初的1000美元一度狂飆至19000美元的最高點（並在這兩點間的懸殊落差中搖擺），假期我和親友們的這些閒聊從一個側面印證了數字貨幣專家們過去一年注意到的一個十分令人擔憂的趨勢：千禧一代，特別是男性，主導着這波投機熱潮。所以現在也許很多年輕男性覺得無法相信自己在比特幣上的幸運，但一旦泡沫破裂，他們的父母就該流淚了。

A few weeks before the holidays, a survey released by Blockchain Capital, a venture capital firm, found that while two per cent of Americans have owned bitcoin, four per cent of millennials — generally seen as those born between the early 1980s and the early 1990s — have dabbled or owned the digital currency. Among male millennials that share rises to 6 per cent. More than 50 per cent of millennials polled said bitcoin was a positive technological innovation and more than a quarter considered bitcoin safer than banks.

假期前的幾周，風投公司區塊鏈資本(Blockchain Capital)發佈了一份調查，發現雖然只有2%的美國人持有比特幣，但千禧一代——通常認爲是那些上世紀80年代初到90年代初出生的人——卻有4%投資或持有比特幣。在男性千禧一代中，這一比例則升至6%。接受調查的千禧一代中，超過50%的人表示比特幣是一項積極的技術創新，超過四分之一的人認爲比特幣比銀行更安全。

There are of course big investors who are digital currency evangelists, arguing that the ecosystem is the biggest technological breakthrough since the creation of the internet. Some predict that a few of today’s blockchain-related companies could turn out to be massive winners like Google or Amazon.

當然有些大投資者是數字貨幣的傳道士，認爲數字貨幣生態體系是自互聯網誕生以來最偉大的技術突破。有些人預測，當今幾家與區塊鏈相關的公司可能會成爲像谷歌(Google)或亞馬遜(Amazon)一樣的大贏家。

But what attracts millennials in particular to cryptocurrencies? First, there is the lack of memory: If you are in the 18 to 34 age group, you were either a baby or at most a teenager during the dotcom bubble of the 1990s and would not recognise the parallel with bitcoin mania.

然而是什麼讓千禧一代對加密貨幣特別感興趣呢？首先是缺乏記憶：如果你的年齡在18到34歲間，那麼在上世紀90年代的網絡泡沫時期，你要麼剛出生，要麼充其量也就是個十幾歲的孩子，所以你並不會認識到比特幣狂熱與當年有何相似之處。

Just as today businesses have taken to broadcasting their blockchain ambitions, and basked in the resulting investor enthusiasm, so companies back then would add “” to their names and see their stock prices soar to extraordinary heights.

當今的企業將自身的區塊鏈野心昭告天下，並陶醉於由此激發的投資者的熱情，與此相仿，那時的企業會給自己的名稱後面加上“”，然後坐觀他們的股價瘋漲。

Second, there is, possibly, a cultural element. Owning a currency that could be worth something or nothing depending on the day may be another reflection of youthful rebellion. For some, the fact that cryptocurrencies are highly risky investments that are not subject to any regulation (and that regulators are warning against) is an attraction, not a deterrent. Young people blame all those advising them against digital currencies for the fact that they are worse off than their parents. In the US, fewer millennials own homes than previous generations, and even fewer are out-earning their parents when they were the same age. As university tuition fees have soared, millennials also enter the job market burdened with massive debt.

第二，可能有一種文化因素。擁有一種實時變化的或有價值或一文不值的貨幣也許是年輕人叛逆的另一種體現。對有些人來說，加密貨幣是一種不受任何監管限制（並且監管者正在針對其發出警告）的高風險投資，這本身就是種吸引力，而不是嚇退他們的危險。年輕人把自己境況不如父母歸咎於所有那些反對數字貨幣的人。在美國，千禧一代中擁有住房的比例低於上一輩人，比父母在他們這麼大時掙錢更多的比例則更低。隨着大學學費飛漲，進入就業市場的千禧一代往往揹負着鉅額債務。

And yet, as tempting as it is to find logic in young adults’ bitcoin fever, one young man who graduated from a US college last year and now writes a newsletter about cryptocurrencies offers a more mundane explanation. “Young people like myself have little money to invest so they’re more likely to invest in something that has the potential to see massive returns,” says Matteo Leibowitz. “Not having a family to feed or a mortgage to pay, we can take these riskier bets.”

然而，儘管人們很想挖掘年輕人比特幣熱的內在邏輯，但去年從美國一所大學畢業、現在撰寫加密貨幣通訊的一位年輕人提供了一個更普通的解釋。“像我這樣的年輕人沒什麼本錢去投資，所以他們更可能去投資有機會獲得巨大回報的東西，”馬提歐?萊博維茨(Matteo Leibowitz)說。“我們不用養家或還貸，所以能夠承擔這些風險較大的賭博。”

Then there is, he adds, that other youth obsession: Fomo, or the fear of missing out, which creates classic bubbles. Blockchain fever spreads very quickly. “As soon as you hear one friend who’s made an amount of money in that space, you’re likely to follow. That is absolutely Fomo.”

他補充道，還有一種年輕人的執念：錯失恐懼症，或害怕錯過的心理，這種心態是泡沫的始作俑者。對區塊鏈的狂熱飛速蔓延。“一旦你聽說一個朋友在上面賺了點錢，你就很可能跟風。這純屬錯失恐懼症作祟。”