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Finance and Economics
財經
Crypto-Currencies: New Money
加密貨幣：新興貨幣
Bitcoin, its imitators and the risk of a crypto-bubble.
比特幣，其仿冒者，以及加密貨幣泡沫風險。
It is hard to predict when bubbles will pop, in particular when they are nested within each other.
很難預測泡沫何時會破裂，尤其是它們互相嵌套的時候。
It helps to keep this image in mind when considering one of the biggest surges in asset values of recent years: the market value of all the world's crypto-currencies has trebled since the beginning of the year, and is now worth more than $60bn.
當考慮近年來資產價值最大驟增幅度時，它有助于記住這種印象：自從今年年初，世界上所有的加密貨幣的市場價值已經增加了兩倍，且現已超過600億美元。
Bitcoin is the best known of these currencies, especially after hackers this month instructed victims to pay ransoms in the anonymous digital cash in order to get their computer files decrypted.
比特幣是最有名的貨幣，特別是在本月黑客指示受害者支付匿名的數字贖金以獲得他們計算機文件的解密后。
Not that many bitcoins exist: there are about 16.3m of them, with only 1,800 new ones minted every day.
比特幣并沒有那么多：大約有1630萬，一天只發行1800個新幣。
But growing demand has pushed bitcoin's price to a record recent high of about $1,830, up from $450 a year ago.
但不斷增長的需求推動比特幣的價格達到了紀錄最新高，約為1830美元，高于一年前的450美元。
Problems abide.
各種問題仍然存在。
Earlier this year some of the biggest exchanges, such as Bitfinex, experienced problems with their correspondent banks and were unable to pay out real-world currencies to account-holders.
今年年初，最大的一筆票據交換業務（如Bitfinex）與其合作的銀行出現了一些問題，并且無法向開戶人支付真實貨幣。
To get their money out, they had to buy bitcoin and exchange them elsewhere.
為了取出他們的錢，業內人士不得不購買比特幣并且在其他地方進行交易。
Yet the market is becoming more mature: institutional investors, from family offices to hedge funds, have become more comfortable with crypto-currencies, says Mike Komaransky of Cumberland Mining, which arranges over-the-counter trades.
然而，市場更加成熟，坎伯蘭礦業的場外貿易主任邁克稱：從家族理財室到避險基金的各類機構投資人都對加密貨幣更加放心，他們安排著場外交易。
Other factors driving demand include fluctuations of China's yuan, the French elections and, in a small way, the ransomware attack (when The Economist went to press, only about $80,000 had been sent to the bitcoin accounts held by the hackers).
當然，推動需求還有許多其他因素，比如中國人民幣的波動，法國大選以及一些小規模勒索軟件的攻擊。（當《經濟學人》在出版的時候，只有8萬美元被發送到黑客擁有的比特幣賬戶。）
Counter-intuitively, bitcoin's biggest weakness—the system's limited capacity—has also increased demand for crypto-currencies.
反常的是，比特幣最大的劣勢——系統容量的限制，也促進了對加密貨幣的需求。
Its developers have argued for years about how to expand the system, which can only handle seven transactions per second, compared with thousands on conventional payment services.
它的開發者已經就如何擴展系統容量努力多年，與成千上萬的傳統支付服務比較，它每秒只能處理七筆交易。
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