Vitalik Buterin on Cryptoeconomics and Markets in Everything (Ep. 45)
Hello.
你好。
I’m here today with Vitalik Buterin, who is founder and chief scientist at Ethereum.
今天我和以太坊创始人兼首席科学家维塔利克·布特林 (Vitalik Buterin) 一起来到这里。
I’d like to start with what I call the Vitalik Buterin production function — that is, how you get things done.
我想从我所说的 Vitalik Buterin 生产函数开始——也就是说，你如何完成工作。
I went back and I reread all of the papers on your home page.
我回去重新阅读了你主页上的所有论文。
I found it quite striking that there were two very important economics results, one based on menu costs associated with the name of Greg Mankiw.
我发现非常惊人的是，有两个非常重要的经济学结果，其中一个是基于与格雷格·曼昆的名字相关的菜单成本。
Another is a paper on the indeterminacy of monetary equilibrium associated with Fischer Black.
另一篇是费舍尔·布莱克（Fischer Black）有关货币均衡不确定性的论文。
These are famous papers.
这些都是著名的论文。
On your own, you appear to rediscover these results without knowing about the papers at all.
就你自己而言，你似乎在完全不了解这些论文的情况下重新发现了这些结果。
So how would you describe how you teach yourself economics?
那么您如何描述您是如何自学经济学的呢？
I guess it involves a combination of things.
我想这涉及到多种因素的结合。
Some of it is reading what various economists on the internet say.
其中一些是阅读互联网上各种经济学家的言论。
Some of it is reading papers.
其中一些是阅读论文。
Sometimes, if I want to dig into some topic more deeply, I end up reading books, like I read one on urban transportation economics a while back.
有时，如果我想更深入地研究某个话题，我最终会看书，就像我不久前读过一本关于城市交通经济学的书。
I also go to conferences.
我也去参加会议。
I was just at the Economics and Computation conference with Glen Weyl and other people in Ithaca last week, which I thought was very interesting.
上周我刚刚在伊萨卡与 Glen Weyl 和其他人一起参加了经济学和计算会议，我认为这非常有趣。
It’s always kind of an indispensable opportunity to physically go to places and actually talk to people, because that way you learn things about both what people are thinking about and how people are thinking in the space that you can’t easily find from the internet.
这始终是一个不可或缺的机会，可以亲自去一些地方并与人们进行实际交谈，因为这样你就可以了解人们在想什么以及人们在你无法从互联网上轻松找到的空间中如何思考。
If you think about economics — what you’ve taught yourself — what do you think of as the central ideas relevant for cryptoeconomics, which is a term I think you coined?
如果你思考经济学 ——你自学的内容——你认为与加密经济学相关的中心思想是什么，我认为这是你创造的一个术语？
I would say that cryptoeconomics, first of all, is economics.
我想说，加密经济学首先是经济学。
It’s not like we’re inventing some completely different parallel society with a different parallel economy and different rules, but it is economics specialized to a particular set of circumstances.
这并不是说我们正在发明一些完全不同的平行社会，具有不同的平行经济和不同的规则，但它是专门针对特定情况的经济学。
Then you have to ask yourself, “Well, what describes those circumstances?” There are a few major parts to that answer.
然后你必须问自己：“嗯，这些情况是怎样描述的？”这个答案有几个主要部分。
First of all, whatever mechanisms you have in cryptoeconomics land have to be fully specified exactly — not exactly to the standards of a court judge, but exactly to the standards of a computer programmer.
首先，无论你在加密经济学领域拥有什么机制，都必须完全准确地指定——不完全按照法院法官的标准，而是完全按照计算机程序员的标准。
What that means is that there’s a lot of things that you can’t do.
这意味着有很多事情你不能做。
For example, you can’t say in cryptoeconomics, “It’s illegal to bribe people,” because there’s really no simple way to define what a bribe is.
例如，在加密经济学中，你不能说“贿赂别人是违法的”，因为实际上没有简单的方法来定义贿赂是什么。
If someone really wants to bribe someone else, he can just go and do that outside of the protocol, and the protocol would have no way to tell.
如果有人真的想贿赂别人，他可以在协议之外这样做，而协议则无从得知。
Whatever your rules are for rewarding, penalizing inside of the mechanism, they have to be specified as a piece of Solidity code, Viper code, whatever programming language you’re using in that set.
无论机制内部的奖励、惩罚规则是什么，都必须将它们指定为一段 Solidity 代码、Viper 代码，无论您在该集合中使用什么编程语言。
That’s a much tighter constraint than policymakers writing laws have.
这比制定法律的政策制定者所受到的限制要严格得多。
Another one is, of course, that all of the actors are anonymous, and what that means in practice is that you cannot drag people’s utility down below zero.
当然，另一个问题是所有参与者都是匿名的，这在实践中意味着你不能将人们的效用拉低到零以下。
If I have 70 ether, and I put that 70 ether into a mechanism, the worst thing you can do to me is you can take away that 70 ether.
如果我有 70 个以太币，我把这 70 个以太币放入一个机制中，你能对我做的最糟糕的事情就是你可以拿走那 70 个以太币。
You cannot throw me in jail.
你不能把我扔进监狱。
You cannot socially ostracize me so I can’t earn any money again because I can always just switch identities.
你不能在社会上排斥我，这样我就不能再赚到钱了，因为我总是可以转换身份。
But to the extent that I’m willing to lock that ether up and make it vulnerable to a mechanism, then you have the ability to motivate me to that extent.
但只要我愿意锁定以太并使其容易受到某种机制的影响，那么你就有能力在某种程度上激励我。
Cryptoeconomics is basically taking economics with those particular constraints and then adding together insights from fields that are fairly close by to the cryptocurrency space — particularly cryptography, information theory, math, and distributed systems, including all of the research around consensus algorithms, hash functions, signatures, zero-knowledge proofs, and what we know about all of those primitives.
加密经济学基本上是将经济学与这些特定的约束结合起来，然后将来自与加密货币空间相当接近的领域的见解相结合——特别是密码学、信息论、数学和分布式系统，包括围绕共识算法、哈希函数、签名、零知识证明以及我们对所有这些原语的了解的所有研究。
Basically we’re trying to figure out, given these constraints and given these building blocks, what kind of systems and what kind of mechanisms can we design to achieve the properties that we want?
基本上，我们试图弄清楚，考虑到这些约束和构建块，我们可以设计什么样的系统和什么样的机制来实现我们想要的属性？
And under what kinds of assumptions do those properties hold?
这些属性是在什么样的假设下成立的？
What’s the contribution or understanding you wish economics could give you that it hasn’t given you yet?
你希望经济学能够给你带来什么但它还没有给你的贡献或理解？
What problem do you want it to solve for you?
您希望它为您解决什么问题？
I think that once you start getting into the weeds, and you try to move beyond very simple things like proof of work, the simplest versions of proof of stake, and the tricks that we’ve known about since 2009 or 2013, then you get into this situation where you realize the kinds of problems that you run into when you try to incentivize behavior.
我认为，一旦你开始深入了解，并尝试超越非常简单的事情，比如工作量证明、最简单版本的权益证明，以及我们自 2009 年或 2013 年以来就知道的技巧，那么你就会陷入这种情况，意识到当你试图激励行为时会遇到的各种问题。
Particularly when you run into things like what I call speaker/listener fault equivalence, which is basically this idea that if the protocol requires Alice to send a message to Bob, and the protocol detects that Bob never showed a message from Alice, then the protocol knows that either it’s because Alice forgot to speak or it’s because Bob pretended not to listen.
特别是当你遇到像我所说的说话者/听众故障等价的情况时，基本上是这样的想法：如果协议要求爱丽丝向鲍勃发送消息，并且协议检测到鲍勃从未显示过爱丽丝的消息，那么协议就知道要么是因为爱丽丝忘记说话，要么是因为鲍勃假装没有听。
Then, under those kinds of conditions, trying to figure out what is the right way to motivate Alice and motivate Bob while preserving all sorts of different properties.
然后，在这些条件下，尝试找出激励 Alice 和 Bob 的正确方法，同时保留各种不同的属性。
These are questions that are very close to questions that game theorists, mechanism designers, people in the economics community have already had a lot of things to say about.
这些问题与博弈论学家、机制设计者、经济学界人士已经有很多话要说的问题非常接近。
There definitely are results from the existing fields of economics and game theory that have helped significantly in that regard.
现有的经济学和博弈论领域的成果肯定在这方面发挥了重大作用。
Another whole aspect is also the broader and social question of how will blockchain-based systems actually end up affecting society?
另一个整体也是更广泛的社会问题，即基于区块链的系统最终将如何影响社会？
What is a blockchain’s unique competitive advantage?
区块链独特的竞争优势是什么？
What are things that you can do with blockchains that you can do only with more difficulty without them?
有哪些事情是你可以用区块链做的，而没有区块链的话，你就很难做到？
Trying to go from there and zero in and try to figure out exactly what industries and what kind of applications in those industries should be going after.
尝试从那里开始，从零开始，尝试弄清楚到底应该追求哪些行业以及这些行业中的哪些应用程序。
Do the things at the application layer that we’re trying to build even make sense?
我们尝试构建的应用程序层的东西有意义吗？
Should we modify them in some way to have them make more sense?
我们是否应该以某种方式修改它们以使它们更有意义？
I do think that people from the economics community have a lot to say about that.
我确实认为经济学界的人们对此有很多话要说。
Alex Tabarrok, for example, had that very nice post on Marginal Revolution a couple of weeks back, where he talked about blockchains in terms of being an alternative to platform monopolies, and I thought that was a very good insight.
例如，亚历克斯·塔巴罗克 (Alex Tabarrok) 几周前在《边际革命》(Marginal Revolution) 上发表了一篇非常好的文章，其中他谈到了区块链作为平台垄断的替代方案，我认为这是一个非常好的见解。
I thought that the general idea that a blockchain is one of the few tools that allows you to credibly commit to not turning into a monopolistic jerk is actually a really interesting insight and one that I have arrived at myself, but it definitely helps to have it be crystallized in that way.
我认为，区块链是少数能让你可靠地承诺不变成垄断混蛋的工具之一，这一总体想法实际上是一个非常有趣的见解，也是我自己得出的一个见解，但以这种方式将其具体化肯定会有所帮助。
On blockchain as a ‘world computer’
区块链作为“世界计算机”
If you had to explain blockchain to a very smart person from 40 years ago, who knew computers but had no idea of crypto, what would be the best short explanation you could give them, basically, for what you do?
如果你必须向 40 年前的一个非常聪明的人解释区块链，他懂计算机，但对加密一无所知，那么对于你所做的事情，你能给他们的最好的简短解释是什么？
Sure.
当然。
One of the analogies I keep going back to is this idea of a “world computer.” The idea, basically, is that a blockchain, as a whole, functions like a computer.
我不断回顾的类比之一就是“世界计算机”的想法。基本上，这个想法是区块链作为一个整体，像计算机一样运行。
It has a hard drive, and on that hard drive, it stores what all the accounts are.
它有一个硬盘驱动器，在该硬盘驱动器上存储所有帐户的内容。
It stores what the code of all the smart contracts is, what the memory of all these smart contracts is.
它存储了所有智能合约的代码是什么，所有这些智能合约的内存是什么。
It accepts incoming instructions — and these incoming instructions are signed transactions sent by a bunch of different users — and processes them according to a set of rules.
它接受传入指令 — ，这些传入指令是由一群不同用户 — 发送的签名交易，并根据一组规则对其进行处理。
On a blockchain, you can ultimately build anything that you can build on top of a computer.
在区块链上，你最终可以构建任何可以在计算机上构建的东西。
From a computer science theoretical point of view, in terms of what it provides, you can think about it as being a computer.
从计算机科学理论的角度来看，就其提供的功能而言，您可以将其视为一台计算机。
But what it provides on top of that is these extra trust guarantees: the guarantee that the computer will run in the way that you expect it to run, and that a few people can’t make that guarantee fail by going out of business, getting hacked, dying, having their company go bankrupt, deciding to be evil one day, deciding they have some monopolistic interest to start acting differently one day, and all of those different issues.
但除此之外，它还提供了这些额外的信任保证：保证计算机将以你期望的方式运行，并且少数人不能因为倒闭、被黑客攻击、死亡、公司破产、有一天决定作恶、决定他们有某种垄断利益而有一天开始以不同的方式行事，以及所有这些不同的问题，从而使这种保证失败。
A reader wrote to me this question: “A crypto token is in some ways a Schelling point achieved through charisma.
一位读者写信给我这个问题：“加密代币在某种程度上是通过魅力实现的谢林点。
Is that secretly what he’s best at?”
这就是他最擅长的秘密吗？”
I did write that blog post a couple of months back, and I think this might be one of those things that you referred to, where I talk about this, and of signaling theory, equilibrium of cryptocurrency.
几个月前我确实写了那篇博客文章，我认为这可能是您提到的事情之一，我在其中谈论了这一点，以及信号理论、加密货币的均衡。
It’s where I basically try to answer the question, “If there isn’t just going to be one cryptocurrency, then what prevents the entire cryptocurrency space from hyperinflating, as people can just costlessly issue more and more?”
这就是我基本上试图回答的问题：“如果不只存在一种加密货币，那么什么可以阻止整个加密货币空间的恶性膨胀，因为人们可以无成本地发行越来越多的加密货币？”
The answer that I came up with is that issuing a cryptocurrency by itself is costless, but issuing a cryptocurrency that people care about is not costless.
我得出的答案是，发行加密货币本身是无成本的，但发行人们关心的加密货币并不是无成本的。
The equilibrium is that there exists this club of cryptocurrencies that people recognize as having value.
均衡是存在人们认为有价值的加密货币俱乐部。
It is possible to join the club, but joining the club requires that you undertake some kind of costly signaling expenditure — in some ways burn capital, burn resources, or consume something unique — which is just difficult enough that it prevents people from doing it willy-nilly to the point where all the cryptocurrency hyperinflates.
加入俱乐部是可能的，但加入俱乐部需要你承担某种昂贵的信号支出 —— 在某些方面烧钱、烧资源，或者消耗一些独特的东西 ——这非常困难，以至于它阻止人们不情愿地这样做，以至于所有加密货币都过度膨胀。
Don’t people trust ether and Ethereum in part because they trust you?
难道人们信任以太和以太坊的部分原因不是因为他们信任你吗？
In a sense, there’s this Russian tradition of holy men who come along — Dostoyevsky’s Alyosha, Prince Myshkin — like a non-evil Rasputin.
从某种意义上说，俄罗斯有圣人的传统——“陀思妥耶夫斯基的阿辽沙，梅什金王子”——就像一个不邪恶的拉斯普京。
The person is innocent and has some very wise message, and people flock to that person.
这个人是无辜的，并且有一些非常明智的信息，人们会涌向那个人。
Are you, in a sense, the contemporary version of those figures?
从某种意义上说，你是这些人物的当代版本吗？
I know people have different theories about the kind of influence that I myself have.
我知道人们对我自己的影响力有不同的看法。
I think part of it is that, at least I feel like, the innovation in the crypto space isn’t just technological innovation or political innovation.
我认为部分原因是，至少我觉得，加密货币领域的创新不仅仅是技术创新或政治创新。
It’s also to a large degree cultural innovation, and even I, with my own behavior, I end up talking to people at different conferences, just reply to random people’s Reddit messages.
这在很大程度上也是文化创新，就连我，以我自己的行为，我最终也会在不同的会议上与人们交谈，只是随机回复人们的 Reddit 消息。
I try to make myself maximally accessible in a bunch of ways, try to bring different people in different communities together, perform a kind of social coordination function, which is probably, from an economist’s point of view, similar to some aspects of management, but without the aspects of management that evoke images of centralized control in all those different things.
我试图通过多种方式让自己最大限度地变得容易接近，尝试将不同社区的不同人聚集在一起，发挥一种社会协调功能，从经济学家的角度来看，这可能类似于管理的某些方面，但没有管理的方面唤起对所有这些不同事物的集中控制的印象。
And that’s not just myself.
这不仅仅是我自己。
That’s the Ethereum community.
这就是以太坊社区。
It’s other crypto communities.
这是其他加密社区。
I do feel like there definitely is a real sense in which the crypto community is also at the epicenter of all of these different cultural ideas of how projects should organize, what it means to be a leader, what it means to be a developer, what it means to be part of a project, what it means to be part of a team.
我确实觉得，加密社区确实是所有这些不同文化理念的中心，这些文化理念包括项目应该如何组织、作为领导者意味着什么、作为开发人员意味着什么、作为项目的一部分意味着什么、作为团队的一部分意味着什么。
There’s social dimensions to that.
这是有社会层面的。
There is ideological dimensions to that.
这是有意识形态层面的。
There’s dimensions of how different ideas get spread and become more popular.
不同的想法如何传播并变得更受欢迎是有不同维度的。
I definitely do agree that that aspect of things is one that’s very important and probably not talked about enough.
我绝对同意，事情的这一方面非常重要，而且可能讨论得还不够。
If we think of Thomas Schelling’s notion of a focal point, something that people coordinate upon and come to accept as somehow centrally important, doesn’t that mean centralization always reemerges?
如果我们想到托马斯·谢林（Thomas Schelling）的焦点概念，即人们在其上进行协调并逐渐接受的某种中心重要性的东西，这是否意味着集中化总是会重新出现？
You look at something like Twitter.
你看一些像 Twitter 这样的东西。
We’re both on Twitter.
我们都在推特上。
I don’t think Twitter is dominant in its sphere because its AI is so good.
我不认为 Twitter 在其领域占据主导地位，因为它的人工智能非常出色。
It’s just people know the name, and people are used to going to Twitter.
只是人们知道这个名字，而且人们习惯上推特。
Will the crypto space end up as centralized as Twitter, Google, and Facebook?
加密空间最终会像 Twitter、Google 和 Facebook 一样中心化吗？
I wrote this blog post a couple of years ago where I talk about different kinds of decentralization.
几年前我写了这篇博文，其中讨论了不同类型的去中心化。
One I talk about is architectural decentralization, which is basically the difference between a system being based on one computer and, say, a system being based on lots of computers and being fault tolerant.
我谈论的一个是架构去中心化，这基本上是基于一台计算机的系统与基于大量计算机且具有容错能力的系统之间的区别。
Lots of things are architecturally decentralized already, like large parts of Amazon AWS, and lots of military hardware, traditional airplanes.
很多东西在架构上已经是去中心化的，比如亚马逊 AWS 的大部分，以及许多军事硬件、传统飞机。
Lots of things have aspects of architectural decentralization.
很多事情都有架构去中心化的方面。
Another one is political decentralization, which is the thing .
另一个是政治分权，这就是问题所在。
.
。
.
。
And blockchains are trying to achieve the architectural side of decentralization — it’s not run on one piece of hardware.
区块链正试图实现去中心化的架构方面——它不是在一个硬件上运行。
In political decentralization, it’s not run by one single person or small cabal of people at the same time.
在政治分权中，它不是由一个人或一小群人同时管理的。
The third kind of decentralization I talk about, though, is logical centralization versus decentralization.
不过，我谈论的第三种去中心化是逻辑中心化与去中心化。
One example I gave in my post is the English language.
我在帖子中举的一个例子是英语。
The English language is architecturally decentralized because there’s no one single dictionary.
英语在结构上是分散的，因为没有一本字典。
It’s politically decentralized: there’s no one who really has the ability to practically regulate new words into and out of existence.
它在政治上是去中心化的：没有人真正有能力实际监管新词的存在和消失。
But it is logically centralized in the sense of there is one thing, which is the English language, and if you start deviating from that one thing, then you’re going to have a harder time.
但它在逻辑上是集中的，因为有一件事，那就是英语，如果你开始偏离这一件事，那么你的日子就会更难过。
The conclusion of my post, or at least part of it, is that I do think that blockchains are logically centralized, basically because there is one blockchain.
我这篇文章的结论，或者至少是其中的一部分，是我确实认为区块链在逻辑上是中心化的，基本上是因为有一个区块链。
It is a shared ledger.
这是一个共享账本。
It is a canonical history.
这是一部规范的历史。
You’re either part of it or you’re not.
你要么是其中的一部分，要么不是。
I argue that this logical centralization is actually good.
我认为这种逻辑集中实际上是好的。
On Ethereum
在以太坊上
If you’re looking to hire someone — either for Ethereum or to collaborate with — what quality or qualities do you look for that maybe other people underrate?
如果你正在寻找某人 ——无论是为以太坊还是与 合作—— 你在寻找哪些可能被其他人低估的品质？
Because you’ve also built a successful company, right?
因为你也建立了一家成功的公司，对吧？
You’re not just chief scientist.
你不仅仅是首席科学家。
No. Company is not necessarily the right emphasis, once again.
不。再次强调，公司不一定是正确的重点。
It goes back to my point about cultural innovation.
这又回到了我关于文化创新的观点。
Ultimately, there are different circles in the Ethereum community, some overlapping, some not, and there’s different ideas of what it means to be Ethereum.
最终，以太坊社区中有不同的圈子，有些是重叠的，有些不是，而且对于以太坊的含义也有不同的想法。
For example, you could be a full-time employee of the organization based in Switzerland called the Ethereum Foundation, or its outpost in Singapore called Ethereum Asia Pacific Limited.
例如，您可以是位于瑞士的以太坊基金会或其位于新加坡的以太坊亚太有限公司的全职员工。
You could be someone who has received a grant from the Ethereum Foundation.
您可能是获得以太坊基金会资助的人。
You could also be a groupie, someone who has intellectual ideas, likes hanging out with us, and just happens to fly around everywhere to the same cities that we’re in.
你也可能是一个追星族，有一些聪明的想法，喜欢和我们一起出去玩，而且碰巧飞到我们所在的同一个城市。
You could be someone working on some Ethereum project.
您可能是某个以太坊项目的工作人员。
There’s definitely people who work outside of the Ethereum Foundation as a formal organization that have made much bigger contributions than even some people inside of the foundation.
肯定有一些在以太坊基金会之外工作的人作为一个正式组织做出了比基金会内部的一些人更大的贡献。
I think that’s part of where a lot of the successful innovation has come from.
我认为这就是许多成功创新的部分来源。
One of the things that this gives you is, it basically means that there are many different ways to be in Ethereum.
这给你带来的一件事是，它基本上意味着以太坊有很多不同的方式。
You can either follow along and have the same kind of lifestyle that I do, or you can work for some traditional company and have some Ethereum Foundation grants be one of your projects.
你可以跟随我并拥有与我相同的生活方式，或者你可以为一些传统公司工作并将一些以太坊基金会赠款作为你的项目之一。
You could work on some Ethereum application and be adjacent.
您可以开发一些以太坊应用程序并与之相邻。
You could just be a lone wolf working at home.
你可能只是在家工作的独狼。
You could pick any linear combination of these that you want.
您可以选择您想要的这些的任何线性组合。
If there’s tradeoffs, you can be part of Ethereum while being part of a structured team.
如果需要权衡，你可以成为以太坊的一部分，同时成为结构化团队的一部分。
You can be part of it being a lone wolf.
作为一只孤独的狼，你可以成为其中的一部分。
You can be part of it as part of some traditional, large corporation.
您可以作为某个传统大型公司的一部分参与其中。
You can be part of a startup.
您可以成为初创公司的一部分。
I do feel like this is part of what makes cryptocurrencies interesting, in that they are not just a decentralized censorship resistance, whatever system, as a product.
我确实觉得这是加密货币有趣的部分原因，因为它们不仅仅是一种去中心化的审查阻力，无论什么系统，作为一种产品。
But they are also this cultural evolution that itself incorporates many aspects of decentralization in terms of how they’re produced and in terms of a way of living and collaborating and building things.
但它们也是这种文化演变，本身就融合了去中心化的许多方面，包括它们的生产方式、生活方式、协作和构建方式。
While building Ethereum, you’ve also taught yourself French, German, and Chinese without having lived in those countries.
在构建以太坊的同时，您还自学了法语、德语和汉语，而无需在这些国家生活过。
On YouTube, I’ve even seen you answering questions in Chinese about the blockchain to a Chinese audience.
在YouTube上，我什至看到你用中文向中国观众回答有关区块链的问题。
How did you teach yourself such good Chinese?
你是怎么自学这么好的中文的？
First of all, as I said on Reddit, I definitely did not learn Chinese, and especially not Cantonese, in three months on a mobile app.
首先，正如我在 Reddit 上所说，我在三个月内绝对没有通过移动应用学习中文，尤其是粤语。
That’s stuff that people come up with about me.
这就是人们对我的看法。
I don’t like it because it makes me look more like Kim Il-sung, and it doesn’t make me look like a real person.
我不喜欢它，因为它让我看起来更像金日成，但它并不让我看起来像一个真实的人。
I’m not saying Kim Il-sung is not a real person, but Kim Il-sung the demigod definitely isn’t.
我并不是说金日成不是一个真实的人，但半神金日成绝对不是。
What actually happened was that around 2013, I decided, “Hey, cool, the Bitcoin community in China looks like it’s really big and really interesting, and there’s this big world that I haven’t been connected to, and maybe I should try.”
实际发生的情况是，在 2013 年左右，我决定，“嘿，酷，中国的比特币社区看起来真的很大，也很有趣，而且这个大世界我还没有接触过，也许我应该尝试一下。”
So I started going through podcasts initially, and once I went through those, then I went through some other Learn Chinese podcasts.
所以我一开始就开始浏览播客，浏览完这些之后，我又浏览了一些其他的学习中文播客。
And parallel to that, I also started going through flash-card apps that taught me the most popular — maybe 500–1,000 — characters and words.
与此同时，我还开始使用抽认卡应用程序，这些应用程序教我最流行的 —— 也许 500-1,000 —— 字符和单词。
Once you get to an intermediate level, you’re high enough that you can participate in WeChat conversations, go to China, and participate in conversations in person.
到了中级，就够高了，可以参与微信对话，可以去中国，可以亲自参与对话。
I was never a long-term resident of China, but realistically, I did spend more than half a year there in total in my life.
我从来都不是中国的长期居民，但实际上，我一生中总共在中国度过了半年多的时间。
Once you get to that intermediate level, as long as you put yourself in environments where you continue keeping it up, eventually it continues getting better and better, and eventually you get to the point where you can improve it further by watching movies on airplanes.
到了中级之后，只要你把自己放在一个环境中，继续保持下去，最终就会越来越好，最终达到可以通过在飞机上看电影来进一步提高的地步。
My colleague Robin Hanson has promoted the idea of prediction markets, or betting on ideas.
我的同事罗宾·汉森（Robin Hanson）推广了预测市场的想法，或者对想法进行投注。
Why are there, right now, so few prediction markets?
为什么现在预测市场这么少？
You can bet on the outcome of an election.
您可以押注选举结果。
There’s plenty of sports betting, but they seem quite thin when it comes to actual economic events.
体育博彩有很多，但当涉及到实际的经济事件时，它们似乎相当薄弱。
I know that on the centralized side, the traditional prediction market side, there’s a lot of regulatory issues that make it more difficult to set one up.
我知道，在中心化的方面，即传统的预测市场方面，存在很多监管问题，这使得建立一个市场变得更加困难。
Also, on top of that, I think part of what makes cryptocurrency so attractive is that traditional financial systems have a lot of inefficiencies and annoyingness that go beyond the strictly regulatory.
此外，最重要的是，我认为加密货币如此有吸引力的部分原因是传统金融系统存在许多低效和烦人的问题，超出了严格的监管范围。
Even something like, “Oh, I have money.
甚至是这样的：“哦，我有钱。
How do I move it into some particular application?” Very often it involves bank wires.
我如何将其转移到某个特定的应用程序中？”通常它涉及银行电汇。
It involves all of these various systems which each individual person may or may not have.
它涉及每个人可能拥有或没有的所有这些不同的系统。
You have to figure it out, and there’s a lot of friction involved.
你必须弄清楚，这其中会产生很多摩擦。
I see cryptocurrency in part as this grand experiment of, what happens if you create a financial system that really is fully frictionless, where moving bitcoin or ether from your wallet into an application, into a smart contract or whatever, really is as simple as logging into a website or clicking an email.
我认为加密货币在某种程度上是一个伟大的实验，如果你创建一个真正完全无摩擦的金融系统，将比特币或以太币从你的钱包转移到应用程序、智能合约或其他任何东西中，实际上就像登录网站或单击电子邮件一样简单，会发生什么。
I do think that, even already, the cryptocurrency ecosystem has, first of all, managed to get people to accept micropayments — specifically paying for transaction fees — when a lot of people thought that that’s impossible.
我确实认为，加密货币生态系统首先已经成功地让人们接受小额支付 ——特别是支付交易费用——当时很多人认为这是不可能的。
I do have hopes that the higher levels of liquidity and efficiency in the cryptocurrency space could make cryptocurrency prediction markets succeed more.
我确实希望加密货币领域更高水平的流动性和效率可以使加密货币预测市场取得更大成功。
That’s one aspect.
这是一方面。
Another aspect is that, even if the cryptocurrency base solutions actually manage to be censorship resistant, and if they manage to be more convenient, then there is the possibility that this kind of gambling, betting, or whatever is a kind of betting that people aren’t as interested in.
另一方面是，即使基于加密货币的解决方案实际上能够抵抗审查，并且如果它们能够变得更加方便，那么这种赌博、投注或任何人们可能不感兴趣的投注方式也是有可能的。
Basically, the amateurs don’t find it interesting enough, and there’s not enough people playing for it to be worth for the professionals to really participate.
基本上，业余爱好者觉得它不够有趣，而且没有足够多的人玩它，不值得专业人士真正参与。
That is possible, though I don’t really think it’s fair to say that prediction markets as a category can be really called a failed experiment yet, given that there have only been a few years of trying to make them work and only a couple of different approaches.
这是有可能的，尽管我认为将预测市场作为一个类别称为失败的实验还不太公平，因为人们只花了几年时间尝试让预测市场发挥作用，而且也只有几种不同的方法。
But if Augur and Gnosis and all of these other Ethereum and blockchain-based prediction markets end up launching, and it continues to be the case that lots of people don’t end up using them, then it’s probably more reasonable to consider that idea as, at least, a failure in its dream of growing beyond the niche, but I don’t think we’re quite there yet.
但是，如果 Augur 和 Gnosis 以及所有其他基于以太坊和区块链的预测市场最终推出，并且仍然有很多人最终没有使用它们，那么将这个想法视为至少超越利基市场的梦想的失败可能更合理，但我认为我们还没有完全实现。
As for frictionless trading, let’s take what’s called the Oracle problem.
至于无摩擦交易，我们来看看所谓的预言机问题。
As you well know, you can have smart contracts on Ethereum, but those are closest to frictionless when everything is within the system.
众所周知，您可以在以太坊上拥有智能合约，但当一切都在系统内时，这些智能合约最接近无摩擦。
But if you have an external event — a property title — and you need someone in the physical, real world to rule how an actual piece of property is assigned to someone and how that information is then translated into cyberspace, does the Oracle problem mean that the frictionless trading of, say, Ethereum, is never actually that scalable, or is there some way around it that we don’t yet see?
但是，如果你有一个外部事件 —— 财产所有权 —— 并且你需要物理、现实世界中的某人来规则如何将实际财产分配给某人以及如何将这些信息转换到网络空间，那么Oracle问题是否意味着以太坊等无摩擦交易实际上永远不会那么可扩展，或者是否有某种我们尚未看到的解决方法？
It depends what specific thing you’re trying to do frictionlessly.
这取决于你想要无摩擦地完成什么具体的事情。
For example, moving ether from one account to another is absolutely frictionless.
例如，将以太币从一个帐户转移到另一个帐户绝对是无摩擦的。
Converting ether into fiat currency is absolutely not frictionless.
将以太币转换成法定货币绝对不是毫无摩擦的。
It is very possible that it’s not going to significantly get more frictionless in the near- and medium-term future because of all of the banking issues, where cryptocurrency exchanges have a hard time getting and maintaining bank accounts.
由于所有银行问题，加密货币交易所很难获得和维护银行账户，因此在中短期内，它很可能不会变得更加无摩擦。
If you’re talking about participating in some kind of pure financial derivative system, then I think it will be frictionless.
如果你谈论的是参与某种纯粹的金融衍生品系统，那么我认为这将是毫无摩擦的。
But determining how or why someone should be paid, someone has to rule that, right?
但决定如何或为何向某人支付报酬，必须有人来决定，对吧？
Here’s one example.
这是一个例子。
There’s a system called MakerDAO, which is basically a decentralized currency that has a more active monetary policy that attempts to keep its price as close as possible to one dollar.
有一个名为 MakerDAO 的系统，它基本上是一种去中心化货币，具有更积极的货币政策，试图将其价格保持在尽可能接近 1 美元。
This clearly requires a price feed, and the MakerDAO definitely includes a decentralized price feed mechanism.
这显然需要价格反馈，而 MakerDAO 肯定包含去中心化的价格反馈机制。
It definitely is the case that there is some overhead in maintaining that Oracle inside of the MakerDAO system, but at the same time, just using MakerDAO is completely frictionless.
确实，在 MakerDAO 系统内维护 Oracle 会产生一些开销，但同时，仅使用 MakerDAO 是完全无摩擦的。
If I have ether, I can convert it into DAI very quickly.
如果我有以太币，我可以很快地将其转换为 DAI。
I can open up collateralized debt positions.
我可以开立债务抵押头寸。
I can do all the different things inside of the MakerDAO system, all from inside of one wallet.
我可以在 MakerDAO 系统内完成所有不同的事情，所有这些都可以在一个钱包内完成。
Especially in those cases where the data is data which is fairly publicly accessible and fairly easy to get at and fairly easy to verify, at least as a person, I don’t think that those issues are going to be that large.
特别是在那些数据是相当公开可访问、相当容易获取且相当容易验证的情况下，至少作为一个人，我认为这些问题不会那么大。
Once you get into issues like, oh, me and you are going to enter into a smart contract where it’s like fire insurance, where if your house burns down, then I have to pay you some amount to cover the cost, and if nothing happens, you pay me $500 .
一旦你遇到这样的问题，哦，我和你将签订一份智能合约，就像火灾保险一样，如果你的房子被烧毁，那么我必须向你支付一些费用来支付费用，如果没有任何反应，你付给我 500 美元。
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That suddenly becomes a lot harder because then the cost of getting the information actually is very high, and it’s very specific to one transaction.
这突然变得更加困难，因为获取信息的成本实际上非常高，而且它非常特定于一笔交易。
I don’t really expect smart contracts by themselves to solve the problem.
我真的不指望智能合约本身就能解决问题。
What could happen, of course, is you could try to come up with mechanisms that build in who the arbitrators are.
当然，可能发生的情况是，您可以尝试提出建立仲裁员是谁的机制。
So you could imagine some system where, say, you have a village, and people in the village all put some amount of money into a smart contract.
所以你可以想象一个系统，比如说，你有一个村庄，村庄里的人都将一些钱放入智能合约中。
If people vote and agree that one particular person is in need of cash, then they vote, and he gets the cash.
如果人们投票并同意某个人需要现金，那么他们就会投票，他就会得到现金。
That sort of thing is potentially completely doable, and I do hope to see it.
这类事情可能是完全可行的，我确实希望看到它。
I know we are starting to see people trying to design applications like that, but it’s definitely not the same thing as some magic Oracle that absolutely knows everything.
我知道我们开始看到人们尝试设计这样的应用程序，但这绝对与某些绝对无所不知的神奇 Oracle 不同。
As Ethereum and perhaps other groups move from proof of work to proof of stake or some kind of intermediate weighted average solution, to what extent will this require more institutional trust in Ethereum or the other intermediaries, and will that be centralizing?
随着以太坊和其他团体从工作量证明转向股权证明或某种中间加权平均解决方案，这在多大程度上需要对以太坊或其他中介机构更多的机构信任，这会集中吗？
I would actually expect that, on net, it would require less institutional trust.
我实际上预计，在网络上，它需要更少的机构信任。
Part of this is just because a lot of people don’t realize the sheer level of centralization in proof of work already.
部分原因是很多人还没有意识到工作量证明的中心化程度。
In Bitcoin, there is one person, Jihan Wu, who controls the largest two mining pools in bitcoin that add out to 42 percent of the network.
在比特币领域，有一个人叫吴忌寒，他控制着比特币中最大的两个矿池，占网络的 42%。
And 42 percent isn’t enough to do a 51 percent attack, but it is enough to do selfish mining, which is enough to reduce other people’s profits to the point where they drop out, and you can do a 51 percent attack.
而42%还不足以进行51%攻击，但足以进行自私挖矿，足以将其他人的利润减少到退出的地步，你就可以进行51%攻击。
Granted, these are pools, but a very large portion of that 42 percent, I believe, actually is his own hardware.
诚然，这些都是池，但我相信，这 42% 中的很大一部分实际上是他自己的硬件。
I think, because we’re used to it, people do underestimate the oligopoly and the rich-get-richer and the trust that’s necessary inside of proof-of-work systems already.
我认为，因为我们已经习惯了，人们确实低估了寡头垄断、富人越富以及工作量证明系统内部所必需的信任。
For example, bitcoin users already trust Jihan Wu and Wang Chun to not team up and start doing 51 percent attacks pretty much every day.
例如，比特币用户已经相信吴忌寒和王春不会组队，几乎每天都会开始进行 51% 攻击。
They seem to be nice enough or at least rationally self-interested enough not to do that, but that’s definitely still institutional trust.
他们似乎足够友善，或者至少在理性上足够自利，不会这样做，但这绝对仍然是机构信任。
On future breakthroughs
关于未来的突破
What’s the biggest tech or engineering breakthrough you feel you need to realize the full vision that you started with?
您认为要实现最初的愿景，您需要实现的最大技术或工程突破是什么？
I think scalability is a huge one.
我认为可扩展性是一个巨大的问题。
Ethereum blockchain’s capacity right now is about 15 transactions a second.
以太坊区块链目前的容量约为每秒 15 笔交易。
If you even consider something like putting all of the Uber rides on the blockchain, that’s 12 transactions per second already.
如果您甚至考虑将所有 Uber 行程都放在区块链上，那么每秒已经有 12 笔交易。
If you talk about moving PayPal over, that gets into the hundreds, and then anything more complex starts moving into the many thousands.
如果你谈论将 PayPal 转移过来，那么数量会增加到数百，然后任何更复杂的东西都会开始转移到数千。
I do feel just raw ability to process more transactions per second is important, and that could happen through sharding and other base-layer scalability upgrades to the system, which we are working on.
我确实认为每秒处理更多交易的原始能力很重要，这可以通过我们正在研究的系统分片和其他基础层可扩展性升级来实现。
It could happen through Layer 2 technologies like state channels and plasma, which we are also working on.
这可以通过状态通道和等离子等第 2 层技术来实现，我们也在研究这些技术。
But if any of these approaches end up succeeding, then I do think that blockchains will end up being substantially cheaper and substantially more ready for actual mainstream use.
但如果这些方法中的任何一个最终取得成功，那么我确实认为区块链最终将变得更加便宜，并且更加适合实际的主流使用。
Another big one is user experience, both user experience in terms of using the blockchain, not being as clunky as it is today, but also user experience of security.
另一大问题是用户体验，既是使用区块链方面的用户体验，不像现在那么笨拙，也是安全方面的用户体验。
How easy is it to set up a wallet that does not allow all of your money to get stolen overnight or lost overnight if your key gets lost or stolen?
如果你的钥匙丢失或被盗，设置一个不会让你所有的钱一夜之间被盗或一夜之间丢失的钱包有多容易？
Those are challenges that I do think we need a lot more innovation in, and I think we will see innovation over the next few years.
我确实认为我们需要更多创新来应对这些挑战，而且我认为我们将在未来几年看到创新。
What change in the legal or regulatory environment would help the most to realize this vision?
法律或监管环境的哪些变化最有助于实现这一愿景？
I don’t really think that there are many legal or regulatory changes that can help, at least on the technological development side, because ultimately the US already has all of these code-is-free-speech precedents, and most other countries, even those without significant free speech protections, are still willing to follow along in principle.
我真的不认为有很多法律或监管变化可以有所帮助，至少在技术发展方面，因为最终美国已经拥有所有这些代码即言论自由的先例，而大多数其他国家，即使是那些没有重大言论自由保护的国家，仍然愿意原则上遵循。
I think for development in tech, the environment is very close to as friendly as it can be.
我认为对于科技的发展来说，环境已经非常友好了。
The next question is, of course, the question of what happens when the tech is built and you start talking about actual wider deployment and adoption.
当然，下一个问题是当技术建成并且您开始谈论实际更广泛的部署和采用时会发生什么。
In that case, it depends on what kind of adoption of what application you’re looking for.
在这种情况下，这取决于您正在寻找的应用程序的采用方式。
I feel like a lot of the drive toward regulatory friendliness so far has been on the cryptocurrency exchange side, but cryptocurrency is really only one of the things you can do.
我觉得到目前为止，监管友好性的大部分推动力都集中在加密货币交易方面，但加密货币实际上只是您可以做的事情之一。
Trying to make it easier for very large piles of money to move into the cryptocurrency space is I don’t necessarily think the thing that the cryptocurrency space needs most at this point.
我认为，试图让大量资金更容易进入加密货币领域不一定是加密货币领域目前最需要的事情。
Honestly, especially when you hear things about CEOs of exchanges trying to move into Africa, where the levels of financial literacy are very low, and there’s all sorts of Ponzi schemes already, and institutional investors, pension funds, and so forth trying to get into cryptocurrency.
老实说，尤其是当你听说交易所首席执行官试图进入非洲时，那里的金融知识水平非常低，而且已经存在各种各样的庞氏骗局，机构投资者、养老基金等试图进入加密货币领域。
There’s definitely reasons to believe that stuff can be actively counterproductive, so I think for other kinds of applications, it’s a very application-specific question.
绝对有理由相信这些东西可能会适得其反，所以我认为对于其他类型的应用程序，这是一个非常特定于应用程序的问题。
For example, if you look at ICOs, I’ve come up with DAICOs, and you can also talk about airdrops and decentralized product launches and all of these ideas which are innovations in fundraising, then that basically requires a regulatory environment which is open to experimentation.
例如，如果你看 ICO，我提出了 DAICO，你还可以谈论空投和去中心化产品发布，所有这些想法都是筹款方面的创新，那么这基本上需要一个开放实验的监管环境。
That’s something that I do think that places in Asia tend to be fairly ahead of the curve on, in terms of sandboxes in Singapore.
我确实认为，就新加坡的沙箱而言，亚洲地区往往处于相当领先的地位。
I know Hong Kong and Taiwan are looking into sandboxes as well, whereas it doesn’t seem like the US has quite that kind of approach, at least at this point in time.
我知道香港和台湾也在研究沙盒，而美国似乎没有这种方法，至少目前是这样。
It’s possible the political environment is just kind of not organized enough to maintain it, and there’s bigger priorities to worry about at this point.
政治环境可能组织得不够好，无法维持下去，此时还有更重要的事情需要担心。
What’s the best theory out there for valuing a given crypto asset?
评估特定加密资产的最佳理论是什么？
It doesn’t have to be ether.
它不一定是以太。
If there’s a new crypto asset that comes along — let’s say it’s cleared some minimum threshold of interest — what theoretical apparatus from economics or elsewhere should we apply?
如果出现一种新的加密资产 ——假设它已经达到了某个最低利息门槛 —— 我们应该应用经济学或其他领域的哪些理论工具？
I’ve thought about this a lot, and I’m still not sure what the best answer is because ultimately it depends a lot on the way the cryptocurrency goes.
我已经思考了很多这个问题，但我仍然不确定最好的答案是什么，因为最终这在很大程度上取决于加密货币的发展方式。
One way to measure this is to treat a cryptocurrency as being a kind of corporation that collects revenue through transaction fees, particularly in the case where the transaction fees either are burned or get redistributed to the cryptocurrency’s own proof-of-stake validators.
衡量这一点的一种方法是将加密货币视为一种通过交易费用收取收入的公司，特别是在交易费用被销毁或重新分配给加密货币自己的权益证明验证器的情况下。
In that case, you can take the simple model and say a cryptocurrency’s valuation is the net present value of the transaction fees that it’s getting.
在这种情况下，您可以采用简单的模型，并说加密货币的估值是其获得的交易费用的净现值。
This, by itself, surprisingly does give fairly decent valuations.
令人惊讶的是，这本身确实给出了相当不错的估值。
For example, Ethereum’s transaction fees tend to be about $500,000 a day recently, which is about $180 million a year.
例如，以太坊的交易费用最近往往在每天 50 万美元左右，相当于每年 1.8 亿美元左右。
If you tried to value the ether market cap as some kind of corporation, then the “P/E ratio” is only somewhere in the low 200s, which is high for a company, but not off-the-charts absurdly high.
如果你试图将以太坊市值视为某种公司，那么“市盈率”仅在 200 左右，这对于一家公司来说很高，但也不是高得离谱。
You can also look at trying to value cryptocurrencies in their capacity as mediums of exchange.
您还可以考虑尝试评估加密货币作为交换媒介的能力。
Then you have MV=PT and all of these other models.
然后你就有了 MV=PT 和所有这些其他模型。
There’s also this model of store of value, where people hold it because they expect more people to hold it in the future, and because people keep getting richer and the population keeps growing.
还有一种价值储存模式，人们持有它是因为他们期望未来有更多的人持有它，而且因为人们不断变得富有，人口不断增长。
As long as prices grow slow enough, it can be stable in the long term.
只要价格增长足够慢，就可以长期保持稳定。
There are a lot of people that are pushing this store-of-value angle.
有很多人正在推动这种价值储存的角度。
I guess my practical answer is I don’t really know, and if you’re looking to design a cryptocurrency that’s sustainable, then I definitely think it’s important to have a story for why it would maintain its value under a variety of different economic models.
我想我的实际答案是我真的不知道，如果你想设计一种可持续的加密货币，那么我绝对认为有一个故事来解释为什么它会在各种不同的经济模式下保持其价值。
What do you think of the portfolio competition with gold theory?
您如何看待投资组合与黄金理论的竞争？
If you measure the total stock of gold out there, and then you conclude — don’t ask me how — “Well, people will want to shift 5 percent of that into crypto assets.” And you figure out the value of that.
如果你测量一下那里的黄金总存量，然后你会得出结论 —— 不要问我怎么做 —— “好吧，人们会想将其中的 5% 转移到加密资产中。”然后你就会明白它的价值。
You then get an aggregate figure, not for any particular asset, but for crypto as a whole.
然后，您会得到一个汇总数字，不是针对任何特定资产，而是针对整个加密货币。
Does that make sense to you, or do you think that’s a long-term fallacy?
这对你来说有意义吗？还是你认为这是一个长期的谬论？
No, that’s definitely something that I’ve considered as well, and that’s part of what I mean when I talk about the store-of-value model.
不，这绝对是我也考虑过的事情，这也是我在谈论价值存储模型时所要表达的部分内容。
I think, even if cryptocurrencies by themselves do nothing, if there was an established equilibrium where they roughly grow at the same or similar rate as other things, as long as they grow in a way that’s at least somewhat uncorrelated from other things, then it makes sense from a pure portfolio theory to have some of your money in them.
我认为，即使加密货币本身没有任何作用，如果存在一个既定的均衡，它们大致以与其他事物相同或相似的速度增长，只要它们以至少在某种程度上与其他事物不相关的方式增长，那么从纯粹的投资组合理论来看，将一些钱投入其中是有意义的。
I definitely fully agree with that position.
我绝对完全同意这个立场。
As you said, I reinvented it myself.
正如你所说，我自己重新发明了它。
On things under- and overrated
关于被低估和高估的事情
In most of these sessions, we have a segment in the middle called overrated versus underrated.
在大多数此类会议中，我们中间有一个部分称为高估与低估。
Are you game for doing this?
你愿意这样做吗？
Feel free to pass.
随意通过。
Sure.
当然。
Advertising, overrated or underrated?
广告，被高估还是被低估？
I’m going to guess my answer to a lot of these is going to be roughly correctionally rated, but in a different way from how other people expect.
我猜我对其中很多问题的答案将得到粗略的修正评级，但方式与其他人的期望不同。
For example, I think advertising in terms of traditional advertising — definitely overrated.
例如，我认为传统广告中的广告 —— 绝对被高估了。
But advertising in terms of the broader category of trying to influence how people in the public think in order to benefit your product, I think we’re going to see lots of innovation in both good and bad over the next couple of decades.
但是，就试图影响公众的思维方式以使您的产品受益的更广泛类别的广告而言，我认为在接下来的几十年里，我们将看到许多好的和坏的创新。
I think advertising in terms of traditional advertising — definitely overrated.
我认为就传统广告而言，广告 — 绝对被高估了。
But advertising in terms of the broader category of trying to influence how people in the public think in order to benefit your product, I think we’re going to see lots of innovation in both good and bad over the next couple of decades.
但是，就试图影响公众的思维方式以使您的产品受益的更广泛类别的广告而言，我认为在接下来的几十年里，我们将看到许多好的和坏的创新。
Travel as a method of learning?
旅行作为一种学习方式？
Definitely I would say still underrated.
我肯定会说仍然被低估。
What’s the thing one gets from travel that a lot of other people don’t grasp?
一个人从旅行中得到什么是很多人无法理解的？
First of all, it depends what kind of travel.
首先，要看是什么样的旅行。
I think going to Beijing and seeing the Summer Palace, and then going to Tokyo and seeing some shrine and whatever, is basically useless because you don’t really get more than you would get by going to Wikipedia.
我认为去北京参观颐和园，然后去东京参观一些神社之类的，基本上是没有用的，因为你并没有真正获得比访问维基百科更多的东西。
But I think the kind of traveling that is valuable is the kind where it’s not even set up as explicit travel for the sake of travel.
但我认为，有价值的旅行是那种不为旅行而明确旅行的旅行。
You’re traveling there in order to do something, and in the course of doing that, you end up interacting with people.
你去那里是为了做某事，在做这件事的过程中，你最终会与人们互动。
You end up seeing what the different aspects of the culture look like.
您最终会看到文化的不同方面是什么样子。
You end up seeing how people think, how people interact with each other.
你最终会看到人们如何思考、人们如何彼此互动。
Is there something that they’re doing that’s better than what you’re used to?
他们正在做的事情是否比你习惯的更好？
Are there things they’re doing that you can really say are worse than what you’re used to?
你真的可以说他们正在做的事情比你习惯的更糟糕吗？
I personally definitely learned a lot of that from, say, going to China, and Asia in general, that I would not have learned by just reading about those places from the internet and the various mainstream ideological blab houses that talk about those places all day long.
我个人肯定从去中国和整个亚洲学到了很多东西，而我不会仅仅通过从互联网上阅读这些地方以及整天谈论这些地方的各种主流意识形态的废话来学到这些。
What’s your favorite part of China to visit?
你最喜欢去中国的哪个地方？
As far as cities go, I like Shanghai.
说到城市，我喜欢上海。
I have mixed feelings about Shenzhen.
我对深圳的感情很复杂。
There’s definitely innovativeness, but then there’s definitely also all of this “Let’s make 500 shopping malls” culture.
肯定有创新，但也肯定有“让我们建造 500 个购物中心”的文化。
To me, it’s boring — Shenzhen.
对我来说，很无聊 —— 深圳。
I prefer almost anywhere else in China.
我几乎更喜欢中国的其他地方。
Right, right.
对，对。
Let’s see.
让我们来看看。
Beijing is kind of growing more on me over time, I guess.
我想，随着时间的推移，北京对我的吸引力越来越大。
It’s obviously on the periphery of China, but Hong Kong is interesting to me all in its own right, as well.
它显然位于中国的外围，但香港本身也对我来说很有趣。
How about Zug, Switzerland?
瑞士楚格怎么样？
Forget about crypto, just as a city, underrated or overrated?
忘记加密货币，就像一座城市一样，被低估还是高估？
It depends for what purpose.
这取决于什么目的。
For example, I used to spend a lot of time in Zug, but now I spend much less time.
例如，我以前在楚格待了很多时间，但现在我待的时间少了很多。
Part of that is that I do think it’s overrated as a place to live.
部分原因是我确实认为它作为一个居住地被高估了。
There is this broader subculture of people trying to make libertarian tax havens of different levels of extremeness.
有一种更广泛的亚文化，人们试图打造不同程度极端的自由主义避税天堂。
I think one of the problems of libertarian tax havens and libertarian havens in general, both online and offline, is that they attract both people who like freedom and rich people who are not particularly interesting.
我认为自由主义避税天堂和一般自由主义避难所的问题之一，无论是线上还是线下，是它们既吸引了喜欢自由的人，也吸引了不是特别有趣的富人。
In Zug, you have a very small number of people.
在楚格，人口很少。
It’s relatively difficult to get to.
相对来说比较难到达。
A lot of people in the finance industry.
很多人都是金融行业的。
It just doesn’t have the sort of things that attract me about cities that would make me want to live there.
它只是没有那种吸引我的城市的东西让我想住在那里。
On top of that, you have to pay five and a half dollars to buy anything in Starbucks.
最重要的是，你必须支付五美元半才能在星巴克购买任何东西。
Even places like .
甚至像这样的地方。
.
。
.
。
There’s people trying to make a kind of crypto valley in Puerto Rico, and I’m starting to worry it’s running into that kind of effect, as well.
有人试图在波多黎各建立一种加密谷，我开始担心它也会遇到这种影响。
In terms of places to set up a crypto project, I think it could be totally legit.
就建立加密货币项目的地点而言，我认为它可能是完全合法的。
The Disney Star Wars movies?
迪士尼星球大战电影？
The most recent one, Episode VIII, is underrated.
最近的一集，第八集，被低估了。
I would say the thing that I liked about Episode VIII is that it seems to have a certain kind of realism that was lacking in some of the previous ones.
我想说，我喜欢第八集的一点是，它似乎具有某种现实主义，这是之前的一些故事所缺乏的。
What I mean by that is that it’s not just glorious rebels versus the evil Empire First Order, whatever.
我的意思是，这不仅仅是光荣的叛军对抗邪恶的帝国第一秩序，无论如何。
First of all, for most of the movie, the rebels are losing, and that’s how conflicts work in real life.
首先，在电影的大部分时间里，叛军都在失败，这就是现实生活中冲突的运作方式。
Second of all, it shows the enemy as something that’s a bit richer and even having its own internal conflicts, not like some evil Borg where every member of the evil Borg agrees that they’re the evil Borg, and they need to fight for the collective good of the evil Borg.
其次，它把敌人表现得更富有，甚至有自己的内部冲突，而不是像一些邪恶的博格那样，邪恶的博格的每个成员都同意他们是邪恶的博格，他们需要为邪恶的博格的集体利益而战。
I feel like one of the ways in which all of these modern epic myths misled me when I was much younger is, they do make it look like the world is a bunch of good guys fighting against the evil orcs, Sauron, the Empire, whatever.
我觉得在我年轻的时候，所有这些现代史诗神话误导我的方式之一是，它们确实让世界看起来像是一群好人在对抗邪恶的兽人、索伦、帝国等等。
I’d be more interested in seeing social science fiction, science fiction or fantasy or whatever, that explores also all of these complex ideas about how people can interact and how political systems can work, how economic systems can work, how they can fail.
我更感兴趣的是看社会科幻小说、科幻小说或奇幻小说，这些小说还探讨了所有这些复杂的想法，关于人们如何互动、政治体系如何运作、经济体系如何运作以及它们如何失败。
Particularly, how they can fail in ways that create interesting stories without anyone being literally Hitler.
特别是，他们如何以创造有趣故事的方式失败，而没有人是真正的希特勒。
I’d be more interested in seeing social science fiction…that explores all of these complex ideas about how people can interact and how political systems can work, how economic systems can work, how they can fail.
我更感兴趣的是看社会科幻小说……探索所有这些关于人们如何互动、政治体系如何运作、经济体系如何运作以及它们如何失败的复杂想法。
Particularly, how they can fail in ways that create interesting stories without anyone being literally Hitler.
特别是，他们如何以创造有趣故事的方式失败，而没有人是真正的希特勒。
If you could go back into the distant past for a year, a time and place of your choosing, you have the linguistic skills and immunity against disease to the extent you need it, maybe some money in your pocket, where would you pick to satisfy your own curiosity?
如果你能回到遥远的过去一年，在你选择的时间和地点，你拥有所需的语言能力和对疾病的免疫力，也许你的口袋里还有一些钱，你会选择哪里来满足自己的好奇心？
Where would I pick?
我会选择哪里？
To do what?
做什么？
To spend a year there, or .
在那里度过一年，或者。
.
。
.
。
?
？
Spend a year as a “tourist.” You could pick ancient Athens or preconquest Mexico or medieval Russia.
作为“游客”度过一年。你可以选择古代雅典、征服前的墨西哥或中世纪的俄罗斯。
It’s a kind of social science fiction, right?
这是一种社会科幻小说，对吧？
Yeah, totally.
是的，完全可以。
Let’s see.
让我们来看看。
Possibly first year of World War II — obviously, one of those areas that’s close to it but still reasonably safe from it.
可能是第二次世界大战的第一年——显然，这是一个距离二战很近但仍然相当安全的地区。
Possibly some time in some period of political upheaval, revolution, whatever, like in the time before this — not quite stagnation, but great moderation of pretty much everything.
可能是在政治动荡、革命之类的某个时期的某个时期，就像在此之前一样——并不是完全停滞，而是几乎所有事情都出现了很大的缓和。
Basically, experience more of what human behavior and what collective human behavior would look like once you pushed humans further into extremes, and people aren’t as comfortable as they are today.
基本上，一旦你把人类进一步推向极端，更多地体验人类行为和人类集体行为会是什么样子，人们并不像今天那么舒服。
What kind of social delusion or irrationality do you think should be more prevalent?
您认为哪种社会错觉或非理性应该更普遍？
That’s a very interesting one.
这是一个非常有趣的事情。
In modern times, possibly a belief in progress.
在现代，可能是对进步的信念。
You think more people should believe in that, even though it may not be true?
您认为更多人应该相信这一点，即使这可能不是真的？
Even though it’s true in a complicated way.
尽管这确实是一个复杂的事实。
It’s true sometimes in complicated ways, and parts of it are definitely false in a bunch of situations.
有时它以复杂的方式是正确的，但在很多情况下它的部分内容肯定是错误的。
Is there a word in Russian you use when you think or talk that has no obvious English equivalent?
当您思考或交谈时，您使用的俄语单词中是否有一个没有明显对应的英语单词？
I don’t think so.
我不这么认为。
So you pretty much think mainly in English at this point?
所以你现在主要用英语思考？
I’d say so, yeah.
我会这么说，是的。
The geography of tech innovation.
技术创新的地理。
So many things are crowded into San Francisco, Silicon Valley.
旧金山、硅谷挤满了很多东西。
Rents are very high.
租金非常高。
Crypto has not really been the same, but what do you think the geography of tech innovation will look like 20 or 30 years from now?
加密货币实际上并不一样，但您认为 20 或 30 年后技术创新的布局会是什么样子？
First of all, I think that it’s definitely not possible for it to concentrate more just because the rents are too damn high.
首先我觉得绝对不可能因为租金太高就更加集中。
As I’ve been led to understand, one of the latest attempts to make sure more actual supply of living space can get built in California recently got shut down.
据我了解，最近一项旨在确保加州能够建造更多实际居住空间的尝试最近被叫停。
If rents continue being too damn high, then it’s a matter of basic economics and math that the majority of developers are going to live in places other than the big centers.
如果租金继续太高，那么大多数开发商将居住在大型中心以外的地方，这就是一个基本的经济学和数学问题。
I think as technology in terms of ability to communicate remotely improves, it seems to only make more sense that the premium from being inside of a center is going to reduce to some extent over time.
我认为，随着远程通信能力方面的技术不断进步，随着时间的推移，中心内部的溢价将会在一定程度上降低，这似乎更有意义。
So I would definitely say that more geographically distributed, at least in those kinds of industries that aren’t physically capital intensive and that are more sort of lone wolf–friendly, is going to happen, even in the crypto space, which is very lone wolf–friendly, I think.
因此，我肯定会说，地理分布更加分散的情况将会发生，至少在那些非资本密集型且对独狼友好的行业中，甚至在我认为对独狼非常友好的加密货币领域也是如此。
It’s extremely geographically distributed already.
它的地理分布已经非常广泛了。
There’s another question of, how do you measure technological innovation?
还有一个问题，如何衡量技术创新？
Because there’s a lot of metrics under which the US is really great, China’s really great, but Europe is completely not even on the charts.
因为在很多指标下，美国真的很棒，中国真的很棒，但欧洲完全不在排行榜上。
Those metrics tend to be fairly big money–oriented.
这些指标往往是相当大的金钱导向。
If you look at broader innovation, people doing interesting stuff, plenty of things happen in Europe, as well.
如果你观察更广泛的创新，人们在做有趣的事情，欧洲也发生了很多事情。
And you’re from Europe.
你来自欧洲。
Yes, Russia, the eastern edge of Europe, sure.
是的，当然是俄罗斯，欧洲东部边缘。
How will quantum computing matter, if at all, for crypto assets?
量子计算对于加密资产来说有何影响（如果有的话）？
Oh, it absolutely matters because quantum computing will make a lot of cryptography that’s used in modern times just not work any more.
哦，这绝对很重要，因为量子计算将使现代使用的许多密码学不再起作用。
Digital signature algorithms won’t work any more.
数字签名算法将不再起作用。
Public key encryption won’t work any more.
公钥加密将不再起作用。
Zero-knowledge proof SNARKs won’t work any more.
零知识证明 SNARK 将不再起作用。
The good news is that for everything that doesn’t work any more, people have already come up with replacements for them over a decade ago.
好消息是，对于所有不再起作用的东西，人们在十多年前就已经想出了替代品。
You have hash-based signatures, you have STARKs for zero-knowledge proofs, you have fancy elliptic curve isogeny-based public key encryption.
你有基于哈希的签名，你有零知识证明的 STARK，你有基于椭圆曲线同源的公钥加密。
So I think it will force a transition, but ultimately, we do know how to adapt.
所以我认为这将迫使我们进行转型，但最终我们确实知道如何适应。
The cryptocurrencies that will suffer the most are just the ones whose governance is the most stalled and dysfunctional and won’t be able to figure anything out in time.
受影响最严重的加密货币正是那些治理最停滞、功能最失调、无法及时解决任何问题的加密货币。
Is P equal to NP?
P 等于 NP 吗？
I would bet 90 percent, no.
我敢打赌 90% 不会。
That’s my guess as well.
这也是我的猜测。
Is backward time travel possible?
时光倒流可能吗？
And if so, is that also a problem of computation?
如果是这样，这也是一个计算问题吗？
If someone goes back in time, and they see Hamlet, and they capture Hamlet .
如果有人回到过去，他们看到了哈姆雷特，他们就抓住了哈姆雷特。
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I definitely don’t believe in the theory that says you can go back in time but somehow the forces of fate ensure that whatever you cause to happen ends up turning into whatever is the modern world.
我绝对不相信你可以回到过去的理论，但命运的力量以某种方式确保你导致发生的任何事情最终都会变成现代世界。
That just seems computation theoretically incredibly implausible.
从理论上讲，这似乎是难以置信的计算。
It would require some kind of conscious god that keeps on pushing the consequences of people’s actions so that they end up not having an effect.
这需要某种有意识的上帝来不断推动人们行为的后果，以使它们最终不会产生影响。
What that means is that if you do travel back in time, what you’re really doing is you’re traveling diagonally back in time into a different universe.
这意味着，如果你确实回到过去，那么你真正做的就是沿着对角线回到过去，进入另一个宇宙。
Is that possible?
这可能吗？
I don’t know.
我不知道。
If you put a gun to my head and forced me to give a binary answer, I’d say no, but the answer could totally be yes.
如果你用枪指着我的头并强迫我给出二元答案，我会说不，但答案完全可能是肯定的。
The fees of the financial sector seem stuck at around 2 percent of GDP for a remarkably long period of time.
金融部门的费用似乎在相当长的一段时间内停留在 GDP 的 2% 左右。
And this is across an era where many other costs, even in percentage terms, have come down.
在这个时代，许多其他成本（即使按百分比计算）也有所下降。
Why do you think there’s this stickiness with financial fees, and where’s the first place where those fees will start to give in your vision of the future?
您认为为什么财务费用会产生这种粘性？这些费用首先会在您的未来愿景中体现在哪里？
It could be that these are constants that have to do with rent extraction rather than with any particular features of the technology.
这些可能是与租金提取有关的常数，而不是与技术的任何特定特征有关。
For example, when I was at this economics and computation conference in Ithaca, there was this presentation on high-frequency trading.
例如，当我参加伊萨卡岛的经济和计算会议时，有一个关于高频交易的演讲。
One of the things that was mentioned in this presentation is that how — even though between the year 2000 and now, the rate at which disequilibria between different markets and between different assets that should have the same price kind of snap back into position — even though that time has decreased from something like 1 second to something like 50 milliseconds, the rate of profit that these HFT firms have been making has stayed pretty much constant.
本次演讲中提到的一件事是，尽管从 2000 年到现在，不同市场之间以及本应具有相同价格的不同资产之间的不平衡恢复速度已经从 1 秒左右减少到 50 毫秒左右，但这些高频交易公司的利润率却几乎保持不变。
He came up with this economic model that said if you look at how a market works, and you come up with a model that says it’s not actually about the absolute speed of the market.
他提出了这个经济模型，如果你观察市场如何运作，你会得出一个模型，它实际上与市场的绝对速度无关。
It’s about whether or not the arms race between trying to cancel orders as they become irrelevant, and trying to snap up other people’s orders that are now mispriced.
这是关于在订单变得无关紧要时试图取消订单和试图抢购现在定价错误的其他订单之间是否存在军备竞赛。
You get this result that the rate of rent extraction, the rate of profit, the rate of social loss totally does not depend on the actual absolute levels of technology and absolute levels of speed.
你会得到这样的结果：租金提取率、利润率、社会损失率完全不取决于实际的绝对技术水平和绝对速度水平。
I think if there is some dimension to finance which is some kind of zero-sum conflict, then that seems very plausible.
我认为，如果融资存在某种零和冲突的维度，那么这似乎是非常合理的。
Another thing that I might want to look at is percentages of expenditure that’s military expenditure over thousands of years.
我可能想看的另一件事是数千年来军费支出的百分比。
I know that 2 to 4 percent global is definitely low compared to historical norms, but it seems to be very possible that there’s some constant amount that at least humanity has been hanging around between 3000 BC and 1945.
我知道，与历史标准相比，全球 2% 到 4% 绝对是低的，但似乎很可能至少在公元前 3000 年到 1945 年间，人类一直存在着一些恒定的数量。
Why are there bid-ask spreads at all, and is it possible to get rid of them without putting them somewhere else, such as into mining costs?
为什么会存在买卖价差，是否有可能消除它们而不将它们放在其他地方，例如计入采矿成本？
Ultimately, bid-ask spreads have to exist, and for a couple of reasons.
最终，买卖差价必须存在，原因有几个。
One of them is that offering a zero-fee market maker is itself a costly activity because if you do the equations, you get this result that you’re — instead of earning the average of the earnings of two assets, you’re earning the geometric mean of those two assets, which is lower than the arithmetic mean, and so you lose a bit of money.
其中之一是，提供零费用做市商本身就是一项成本高昂的活动，因为如果你计算方程式，你会得到这样的结果：你不是赚取两种资产的平均收益，而是赚取这两种资产的几何平均值，该平均值低于算术平均值，因此你会损失一些钱。
Another one is this kind of adverse selection argument that says if someone is trying to trade against me .
另一种是这种逆向选择论点，即是否有人试图与我进行交易。
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rather, if someone is willing to take my offer, then that by itself is evidence that my offer could be mispriced.
相反，如果有人愿意接受我的报价，那么这本身就证明我的报价可能被错误定价。
Because of that, people are not going to be inclined at pushing bid offers too close to other people’s asks.
正因为如此，人们不会倾向于将出价推得太接近其他人的要价。
So I think it’s a combination of inefficiencies, some of which are technological, some of which are fundamental.
所以我认为这是低效率的结合，其中一些是技术性的，一些是根本性的。
By the way, if we’re asking, “What could economics teach us that would help us more?” I would think a better theory of bid-ask spreads is one of the big gaps.
顺便说一句，如果我们问：“经济学能教给我们什么，对我们有更多帮助？”我认为更好的买卖价差理论是最大的差距之一。
Absolutely.
绝对地。
Because even sunshine trading, where you would think the information asymmetry would be away, there’s still a bid-ask spread.
因为即使是阳光交易，你会认为信息不对称已经消失，但仍然存在买卖价差。
It may be lower, but not as much lower as you might have thought.
它可能会更低，但不会像你想象的那么低。
Final question: what’s the most fundamental reason why there seems to be a cost disease in, say, healthcare and education?
最后一个问题：医疗保健和教育领域似乎存在成本病的最根本原因是什么？
Is this also rent extraction, or is it something fundamental about teaching humans and fixing them up?
这也是租金抽取，还是教育人类和修复人类的基本原理？
I can’t say I’m an expert on cost disease topics, though if I had to blab from my knowledge of economics and personal experience, both with North America and places like Asia that have less of them — first of all, it definitely is the case that places that seem to not have cost disease have more of a “just get things done” culture.
我不能说我是成本病主题的专家，但如果我不得不从我的经济学知识和个人经验中滔滔不绝地讲，无论是北美还是亚洲等成本病较少的地方——首先，毫无疑问，那些似乎没有成本病的地方有更多的“只管把事情做好”的文化。
Whereas places that do seem to have more of this culture of “oh, you need five kinds of approvals” — and I don’t even mean just regulatory.
而那些确实存在更多这种“哦，你需要五种批准”文化的地方——而且我指的不仅仅是监管。
It could even be intra-institutional conformism of some kind.
它甚至可能是某种机构内部的顺从。
It could also be because, if you want to get things done cheaply, then you have to get in people’s way.
这也可能是因为，如果你想以低廉的成本完成任务，那么你就必须妨碍人们。
And getting in people’s way is more difficult in more established societies where people have more expectations about things.
在更成熟的社会中，人们对事物有更多的期望，因此妨碍人们变得更加困难。
It’s a fancy way of the equivalent of “Building a subway is cheaper if you can bulldoze a bunch of people,” but that applied to many more contexts and in much more abstract ways as well.
这是一种奇特的方式，相当于“如果你能推倒一群人，建造地铁就会更便宜”，但这也适用于更多的情况和更抽象的方式。
Another one is probably like Robin Hanson’s argument that wealthier societies tend to do more signaling expenditure.
另一种可能就像罗宾·汉森（Robin Hanson）的观点一样，即富裕社会往往会进行更多的信号支出。
A lot of the higher costs may have to do with increasing comfort and enjoyment, even though people aren’t willing to admit that that’s what they’re optimizing for.
许多较高的成本可能与增加舒适度和享受有关，尽管人们不愿意承认这就是他们优化的目的。
When you think of universities having impressive campuses instead of being based in piles of cheap real estate scattered across downtown, I think that’s part of why that happens.
当你想到大学拥有令人印象深刻的校园而不是散布在市中心的成堆廉价房地产时，我认为这就是发生这种情况的部分原因。
Then another thing is that there are cases where higher efficiencies are only possible because of economies of scale that just aren’t there in some contexts.
另一件事是，在某些情况下，只有在某些情况下不存在规模经济的情况下，才有可能实现更高的效率。
In the case of land transportation infrastructure particularly, you go to Asia.
特别是在陆路交通基础设施方面，你可以去亚洲。
China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, all have very impressive fast trains.
中国、台湾、韩国、日本都有非常令人印象深刻的快速列车。
You might ask, “Well, why don’t we have them here?” Then you look at people that are actually trying to build those trains, and it’s like, “Oh, five billion dollars for how many people?”
你可能会问：“那么，我们为什么不把它们放在这里呢？”然后你看看那些实际上正在尝试建造这些火车的人，你会想，“哦，50 亿美元适合多少人？”
Cost disease is part of it.
成本病是其中的一部分。
Also, I think part of it is that, especially in lower-population-density environments, there are going to be contexts where more decentralized solutions — and in this case, I mean decentralized even as in uberPOOL — actually do end up making more sense.
另外，我认为部分原因是，特别是在人口密度较低的环境中，将会有更去中心化的解决方案 ——在这种情况下，我的意思是即使在 uberPOOL 中也是去中心化的—— 实际上最终会更有意义。
Vitalik, it’s been a pleasure.
维塔利克，很高兴。
Thank you very much.
非常感谢。
Thank you.
谢谢。