比特幣最初的承諾——比傳統(tǒng)銀行更高效、更容易使用、成本低、直接和匿名——結(jié)果證明是錯(cuò)誤的。當(dāng)然，人們?nèi)匀豢梢杂盟鼇?lái)買(mǎi)毒品，但沒(méi)那么容易了。

Bitcoin Is Falling Out of Favor on the Dark Web

比特幣在暗網(wǎng)上失寵了

翻譯：飛雪似煬花 轉(zhuǎn)自龍騰網(wǎng)

Steep transaction fees and wild price fluctuations have made the cryptocurrency harder to use in the illicit markets that originally made it famous.

高昂的交易費(fèi)用和劇烈的價(jià)格波動(dòng)使得比特幣這一加密貨幣在黑市更加難以使用，而這也曾是它一舉成名的原因。

Of all of bitcoin’s uses—as a currency, a payment system, an investment, a commodity, a technology, a remittance network, a market hedge—perhaps its most notorious is as a facilitator of online drug transactions. For years now, the cryptocurrency has allowed anonymous purchasers to pay anonymous vendors on eBay-like markets, avoiding the use of the formal financial system and thus the easy intervention of the federal authorities.

在比特幣的所有用途中——如貨幣、支付系統(tǒng)、投資、商品、技術(shù)、匯款、市場(chǎng)對(duì)沖——或許最臭名昭著的是作為在線(xiàn)毒品交易的推動(dòng)者。多年來(lái)，這種加密貨幣允許匿名買(mǎi)家在類(lèi)似ebay這樣的市場(chǎng)上支付給匿名賣(mài)家，避免使用正式的金融系統(tǒng)，從而方便聯(lián)邦政府的干預(yù)。

“Making small talk with your pot dealer sucks. Buying cocaine can get you shot. What if you could buy and sell drugs online like books or light bulbs? Now you can: Welcome to Silk Road,” the journalist Adrian Chen wrote in?an exposé?for Gawker on the now-defunct market, back in 2011. At the time, Chen called it “the most complete implementation of the bitcoin vision” of freewheeling, anarcho-libertarian anonymity.

“和大麻販子閑聊很糟糕、危險(xiǎn)，買(mǎi)可卡因更可能會(huì)讓你被槍斃。如果你可以像購(gòu)買(mǎi)書(shū)籍或燈泡一樣在網(wǎng)上買(mǎi)賣(mài)毒品呢？現(xiàn)在就可以：歡迎來(lái)到絲路（購(gòu)物網(wǎng)站）”記者阿德里安·陳(Adrian Chen)在2011年為Gawker網(wǎng)撰寫(xiě)的一篇關(guān)于現(xiàn)已停業(yè)市場(chǎng)的文章中指出了這些問(wèn)題。當(dāng)時(shí)，阿德里安·陳稱(chēng)其為“比特幣愿景中最完美的實(shí)施”，這是一種隨心所欲、無(wú)政府自由主義、匿名化的狀態(tài)。

Seven years later, though, problems with using bitcoin on the dark web—a kind of?mirror internet?that uses encryption to ensure its participants’ privacy and features websites that are not accessible?from standard browsers—have piled up. Purchasers and vendors are cancelling orders, losing money, and fleeing to other forms of cryptocurrency. Bitcoin remains in wide use for drugs and other illegal goods, but the shadowy markets that made it famous, and infamous, are turning on it.

然而，七年后，在暗網(wǎng)上使用比特幣的問(wèn)題——一種使用加密技術(shù)來(lái)確保參與者隱私的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)，以及那些無(wú)法用標(biāo)準(zhǔn)瀏覽器訪(fǎng)問(wèn)的網(wǎng)站——已經(jīng)堆積如山。買(mǎi)家和賣(mài)家都在取消訂單，虧錢(qián)，并轉(zhuǎn)向其他形式的加密貨幣。比特幣仍然廣泛用于毒品和其他非法商品，但是那些讓它聲名鵲起同時(shí)又臭名昭著的地下市場(chǎng)，還是正在開(kāi)啟它。

The first issue lies in the extreme volatility of the price of bitcoin. The cryptocurrency has, since its?very earliest days, been a highly unstable one, its price surging and collapsing much like that of a penny stock. Even so, the past year has proven unusually volatile, with dramatic day-to-day and even?minute-to-minute?swings and plunges. Investors crowding into the cryptocurrency—including those putting bitcoin on?their credit cards, or taking out equity loans on their houses to buy it—and regulatory interest from governments around the world have helped to?drive those fluctuations. And the currency’s short-term volatility has been matched by some longer-term volatility too: The currency’s value?surged 1,300 percent?last year, and it has fallen by more than half of late.

第一個(gè)問(wèn)題在于比特幣的價(jià)格波動(dòng)十分劇烈，這種加密貨幣自早期誕生以來(lái)就一直是極不穩(wěn)定的，它的價(jià)格暴漲暴跌，就像那些低價(jià)股一樣。即便如此，過(guò)去一年的波動(dòng)仍然異常劇烈，每一天，甚至每分鐘都有劇烈波動(dòng)。涌入比特幣的投資者——包括那些把比特幣放在信用卡上的人，或者抵押房子拿貸款來(lái)購(gòu)買(mǎi)比特幣的人——來(lái)自世界各國(guó)政府的監(jiān)管利益幫助推動(dòng)了這些價(jià)格波動(dòng)。貨幣的短期波動(dòng)也與一些較長(zhǎng)期的波動(dòng)相匹配：去年貨幣的價(jià)值飆升了1300%，但它的跌幅也已經(jīng)超過(guò)了一半。

For Wall Street–type investors seeking to buy and hold bitcoin or risk-happy prospectors looking to make a quick buck, such price swings are generally a feature, not a bug. Nor are they problematic for many the many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs interested in the blockchain technology underpinning the currency. But this kind of volatility is a headache for participants in marketplaces with transactions denominated in bitcoin. That means the darknet markets, which have continued to crop up and collapse since the federal authorities?seizedSilk Road in 2013.

對(duì)于華爾街類(lèi)型的投資者來(lái)說(shuō)，他們想要購(gòu)買(mǎi)并持有比特幣，還有對(duì)于那些想要快速賺錢(qián)的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資者來(lái)說(shuō)，這樣的價(jià)格波動(dòng)通常是比特幣的一種特色，而并非缺陷。許多硅谷企業(yè)家對(duì)于依賴(lài)區(qū)塊鏈技術(shù)的基礎(chǔ)貨幣十分感興趣，這對(duì)于他們來(lái)說(shuō)也不是什么問(wèn)題，但這種波動(dòng)對(duì)于比特幣交易市場(chǎng)的參與者來(lái)說(shuō)是一件十分令人頭痛的事，這意味著暗網(wǎng)市場(chǎng)自2013年聯(lián)邦政府接管絲路以來(lái)，一直在不斷地發(fā)生錯(cuò)誤和崩潰。

On those markets, the price of drugs and other illicit and licit goods are fundamentally pegged to dollars or euros, not bitcoin. Buyers think in terms of traditional currencies, in other words: An eighth of an ounce of marijuana is worth $$25, not a minuscule fraction of a bitcoin. And vendors think in the same terms, often purchasing wholesale goods with dollars or other government-issued currencies, or seeking to sell their wares for cash in person. As such, “the price of a bitcoin does not matter,” Nicolas Christin, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University and an expert on the darknet markets, told me. “But that it is stable matters.”

在這些市場(chǎng)上，毒品和其他非法、合法商品的價(jià)格基本與美元或歐元掛鉤，而非比特幣。買(mǎi)家在市場(chǎng)上是用傳統(tǒng)貨幣來(lái)交易的，換句話(huà)說(shuō)：1/8盎司的大麻價(jià)值25美元，而不是比特幣去換算。銷(xiāo)售商也是用同樣的方式來(lái)進(jìn)行交易，通常以美元或其他政府發(fā)行的貨幣來(lái)批發(fā)商品，或以個(gè)人付現(xiàn)金的方式出售他們的商品。因此，卡內(nèi)基梅隆大學(xué)的計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)家、暗網(wǎng)市場(chǎng)專(zhuān)家尼古拉斯克里斯廷告訴我“比特幣的價(jià)格并不是重點(diǎn)，它的穩(wěn)定性才是問(wèn)題關(guān)鍵。”

To understand why, it helps to know a bit more about the mechanics of buying drugs on the dark web. A purchaser buys bitcoin, reviews vendors’ offers on a marketplace, and then pays for his goods. His money generally goes into escrow before it is released to his vendor. This introduces a number of financial choke points and transaction delays: between when the purchaser procures bitcoin and makes a purchase, when the vendor receives the order and receives payment from escrow, and when the vendor cashes out from the marketplace. Those are all moments when bitcoin’s volatility becomes problematic. For vendors, price drops while payments are in escrow might wipe out all the profits from a sale, for instance.

要理解這一點(diǎn)，需要了解一下在暗網(wǎng)上購(gòu)買(mǎi)毒品的流程。買(mǎi)家首先購(gòu)買(mǎi)比特幣，查看商家的出價(jià)，然后用比特幣支付他的商品。在錢(qián)款打到賣(mài)家賬戶(hù)之前，這些錢(qián)會(huì)先放到第三方機(jī)構(gòu)托管。這就造成了金融監(jiān)管和交易延遲的問(wèn)題：買(mǎi)家購(gòu)買(mǎi)了比特幣并進(jìn)行交易，賣(mài)家接受訂單并同意第三方支付的錢(qián)款，可是當(dāng)賣(mài)家要從市場(chǎng)中取出現(xiàn)金的時(shí)候，這些時(shí)間點(diǎn)都是比特幣的波動(dòng)不確定的時(shí)刻。對(duì)于賣(mài)家來(lái)說(shuō)，比特幣的價(jià)格下降，則會(huì)抵消掉他們暫存在第三方機(jī)構(gòu)錢(qián)款的利潤(rùn)。

Complaints about these kinds of scenarios are rife in popular forums where buyers and vendors chat online, including on Reddit. “Seems I hear Vendors are sitting on the sidelines. If payment is in [bitcoin and] then [the] price falls all their work is for nigh,”?one user?recently posted, worrying that fewer vendors were selling given the market dynamics at work. Another?complained, “Seriously?! I purchased coins this morning at like $$675 and within 1.5 hours it dropped down to $$625.”

在各類(lèi)買(mǎi)家和賣(mài)家用以在網(wǎng)上聊天的知名論壇——包括Reddit——上，人們普遍在抱怨這種情況。“看起來(lái)這些賣(mài)家實(shí)在是無(wú)能為力，如果買(mǎi)家用比特幣支付，然后比特幣價(jià)格下跌，那么所有的工作的白費(fèi)了”這是一名用戶(hù)最近發(fā)帖的內(nèi)容。他擔(dān)心，鑒于市場(chǎng)的狀態(tài)，越來(lái)越少的賣(mài)家會(huì)在市場(chǎng)上進(jìn)行銷(xiāo)售。另一個(gè)則抱怨“真的嗎? !今天早上我花了675美元買(mǎi)了一枚硬幣，然后在1.5小時(shí)內(nèi)，它就降到了625美元。”

Of course, licit markets have the exact same vulnerability to swings in the price of bitcoin. But those markets—with their deep-pocketed investors and ties to the formal financial system—have come up with ways to avoid them. “Merchants who want to avoid volatility will still accept bitcoin or cryptocurrency, and can use a service provider that automatically converts it,” Jerry Brito, the executive director of Coin Center, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization for cryptocurrencies, told me. “That service provider accepts bitcoin on their behalf, automatically converts it, and deposits dollars into the merchant’s account. That way they never face the volatility.”

當(dāng)然，合法市場(chǎng)也同樣容易受到比特幣價(jià)格波動(dòng)的影響，但這些市場(chǎng)——有財(cái)力雄厚的投資者和正規(guī)的金融體系——已經(jīng)找到了規(guī)避風(fēng)險(xiǎn)的方法。“商家雖然想要避免貨幣波動(dòng)，但仍會(huì)接受比特幣或加密貨幣來(lái)支付，并且讓服務(wù)提供商來(lái)進(jìn)行貨幣自動(dòng)轉(zhuǎn)換” 。 Coin Center（加密數(shù)字貨幣的非營(yíng)利研究和宣傳中心）的執(zhí)行董事杰里布里托告訴我“這個(gè)服務(wù)商接受比特幣，并且能自動(dòng)轉(zhuǎn)換，將美元存入商家的賬戶(hù)，這樣商家就不會(huì)面對(duì)比特幣劇烈的波動(dòng)。”

But such businesses want nothing to do with illegal markets, meaning that marketplaces, vendors, and buyers have few if any ways to hedge. Some drug dealers urge their customers to “finalize early,” letting their payments out of escrow before they receive their goods. And some marketplaces have built in their own mechanisms to help manage volatility. Indeed, the original Silk Road provided a kind of insurance system against volatile cryptocurrency prices. “Ross Ulbricht was a very smart young man who got into a line of work he should not have been involved in,” said Christin, referring to the creator of Silk Road, who was arrested in 2013 and is now serving a life sentence. “He had very clever ideas, like this hedging system that exists in banks.” But other markets do not have the technological wherewithal to do so, or the willingness to absorb any volatility risk from their customers and vendors. As a result, many vendors cancel orders, or requests that their buyers cancel orders, to manage the swings.

但這些企業(yè)不希望與非法市場(chǎng)有任何關(guān)系，這意味著市場(chǎng)、銷(xiāo)售商和買(mǎi)家?guī)缀鯖](méi)有辦法對(duì)沖。一些毒販提醒他們的顧客“提前完成交易”，在收到貨物之前就付完款。某些市場(chǎng)已經(jīng)建立了一套自己的機(jī)制來(lái)幫助控制貨幣的波動(dòng)性，實(shí)際上，早期絲路網(wǎng)站針對(duì)不穩(wěn)定的加密貨幣價(jià)格提供了一系列的保險(xiǎn)制度?？死锼雇≌f(shuō)，“羅斯·烏布里希特是一個(gè)非常聰明的年輕人，他從事了一項(xiàng)他不應(yīng)該參與的工作”，他指的是絲路的締造者，他于2013年被捕，現(xiàn)在正服無(wú)期徒刑。“他非常聰明有想法，就像銀行里的對(duì)沖系統(tǒng)一樣”。但其他市場(chǎng)沒(méi)有這樣的技術(shù)資金，也沒(méi)有愿意承擔(dān)任何波動(dòng)風(fēng)險(xiǎn)的買(mǎi)家和商家。因此，許多商家取消訂單，或要求買(mǎi)家取消訂單，以控制波動(dòng)的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。

It is worth noting that volatility has proven less of a problem when the price of bitcoin was shooting up, as buyers and vendors holding bitcoin found their currency worth more and more. (Indeed, in forum posts, some vendors note that they have made more money holding bitcoin than selling drugs.) But a crash in the price of bitcoin gives vendors far less of an incentive to do business on the darknet markets. “Volatility upwards is, of course, largely a good thing for [the darknet markets], as they produce a wealth effect,” wrote Gwern Branwen, a cryptocurrency researcher who?goes by a pseudonym, in an email. Branwen added, “The really bad thing is when prices crash. This sets up an ugly dynamic for sellers: typically you still have to pay your expenses and your supplier in a fiat, so do you continue shipping out orders pre-paid with bitcoins which are now worth a lot less and may well incur a loss?” ?

值得注意的是，當(dāng)比特幣價(jià)格飆升，買(mǎi)家和賣(mài)家發(fā)現(xiàn)手中持有的比特幣的價(jià)值越來(lái)越高時(shí)，波動(dòng)性就不是個(gè)問(wèn)題。(事實(shí)上，在論壇帖子中，一些賣(mài)家指出，他們持有比特幣賺的錢(qián)比賣(mài)毒品的錢(qián)要多) 。但是，比特幣價(jià)格暴跌時(shí)，讓賣(mài)家在黑市上做生意的意愿大大降低。加密貨幣研究員格溫·布蘭文用筆名回復(fù)郵件稱(chēng)“波動(dòng)性上升當(dāng)然對(duì)（暗網(wǎng)市場(chǎng)）來(lái)說(shuō)是一件好事，因?yàn)樗鼈儺a(chǎn)生了財(cái)富效應(yīng)”。他接著補(bǔ)充，“真正糟糕的是價(jià)格崩盤(pán)，這讓賣(mài)家很難做：一般情況下，你仍然需要給商家支付費(fèi)用，在價(jià)值更低，甚至很可能會(huì)導(dǎo)致?lián)p失的時(shí)候，你是否繼續(xù)用比特幣支付預(yù)付款呢?”

The second reason bitcoin is falling out of favor on the dark web has to do with the sudden increase in the cost of transacting in bitcoin. Here, again, it helps to get into the technical details for a moment. All bitcoin transactions are kept in a decentralized and public ledger. When someone makes a transaction with bitcoin, miners in the network solve cryptographic puzzles to verify and log it—and get paid a small fee in bitcoin to do so. That has given the cryptocurrency ascaling problem: As demand for transactions has gone up, the price to transact has gone up. Indeed, the price of a bitcoin transaction recently?spiked as high?as $$55.

比特幣在暗網(wǎng)中失寵的第二個(gè)原因與比特幣交易成本的突然增加有關(guān)。在此，說(shuō)明一下技術(shù)細(xì)節(jié)，所有比特幣的交易都被保留在一個(gè)分散和公共的賬目上，當(dāng)有人用比特幣進(jìn)行交易時(shí)，網(wǎng)絡(luò)礦工們破解密碼用以驗(yàn)證和記錄信息——并獲得一筆小額比特幣的費(fèi)用。這給加密貨幣的收費(fèi)帶來(lái)問(wèn)題:隨著對(duì)交易需求的上升，交易價(jià)格也隨之上升。事實(shí)上，比特幣交易的價(jià)格最近飆升到55美元了。

That might not be a problem for an investor. But for someone who’s just looking for some weed? “If you look at the average transaction on cryptomarkets, half of transactions are something like $$30 or $$50,” said David Décary-Hétu, a professor of criminology at the Université de Montréal. “It makes no sense to pay a commission of $$35 for $$50 of drugs.” Such transaction fees become especially problematic for anyone trying to make many smaller bitcoin transactions in order to avoid the attention of the authorities—such as drug dealers. ?

這對(duì)投資者來(lái)說(shuō)不是問(wèn)題，但是對(duì)于一個(gè)正在尋找毒品的人來(lái)說(shuō)呢?蒙特利爾大學(xué)的犯罪學(xué)教授大衛(wèi)?德-赫?qǐng)D表示:“你看一下加密貨幣市場(chǎng)的平均交易，大約一半的交易是30美元或50美元，花35美元購(gòu)買(mǎi)50美元的毒品是毫無(wú)意義的”。對(duì)于任何想要進(jìn)行小額比特幣交易的人來(lái)說(shuō)，這個(gè)交易費(fèi)都是一個(gè)問(wèn)題，因?yàn)樗麄兿胍荛_(kāi)官方的注意——比如毒販。

Bitcoin’s fees and transaction delays have also pushed darknet market participants away from the cryptocurrency. “Which markets would YOU recommend, now that the bitcoin literally became unusable in low amounts?” one Reddit?forum poster?asked. “How should one adapt to this? The fees got enormous, the sites I use to buy [bitcoin] set their minimum amount you can buy up to 500.” Another commenter stepped in to advise the user, recommending a rival cryptocurrency: “Monero appears to be the way forward, at least for now: as you said, bitcoin is currently unusable for smaller transactions.”

比特幣的費(fèi)用和交易延遲也讓這些暗網(wǎng)消費(fèi)者遠(yuǎn)離了加密貨幣。Reddit論壇一個(gè)帖子問(wèn)道“你會(huì)推薦哪個(gè)市場(chǎng)？現(xiàn)在，比特幣實(shí)際上已經(jīng)無(wú)法使用了”。“我們?cè)撊绾芜m應(yīng)這種情況呢?比特幣的交易費(fèi)是巨大，我用來(lái)購(gòu)買(mǎi)比特幣的網(wǎng)站設(shè)置了最低購(gòu)買(mǎi)金額，你最多可以購(gòu)買(mǎi)500歐元。”另一位評(píng)論者回帖向用戶(hù)建議，推薦競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手的加密貨幣:“門(mén)羅幣似乎是以后的發(fā)展方向，至少現(xiàn)在是這樣，正如你所說(shuō)，比特幣目前對(duì)較小的交易無(wú)法使用。”

Another posting reads: “I think [it is] officially time to step away from [bitcoin], at least for the time being. Went to do a direct deal today with a vendor, realized my $$250 purchase would end up costing me $$315 or so with fees and would still take probably 24 hours to get to him,” a Reddit?user wrote. “As of this morning the lowest electrum fee was approx $$32 to send coin.... and people reporting at the highest level still not having coin move 12-16 hours later.”

另一篇帖子寫(xiě)道:“我認(rèn)為(現(xiàn)在)是時(shí)候遠(yuǎn)離比特幣了，至少目前是這樣。”一位Reddit用戶(hù)的帖子中寫(xiě)道:“今天，我和一個(gè)賣(mài)家進(jìn)行了直接銷(xiāo)售，最終的250美元的價(jià)格購(gòu)買(mǎi)。否則，用比特幣交易的話(huà)，含手續(xù)費(fèi)大約需要花315美元，而且可能還需要24小時(shí)才能到達(dá)他的手中”。帖子中說(shuō)“今天早上銀金礦費(fèi)用最低是32美元左右兌換比特幣....而在12-16小時(shí)后比特幣依然沒(méi)有達(dá)到峰值。

A third issue has to do with anonymity—or really, a lack of it—as law-enforcement and regulatory agencies have become more interested in and sophisticated about monitoring cryptocurrencies. Though bitcoin initially promised completely anonymous transactions, the public nature of the blockchain system in fact has always meant that savvy observers could amass huge amounts of information on bitcoin users, identifying the addresses of popular darknet markets and making money-laundering more onerous. “It’s pretty well established at this point that bitcoin is not anonymous, and it is traceable,” said Sarah Meiklejohn, a cryptography expert at University College London. “If you are buying drugs, using bitcoin is not the best bet.”

第三個(gè)問(wèn)題與匿名有關(guān)——或者說(shuō)，缺乏監(jiān)管——因?yàn)閳?zhí)法部門(mén)和監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)對(duì)監(jiān)管加密貨幣越來(lái)越感興趣，也越來(lái)越富有經(jīng)驗(yàn)。盡管比特幣最初承諾完全匿名交易，但區(qū)塊鏈系統(tǒng)的共享本質(zhì)實(shí)際上意味著，懂行的人可以積累大量比特幣用戶(hù)的信息，鑒別當(dāng)下流行的暗網(wǎng)市場(chǎng)網(wǎng)址，并讓洗錢(qián)變得更加麻煩。倫敦大學(xué)學(xué)院的密碼學(xué)專(zhuān)家薩拉 米爾克約翰說(shuō) “在這一點(diǎn)上，比特幣已經(jīng)非常成熟，比特幣不是匿名的，它是可以追蹤的。如果你正在購(gòu)買(mǎi)毒品，使用比特幣不是最好的選擇。”

Other coins offer?more privacy, and people who use darknet markets are moving to options like Ether and Monero. “Alex Cazes is dead because he believed bitcoin mixers obfuscated his money trail,” one forum poster said, referring to the founder of the now-defunct market AlphaBay and “mixers” that would supposedly hide his illicit bitcoin transactions. “My advice. Convert your bitcoins into Monero.” Another?argued: “While many of us have benefited from the surge in BTC price, it’s time we left it in the past and move on to something safer and more efficient. The wave starts with getting vendors and markets on board. While making an order I urge you to ask your vendor if they have considered switching to Monero (or alternative). If more customers want to pay with Monero, vendors and markets will want to switch to where customers have money.”

其他貨幣提供了更多的隱私，暗網(wǎng)市場(chǎng)的人們也正在轉(zhuǎn)向選擇像以太幣和門(mén)羅幣這樣的貨幣。“亞歷克斯?卡澤斯已經(jīng)垮掉了，因?yàn)樗麍?jiān)信比特幣混合器，從而破壞了他的資金鏈，我的建議是把你的比特幣兌換成門(mén)羅幣”。一位論壇發(fā)帖人說(shuō)，他指的是現(xiàn)已不存在的暗網(wǎng)市場(chǎng)AlphaBay和暗網(wǎng)混合器的創(chuàng)始人，這個(gè)人可能會(huì)隱藏他的非法比特幣交易。另一個(gè)回帖人則認(rèn)為:“雖然我們中的許多人都受益于比特幣價(jià)格的飆升，但現(xiàn)在是我們拋棄過(guò)去，轉(zhuǎn)向更安全、更高效的時(shí)候了。揮手過(guò)去，開(kāi)始讓供應(yīng)商和市場(chǎng)也參與進(jìn)來(lái)。在交易的時(shí)候，我強(qiáng)烈建議你問(wèn)問(wèn)你的供應(yīng)商是否考慮換成門(mén)羅幣(或其他選擇)。如果有更多的客戶(hù)想要使用門(mén)羅幣付款，供應(yīng)商和市場(chǎng)就會(huì)想要換到客戶(hù)方便支付的場(chǎng)景。

Even with these three factors, bitcoin still remains the common currency of the dark web. Given the difficulty of purchasing drugs and the lucrative nature of selling them, people are willing to put up with high transaction costs. Moreover, market participants have many other prent risks to worry about, and transaction difficulties to deal with: the threat of law enforcement running a market?as a honeypot?to catch dealers and purchasers; the threat of vendors stealing their customers’ bitcoin and suddenly disappearing; whole marketplacesscamming their vendors?and customers; the question of how?to launder?huge amounts of money converted from bitcoin. “If you want heroin, you might be willing to pay a fee, or take these risks,” said Décary-Hétu.

即使存在著這三個(gè)因素，比特幣仍然是暗網(wǎng)的共同貨幣?？紤]到購(gòu)買(mǎi)毒品的困難和銷(xiāo)售這些毒品的利潤(rùn)豐厚，人們還是愿意承擔(dān)高額的交易費(fèi)用。此外，參與者們還存在許多其他常見(jiàn)的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)以及難以處理的交易問(wèn)題：比如執(zhí)法的威脅，它將市場(chǎng)作為一個(gè)誘餌來(lái)抓捕經(jīng)銷(xiāo)商和購(gòu)買(mǎi)者；供應(yīng)商竊取客戶(hù)的比特幣并突然消失的威脅；整個(gè)市場(chǎng)都在欺騙他們的供應(yīng)商和客戶(hù)的威脅；如何從比特幣兌換大量資金的問(wèn)題。“如果你想要海洛因，你可能愿意支付一筆費(fèi)用，或者承擔(dān)這些風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，” Décary-Hétu說(shuō)道。

Plus, they have few alternatives—unlike participants in licit markets, whose advantages bitcoin-denominated markets throw into sharp relief. The dollar and euro are stable, with prices shifting just a few percent per year. Online payment systems are cheap and reliable, with credit cards charging just a few percentage points to process a near-instantaneous transaction. Contemporary financial markets are rich marvels, offering hedges, insurance, security guarantees, and a seemingly infinite variety of other products to make buying goods and doing business easy.

此外，他們幾乎沒(méi)有其他選擇——不像合法市場(chǎng)的參與者，他們的優(yōu)勢(shì)被比特幣計(jì)價(jià)的市場(chǎng)迅速消解。美元和歐元是穩(wěn)定的，每年的價(jià)格變動(dòng)僅為幾個(gè)百分點(diǎn)。在線(xiàn)支付系統(tǒng)便宜可靠，信用卡只需支付幾個(gè)百分點(diǎn)就能處理近乎即時(shí)的交易。當(dāng)代金融市場(chǎng)是一個(gè)財(cái)富的奇跡，它提供對(duì)沖、保險(xiǎn)、安全保障，以及看似無(wú)窮無(wú)盡的其他產(chǎn)品，從而使購(gòu)買(mǎi)商品和做生意變得容易。

Not so with bitcoin. Its original promise—to be more efficient, easy to use, low-cost, immediate, and anonymous than traditional banking—has turned out to be false. One can still use it to buy drugs, of course. But not so easily.

比特幣的情況并非如此，它最初的承諾——比傳統(tǒng)銀行更高效、更容易使用、成本低、直接和匿名——結(jié)果證明是錯(cuò)誤的。當(dāng)然，人們?nèi)匀豢梢杂盟鼇?lái)買(mǎi)毒品，但沒(méi)那么容易了。