比特幣的高手續費暴露了它的極限

Epimenides (No.13)

新聞來源連結： https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/20171114/bitcoinshightransactionfeesshowitslimits 縮網址 https://goo.gl/y8UPrC 新聞本文： 隨手加減跳著翻一下 Bitcoins High Transaction Fees Show Its Limits 比特幣的高手續費暴露了它的極限 The original cryptocurrency may never be a widespread payment instrument. 第一個加密貨幣可能永遠不會成為廣泛使用的支付工具 By Leonid Bershidsky November 14 2017 8:41 PM GMT8 More hassle than its worth? Photographer: Dan Kitwood The Bitcoin rate spike still alive despite bitter divisions in the community that supports the cryptocurrency has laid bare the biggest problem with Bitcoin: Compared with fiat currencies its painfully inconvenient and expensive to use as a means of payment. 儘管比特幣社群分裂，它的價格還是上漲 最大的問題：和法幣相比，它作為支付的工具 使用上有夠痛苦，有夠不方便，成本有夠貴 Bitcoin is set up to reward users for verifying transactions. Miners who package transactions into blocks receive two kinds of rewards: The additional Bitcoin they produce by using their hardware to solve mathematical problems (an income stream that will eventually cease since 21 million bitcoins are the maximum that can be mined) and the transaction fees paid by users to get their payments into blocks. 簡介一下礦工的角色，這個大家都知道就不翻 The Bitcoin system is designed around scarcity and its traditionalists insist on keeping the block size small (rebels who did away with that tenet founded an offshoot Bitcoin Cash earlier this year). Their reasoning is that only people with more computing power can live in a bigblock world and going down that path would make Bitcoin less democratic. But that horse has bolted: Mining is already largely the province of people who invest significant money in equipment and the huge amount of energy required to run it. As Bitcoins exchange rate rose rapidly and more people wanted to get in on the boom getting into blocks became difficult and miners prioritize transactions on which users are willing to pay a higher fee. It works a bit like Ubers surge pricing except the user sets the fee based on how long shes prepared to wait for the transaction to go through using one of several sites that link fees to waiting times or show median and average fees. 一邊堅持區塊要小，另一邊分叉為bitcoin cash 理由：大區塊減低比特幣的民主性 但，挖礦己經是專業礦工的事 隨著比特幣價格上漲，很多人想要上車， 想擠進區塊越來越難，礦工看誰錢出得多來排定誰可以進入區塊的優先順序 有些網站可以查詢平均手續費用 At the time of this writing the median fee paid to process the median transaction 226 bytes of information was 171760 satoshis or 0.0017176 Bitcoin or 11.38. If you just want to pay for a cup of coffee or order something relatively inexpensive on an ecommerce site without waiting many hours for the transaction to clear this is uneconomical. If youre a speculator though hoping to make money on the wild exchange rate fluctuations youll be willing to pay an even bigger premium for speed. No wonder the medium transaction size at the time of this writing exceeded 800 after reaching a peak of almost 1300. 手續費的中位數目前是171760聰，折合11.38鎂 如果你是想買杯咖啡，或來個網購，這不划算 不過，想炒作的話，你會願意付高一點的手續費加快速度 現在平均交易金額是800鎂，好像也不意外 Bitcoin was never a particularly convenient means of payment. One can get a Bitcoin debit card and use it anywhere cards are accepted but the fees on them charged on top of the Bitcoin transaction fees are generally higher than at your bank. For merchants its convenient to sign on to accept the cryptocurrency via specialized payment platforms but then the rate volatility and the same high transaction fees make it unattractive for a merchant who mostly works in a fiat currency economy. In July Morgan Stanley issued a report saying merchants acceptance of Bitcoin was on a downward trend just as the cryptocurrencys exchange rate went through the roof. 比特幣從來就不是特別方便的支付工具 你可以申請一張debit card，但在手續費之外還要另外付一筆使用費， 比銀行收得還貴 對於商家，接受加密貨幣，多一個收款方式也不錯 但是匯率波動高，手續費高，算起來就沒那麼吸引人 七月份摩根史丹利的報告，就在比特幣漲破天際時， 願意接受比特幣的商家數量卻在減少中 Some merchants stick to the currency perhaps for PR value. BitPay one of the top Bitcoin payment platforms reported last month it was on track to process 1 billion in payments to merchants this year; the dollar volume of the transactions in January through September was up 328 percent yearonyear the company said. But Visa for example processed 6.3 trillion in payments last year. Bitcoin hasnt even begun to make a dent in this market. 有些商家還是保留這個付款方式，也許是為了公關價值 BitPay上個月說，他們目標是今年要處理十億美元支付， 雖然從一月到九月，金額上漲328% 但跟VISA的處理的6.3兆美元比起來，簡直是九牛一毛 There is a notable group of merchants and customers willing to put up with Bitcoins inconveniences: U.S. marijuana dispensaries and pot users who are not adequately served by banks because of legal problems. Dark Web markets for harder drugs guns and other restricted items also prefer to use Bitcoin and despite a recent crackdown the currency still holds an appeal for Chinese investors trying to bypass their countrys currency restrictions. 也有部份商家和顧客願意忍受比特幣的不方便：大麻產業 因為法律原因他們沒辦法好好利用銀行 黑暗網路dark web的市場，毒品，槍枝，還有其他管制品，也偏好比特幣 還有，一些中國投資人還是寄望它可以突破外匯管制 The essential value of Bitcoin speculation aside is to provide payment and transfer services in grey or black areas where governments dont want banks to go and where electronic fiat money is too traceable for comfort. Its up to buyers and sellers to determine if this value proposition justifies the exchange rate to fiat currencies; given the current maximum block size of 1 megabyte and the strong resistance to increasing it the original Bitcoin may never expand beyond its current narrow usefulness. 不管投機的部份，比特幣的基本價值在灰色地帶甚至黑色地帶提供支付和交易服務 這些地方政府不希望銀行去，法幣又太好追踪 比特幣這部份的價值就看買家和賣家取捨 現在區塊大小是1M，實用性可能永遠不會跨出這小小的範圍 This creates a window of opportunity for Ethereum Bitcoin Cash and other cryptocurrencies to gain wider acceptance. But dealing in several of them will inevitably be confusing for merchants. Besides various combinations of design technology and market failures such the one now afflicting Bitcoin as a means of payment will keep cropping up. 對以太幣，bitcoin cash，和其他幣種，這是一個機會 但處理太多種幣也是麻煩 再者，現在比特幣面臨的問題，他們也遲早要面對 Its likely that if we ever switch to paying in cryptocurrency it will be of the fiat variety issued by central banks. As the sole issuers they will fit their systems to historical transaction volumes and dictate transaction fees. If forced to compete with centralbankdesigned systems for convenience decentralized currencies will remain on the risky fringe seducing volatilityloving speculators dodgy businesses and their anonymitycraving customers. 如果我們真的要改用加密貨幣，那很可能會是央行發行的版本 因為，作為發行者，他們可以將這科技應用到現有的流通量，制定手續費等等 如果被迫要和央行的版本競爭方便性的話，去中心化的貨幣可能會留在風險端 吸引喜歡波動性的投機/投資人、不法交易、還有渴求匿名性的顧客 評論： 有些同意有些不同意，老是提犯罪有點倒胃口 不過它確實指出現在比特幣最大的問題：手續費太高啦 雖然只是篇專欄文章，bloomberg平台還是有它的影響力 加減看看金融界那邊的觀點 喔喔謝謝 來改一下好了

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