20221118 加密货币能否度过最近的寒冬？

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The World Ahead
| The World Ahead 2023
Can crypto survive its latest winter?
Finding a real use for it would help

Nov 18th 2022

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By Alice Fulwood: Wall Street correspondent, The Economist, New York

What does crypto do after the crash? “hodl and buidl,” says Scott Spiegel, one of the organisers of BitBasel, an annual crypto-art event held in Miami. hodl, a term common in crypto circles, encourages users to “hold on for dear life” during a slump—and the community has taken to re-working the word “build” to go with it. In short: keep the faith.

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The idea that a “crypto winter”, the term widely used for a slump in crypto prices, is the time to knuckle down is long-held. Each drop tends to wash out those suckered in by the hype and leave only the dedicated core—those building applications and blockchain technology. Ethereum, now the second-most valuable blockchain, was launched during the first “crypto winter”, after a price spike in 2014. The next winter, in 2017, also gave rise to the invention of many decentralised finance applications.

The industry is girding itself for an onslaught of regulation

If anything, crypto is better prepared to buidl through the latest chill than it has been before. Billions of dollars’ worth of crypto venture-capital money has been raised and put to work, giving many crypto founders a cash cushion to rely upon with asset prices low. The market capitalisation of all of crypto is still higher than it was in late 2020. The spectacular collapse of ftx in November, after an $8bn hole was discovered in its balance-sheet, was a blow. But other exchanges ,such as Binance and Coinbase, seem likely to survive.

As well as moves to hodl and buidl, the industry is girding itself for an onslaught of regulation. Three major bills are being passed around in Washington—two comprehensive efforts and one focusing on stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency pegged to an asset or commodity. American regulators, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, are clamping down on platforms that have facilitated activity in crypto-tokens that they think look like securities.


What will all this mean for the price of crypto-tokens such as bitcoin or ether? If inflation subsides and the Fed eases off on interest rates, it will probably help crypto prices, given how closely correlated to stocks they have been in 2022. But the bigger crypto grows the harder it is to imagine another boom in crypto prices built on hype alone.

“Everyone is laser-focused on delivering a use case,” says one Miami-based developer. If the buidl activity during this downturn does not deliver on a real use for crypto beyond speculation and scams, this chill could well endure.■

Alice Fulwood: Wall Street correspondent, The Economist, New York

未来世界
| 未来世界 2023
加密货币能否度过最近的寒冬？
找到真正的用途会有所帮助

2022年11月18日

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作者：爱丽丝-富尔伍德经济学人》驻纽约华尔街记者

暴跌之后，加密货币该怎么办？在迈阿密举行的一年一度的加密艺术活动 BitBasel 的组织者之一斯科特-斯皮格尔（Scott Spiegel）说："hodl and buidl"。"hodl "是加密货币圈子里的一个常用术语，鼓励用户在经济低迷时 "死守"--社区还重新创造了 "build "一词来与之搭配。简而言之：保持信念。

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长期以来，人们一直认为，"加密货币寒冬"（加密货币价格暴跌的广义说法）是一个需要绷紧神经的时期。每一次下跌往往都会洗去那些被炒作所吸引的人，只留下那些专注的核心--那些构建应用程序和区块链技术的人。目前价值排名第二的区块链以太坊，就是在2014年价格飙升后的第一个 "加密货币寒冬 "期间推出的。下一个冬天，即 2017 年，也催生了许多去中心化金融应用的发明。


该行业正准备迎接监管的猛烈冲击

如果说，加密货币比以往任何时候都更有能力度过最近的寒冬。价值数十亿美元的加密风险投资资金已经筹集并投入使用，为许多加密货币创始人在资产价格低迷时提供了现金缓冲。所有加密货币的市值仍高于 2020 年底的水平。11 月，ftx 的资产负债表被发现存在 80 亿美元的漏洞，其轰然倒塌是一个打击。但其他交易所，如 Binance 和 Coinbase，似乎有可能存活下来。

除了采取 "砍仓 "和 "建仓 "措施外，该行业还在准备迎接监管的猛烈冲击。华盛顿正在通过三项重要法案，其中两项是综合性法案，另一项法案主要针对稳定币（一种与资产或商品挂钩的加密货币）。美国监管机构，如证券交易委员会，正在打击那些为加密代币活动提供便利的平台，他们认为这些平台看起来像证券。

这一切对比特币或以太币等加密代币的价格意味着什么？考虑到 2022 年加密货币与股票的密切相关性，如果通胀消退，美联储放宽利率政策，可能会对加密货币价格有所帮助。但是，加密货币的规模越大，就越难想象仅靠炒作就能再次掀起加密货币价格的热潮。

"一位迈阿密的开发者说："每个人都在专注于提供一个用例。一位迈阿密的开发者说："每个人都在全神贯注于提供一个用例，"如果这次低迷期的建设活动不能为加密货币提供一个真正的用例，而不是投机和骗局，那么这种寒流很可能会持续下去。

爱丽丝-富尔伍德经济学人》华尔街记者，纽约