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Finance and Economics
財經
Free exchange: Manias, panics and ICOs
自由交流：瘋狂，恐慌和ICO
Crypto-coin mania illustrates the crazy and not-so-crazy sides of bubbles.
加密貨幣狂熱詮釋了泡沫的瘋狂一面和不那么瘋狂的一面。
Every market mania reaches a point when pitches to would-be investors enter the realm of the surreal.
每一次市場狂熱都是在針對潛在投資者的花言巧語進入超現實領域時到達臨界點。
So it goes for “initial coin offerings”, or ICOs.
“貨幣首次發行”（initial coin offerings 簡稱ICO）亦是如此。
A new one by a firm called POW invites Facebook users to claim tokens for nothing; when they later become convertible into other tokens, the first to take advantage of the offer could “become worth $124bn…making them the richest person on Earth”, the blurb says.
由一家叫做POW的公司發起的一次新ICO邀請臉書用戶為不存在的東西申領代幣；當它們以后變得可以轉換成其他代幣時，頭一批利用這次發行的人可能“變得價值1240億美元......使他們成為地球上最富有的人”，推介宣傳上如此寫道。
Not a bad return for no money invested and no risk borne.
對于沒有錢被投入、沒有風險要承擔的投資來說，這不算是一個糟糕的回報。
However bizarre, bubbles are hard to resist: no one wants to be the only one of their friends left out.
不管如何荒誕，泡沫是難以抗拒的：沒有人想成為自己朋友圈中唯一掉隊的人。
They can also be financially ruinous.
它們在財務方面也可能是毀滅性的。
But gambling on a craze, even a highly dubious one, can be about more than blind greed.
但是，為一場狂熱，甚至是一場高度可疑的狂熱賭上身家性命，可能更多地涉及到盲目貪婪。
The ICO boom is an outgrowth of the emerging, occasionally inscrutable world of cryptocurrencies.
ICO繁榮是新興的、偶爾也是不可思議的加密貨幣世界的一個產物。
These are a form of money (bitcoin and ether are examples) used in transactions which are recorded on a distributed public ledger called a blockchain.
這些加密貨幣是用在被記錄在一種叫做區塊鏈的分布式公共總帳目中的交易中的一種錢（比特幣和以太幣）。
An ICO is a scheme to raise funds for an enterprise written into a contract on a blockchain.
ICO是為被寫入區塊鏈上的合同中的公司籌集資金的項目。
To buy in, punters use cryptocurrency to pay for tokens.
為了買入，投機客使用加密貨幣支付代幣。
Those tokens become the working currency within the new enterprise.
這些代幣在新企業內部成為運轉貨幣。
A new social network, for instance, might fund itself through an ICO, then allow users to spend their tokens on goods or services on the network once it is up and running.
例如，一家新的社交網絡可能通過ICO為自己籌集資金，之后，一俟網絡上線運行，就允許用戶把代幣花在該網絡的各種商品和服務上面。
In successful projects, demand for tokens should rise and early investors should profit.
在成功的項目中，對代幣的需求應當上升，早期投資者應當獲利。
ICOs resemble both a new form of crowdfunding, and a technological leapfrog over the regulations that hem in more orthodox funding strategies.
ICO既類似于一種全新的眾籌形式，也代表著一種對于把范圍限制在正統籌資策略之內的監管的技術飛躍。
They are also all the rage.
同時，他們還一路高歌猛進。
Ether, the currency used on the ethereum blockchain, is up by more than 2,400% against the dollar over the past year and boasts a market capitalisation of nearly $28bn.
以太幣，這種用在以太坊區塊鏈上的貨幣，在過去的一年中對美元上漲了2400%多，并且還自我夸耀稱，有將近2800億美元的市值。
ICOs have so far raised nearly $2bn in 2017.
到目前為止，各種ICO在2017年已經籌集了將近2000億美元。
譯文來源考研英語時事閱讀
