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今天我们来学习有关比特币（Bitcoin）的知识，小J精选了本周经济学人(Eco)杂志上有关比特币的两段内容，向大家讲解何为比特币，投资者为何热衷于比特币以及比特币的价值从何而来。
首先，让我们通读一下这两段文章吧。
The usual tools of finance are no guide. An equity is a claim on the assets and the profits of a firm; a bond entitles the investor to a series of interest payments and repayment on maturity. Bitcoin brings no cashflows to the owner; the only return will come via a rise in price. When there is no obvious way of valuing an asset, it is hard to say that one target price is less likely than another. Bitcoin could be worth $10 or $100,000.
Instead, investors must weigh the scenarios that enthusiasts posit: what if, say, every pension fund invested 1% of its portfolio in the cryptocurrency? One argument made by bitcoinnoisseurs is that it is a type of “digital gold”. Stores of value are supposed to keep their value; bitcoin, by contrast, is extremely volatile. Its code ensures that no more than 21m coins can ever be created; that sets bitcoin apart from fiat money, which central banks can create at will. Yet being limited in supply is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for having value; signed photographs of Economist journalists are rare but, sadly, of negligible worth. Nor is supply really limited. Plenty of other cryptocurrencies exist.
Might bitcoin replace ordinary currencies in everyday transactions? Not soon. Who wants to part with (or accept in exchange) a currency that can rise or fall by 20% in an hour? And true currencies are used to denominate liabilities as well as assets; imagine the ruin faced by those who had taken out a bitcoin mortgage or business loan earlier this year.
好，接下来我们一段一段来“细嚼慢咽”。
本段第一部分采用与传统金融工具对比的方式，引出比特币的概念；第二部分则告诉我们不同比特币的价值可能有天壤之别。
The usual tools of finance are no guide. An equity is a claim on the assets and the profits of a firm; a bond entitles the investor to a series of interest payments and repayment on maturity. Bitcoin brings no cashflows to the owner; the only return will come via a rise in price. When there is no obvious way of valuing an asset, it is hard to say that one target price is less likely than another. Bitcoin could be worth $10 or $100,000.
开头第一句便有一个很好的句式：… is no guide. 放在这里不便直译，可以说比特币与传统金融工具相比有很大不同。
接下来的亮点便在claim和entitle上。依据字典解释，claim意为“an official request for money that you think you have a right to”，放在这里，自然指对于一个公司资产和利润的索取权。
再说entitle，其英文释义为“to give someone the official right to do or have something”，所以文中意为“给予投资者……的权利”。
on maturity 是另一个值得我们学习的地方。maturity的字典释义为“the time when a financial arrangement such as bond or an insurance policy becomes ready to be paid”，通俗一点就是（债券或保单的）到期日。
on maturity与expiry date意义相近却用法不同。后者指“the date after which sth is not safe to eat or can no longer be used”。所以，谈到债券或保单到期用on maturity，而谈到食品过期获证件期满时用expiry date。
下面小J来解释一下equity, bond, stock和share的区别：
equities: (pl.) (technical.) shares in a company from which the owner of the shares receives some of the company’s profits rather than a fixed regular payment. 即：（分享红利而非固定股息的）股票
bond：an official document promising that a government or company will pay back money that it has borrowed, often with interest. 即：债券
stock: a share in a company. 即：股份
share: (C.) one of the equal parts into which the ownership of a company is divided. 即：一份公司的所有权，或称股份
后来两句的知识点就少了很多。via意同through，“通过”。“value the asset”中注意“value”用作动词，“估价”。英文中有很多名词用作动词的例子，如：water the tree, baby the child, and thumb through the pages等。
The usual tools of finance are no guide. An equity is a claim on the assets and the profits of a firm; a bond entitles the investor to a series of interest payments and repayment on maturity. Bitcoin brings no cashflows to the owner; the only return will come via a rise in price. When there is no obvious way of valuing an asset, it is hard to say that one target price is less likely than another. Bitcoin could be worth $10 or $100,000.
我们不可将比特币与传统金融工具相提并论。通过股票，人们可以索取公司的资产和利润；债券则使得投资者能在债券期满之时得到收益。然而比特币并不能为其所有者带来现金流，投资者的唯一收入来自比特币的增值。当我们没有很好的方式来为一项资产估值时，我们就很难确定该项资产的价格——所以比特币既可能只值区区10刀，也可能价值10万刀。
我们来看第二段，此段描写了比特币投资者的投资心理，解释了比特币价值从何而来，同时也是最能凸显经济学人行文风格的部分。
01
本段较长，我们分为两部分慢慢看~ 首先，第一部分：
Instead, investors must weigh the scenarios that enthusiasts posit: what if, say, every pension fund invested 1% of its portfolio in the cryptocurrency? One argument made by bitcoinnoisseurs is that it is a type of “digital gold”. Stores of value are supposed to keep their value; bitcoin, by contrast, is extremely volatile.
weigh the scenarios是本段的第一两点，weigh也是名词动用，语境意义为“审时度势”，与上文value the asset异曲同工。
posit这个词用得也很正式。posit字典意义为“to suggest that a particular idea should be accepted as a fact”，用在这里自然表示比特币热衷者（enthusiasts）做出的假设。
pension fund 意为养老金/退休金。
portfolio这个词较常用，尤其是在投资金融领域。Portfolio字典释义为“a group of stocks owned by a particular person or company”，即投资组合。
cryptocurrency中的crypto-不用多说是一个前缀，字典释义为“secret or hidden”。如a crypto-Communist 即一名地下共产党员。当然用在这里，可理解为比特币是一种虚拟货币（a virtual currency）。
bitcoinnoisseurs就高大上了，一看词缀就知道是贵族词~ 。-noisseur为法语词缀，用在这里指比特币购买者。有小伙伴不乐意了，直接说bitcoin owners不就完了——但那就不是经济学人了。
volatile对于大多童鞋并不陌生，作为形容词，其字典释义为“a volatile situation is likely to change suddenly and without warning”，即易变的（当然你也可以说“任性的”~）。读到这里，就不难理解为什么作者说比特币既可能只值区区10刀，也可能价值10万刀了。
Instead, investors must weigh the scenarios that enthusiasts posit: what if, say, every pension fund invested 1% of its portfolio in the cryptocurrency? One argument made by bitcoinnoisseurs is that it is a type of “digital gold”. Stores of value are supposed to keep their value; bitcoin, by contrast, is extremely volatile.
比特币投资者需审时度势。有些热衷比特币的人会想：如果人们都将他们1%的退休金投入比特币该有多好？一些比特币投资者将这种货币看作是一种“电子黄金”。储存有价值的东西自然应达到储值目的，但比特币的价值却变化无常。
02
下面我们来看第二部分，这一部分不算太难，但经济学人文风的幽默却可见一斑：
Its code ensures that no more than 21m coins can ever be created; that sets bitcoin apart from fiat money, which central banks can create at will. Yet being limited in supply is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for having value; signed photographs of Economist journalists are rare but, sadly, of negligible worth. Nor is supply really limited. Plenty of other cryptocurrencies exist.
set … apart: 将……与……区分开来，意义同distinguish和characterize。
fiat money: a currency without intrinsic value established as money by government regulation. It has an assigned value only because the government uses its power to enforce the value of a fiat currency (from Wikipedia). 简言之，fiat money意为“虚拟货币”，它并没有内在价值，它的价值来自于政府规定。
at will很好理解，译为“随性”。
至于a necessary, but not sufficient, condition就是传说中的“必要但不充分条件”了，同理，“充分但不必要条件”可译为a sufficient, but not necessary, condition，所以，发挥你的聪明才智吧… 这句话意思就是：数量有限仅仅是价值存在的必要但不充分条件；换句话说，要想有身价，数量有限是必要的，但这还远远不够。
分号后面的半句就是Economist的自嘲了：《经济学人》记者的签名照数量有限，但它们并没有什么价值（be of negligible worth）呀！（至于到底有没有价值自行体会）negligible的词根为neglect，意为“too slight or unimportant to have an effect”。
Its code ensures that no more than 21m coins can ever be created; that sets bitcoin apart from fiat money, which central banks can create at will. Yet being limited in supply is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for having value; signed photographs of Economist journalists are rare but, sadly, of negligible worth. Nor is supply really limited. Plenty of other cryptocurrencies exist.
根据规定，比特币的发行量不能超过两千一百万个，这就将比特币与虚拟货币区分开来，因为虚拟货币的数量完全由央行自身决定。但是数量有限仅仅是比特币价值的必要但不充分条件，《经济学人》作者的签名照数量也有限，其价值却可忽略不计。再说，虚拟货币本身的数量也并非有限到不可求，因为除了比特币，还有很多其他种类的货币。
第三段涉及一些金融领域常用词，小J会细细讲解。那么问题来了：比特币会代替普通货币吗？看看Eco怎么说吧~
Might bitcoin replace ordinary currencies in everyday transactions? Not soon. Who wants to part with (or accept in exchange) a currency that can rise or fall by 20% in an hour? And true currencies are used to denominate liabilities as well as assets; imagine the ruin faced by those who had taken out a bitcoin mortgage or business loan earlier this year.
everyday transaction即日常交易，同理，还可说everyday exercise, everyday language或everyday life。
接下来会出现两组反义词。第一组是part with和accept：
part with: to give something to someone else, although you do not want to. 即（不情愿地）舍弃某物。结合上下文，这组反义词表示“买入/卖出（比特币）”，对应英文为：accept/part with a currency.
第二组反义词为：liabilities和assets:
liabilities: (pl.) (technical.) the amount of debt that must be paid. 即债务。
assets: the things that a company owns, that can be sold to pay debts. 即资产。
ruin在这一语境中用的也很好。ruin字典释义为“a situation in which you have lost all your money, your social position, or the good opinion that people had about you”，即身败名裂的境地。这一用法恐怕经常被忽视吧…
接下来就是一个经典搭配了：take out a mortgage/loan意为贷款。
Might bitcoin replace ordinary currencies in everyday transactions? Not soon. Who wants to part with (or accept in exchange) a currency that can rise or fall by 20% in an hour? And true currencies are used to denominate liabilities as well as assets; imagine the ruin faced by those who had taken out a bitcoin mortgage or business loan earlier this year.
那么，在日常交易中，比特币会取代常见货币吗？目前还不会。毕竟，如果一种货币在一小时内就会增值或贬值20%，谁想买进或卖出呢?正是货币的用途在于为资产或负债定价；如果今年年初，人们借出比特币贷款，他们现在不知面临什么困境呢。
Ok，讲到这里，大家应该对这两段内容了然于胸了吧。可以返回去再通读一遍，这样印象会更加深刻哒~
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