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Finance and Economics
財經
Buttonwood: Investor Caution Obligatory
梧桐樹專欄：投資者，謹慎責無旁貸
A new craze attracts the attention of regulators
一場新的狂熱引起監管者的關注
Here is the deal.
有這樣一筆買賣。
You can buy an entry in a computer ledger issued by a startup company on the basis of an unregulated prospectus.
你可以購買由某家初創公司根據沒接受監管的招股書發行的計算機分類賬戶中的一個條目。
It is called an “initial coin offering” or ICO.
這被稱為“首次貨幣發行”（initial coin offering），簡稱ICO。
But though the ledger entry is called a coin, you cannot spend it in any shop.
但是，盡管這種賬目被稱為一種貨幣，你卻無法在任何一家商店中把它花出去。
And whereas the use of the term ICO makes it sound like an IPO (initial public offering), the process whereby a firm lists on a stockmarket, coin ownership does not necessarily get you equity in the company concerned.
而且，盡管ICO一詞的使用使之聽上去像是一次IPO（initial public offering 股票首次公開發行），即公司借以在股票市場上市的程序。但是，貨幣的所有權并不必然地能讓你得到相關公司的權益。
This sounds like the kind of bargain that would appeal only to people who reply to e-mails from Nigerian princes offering to transfer millions to their accounts.
這聽起來就像是只會訴諸于給來自尼日利亞王子們要求給他們的轉帳幾百萬美元的郵件做回復的人的那種交易。
But ICOs may well be the most popular investment craze since the dotcom boom of 1999-2000; even Paris Hilton, a celebrity heiress, has jumped on the bandwagon.
但是，ICO很可能是1999-2000年網絡泡沫以來最受歡迎的投資狂熱；就連名媛帕里斯·希爾頓也上車了。
The list of active, upcoming and recent ICOs on the website “ICO alert” covers 31 pages of A4 paper and includes around 600 companies.
在網站“ICO alert”上，正在進行之中、即將到來的以及近期的ICO名單有31頁A4紙之長，包括大約600家公司。
More than $2bn has been raised in total.
總共已有2千多億美元被募集起來。
There is a serious side to the craze, just as there was with the dotcom boom.
恰如網絡泡沫一樣，這場狂熱有其嚴重的一面。
The technology that underpins digital currencies—the blockchain—is an important development.
支撐數字貨幣的技術——區塊鏈——是一種重要的發展。
This is a secure, decentralised ledger that everyone can inspect but that no single user controls.
這是一種人人都可以查閱，但是沒有任何一位用戶可以控制的安全的、去中央化的帳目。
It seems likely to be adapted for use across the financial system—to record property transactions, for example.
它似乎有可能為了能夠用在整個金融體系中——例如，記錄房產交易——而接受改造。
Many ICOs are designed to finance applications that will make use of the blockchain—for trading currencies, lending money or searching for jobs.
很多ICO是為了給將把區塊鏈用于交易貨幣、出借資金或是求職的應用籌集資金而設計的。
In some cases, the “coins” can be exchanged for services on the site.
在某些個例中，“貨幣”可用于交換網站上的服務。
In a way, this is like selling air miles in a startup airline; investors can either use the miles for flights or hope they can trade them at a profit.
從某種程度上來說，這就像是似于在新航線中出售空中里程一樣；投資者既可以把里程用于飛行，也可以希望能夠獲利交易它們。
For the business, it is also a way of creating demand for the product they are selling.
對于商界來說，它還是一種為它們正在銷售的產品創造需求的方式。
But in plenty of cases, an ICO is just a way of raising capital without all the hassle of meeting regulatory requirements, or the burden of paying interest to a bank.
但是，在大多數實例中，ICO僅僅是一種融資方式而已，或是回避了滿足監管需求的所有麻煩，或是省去了給銀行支付利息的負擔。
Businesses are able to achieve this feat because investors hope that the coins will rise rapidly in value, as has been the case with bitcoin or ethereum, the best-known digital currencies, which have seen stellar gains in the past year.
商界能夠將其做大，是因為投資者希望這些貨幣會快速升值，如同在過去一年中取得了豐厚回報的最有名的數字貨幣比特幣或者乙太幣那樣。
譯文來源考研英語時事閱讀
