2022.05.18 加密货币暴跌的感觉很奇妙

shiyi18

TECHNOLOGY
The Crypto Crash Feels Amazing
It could have been me. I’m glad it wasn’t me.

By Ian Bogost
THE FOOL tarot card, with a Bored Ape head and bitcoin symbol
Paul Spella / The Atlantic; Alamy
MAY 18, 2022, 4:50 PM ET
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Updated at 6:10 p.m. ET on May 18, 2022

“What do you think of this company Netscape?” my parents asked. It was 1995, and they had called me on the landline, which back then just meant the telephone. Netscape was a company that made a graphical web browser—the web browser, really—but gave it away for free. Its income statement showed only modest revenue (and substantial losses). The web was new and exciting but unproven, so I steered my folks away from Netscape’s IPO.

Hahaha. Netscape stock doubled its $28 offering price the day it went public, making its founders half billionaires and ushering in the dot-com era. By the end of the year, the stock hit $174, and when AOL acquired the company in 1999, just before the dot-com crash, the deal was worth $10 billion.


A decade and a bit later, a new digital “currency” called bitcoin, meted out by computers that solved math problems, was worth less than a dime. Even that price seemed too high. Bitcoin didn’t really exist, nobody accepted it for payments, and it was almost impossible to create, store, and trade. How stupid, I thought. If my parents had called me up again to ask whether they should buy in, I would have told them no again. But $1,000 “invested” in bitcoin at the right moment in 2010 turned into $625 million last year, when the ur-cryptocurrency hit $50,000. Even now, as the cryptocurrency market recovers from this month’s big collapse, that $1,000 would still be worth more than $350 million.

A special, acid feeling wells up when you realize that you’ve passed up the opportunity to get rich with no effort whatsoever. Denser than jealousy but lighter than regret, it is a nausea of the spirit rather than the gut. Netscape and bitcoin (and GameStop and perhaps even Tesla) are windfall fantasies. In hindsight, only an idiot would have missed the boat had they been on its gangway at the crucial moment.

Now all the losers—the ones like me and my parents (sorry, Mom)—are standing on the shore with our binoculars, wondering if the USS Crypto is about to sink into the sea. This month’s crash occurred, at least in a proximate sense, when a so-called stablecoin named terra lost its peg to the U.S. dollar, an event you don’t really need to understand to continue reading this article. The ultimate causes were more numerous: inflation and rising interest rates have destabilized financial markets on the whole, and tech securities have been especially volatile. Bitcoin’s value has now degraded to just half of what it was last fall. Many of the people who bought in recently have lost their shirts. Many of the people who put their money into other cryptocurrencies have lost a whole lot more.

Alas, but also: hurrah. I have empathy for individuals who are suffering, but in the broader sense, the frustration of “It could have been me” has been swapped for the dark pleasure and relief of “I’m glad it wasn’t me.” It’s the same schadenfreude that arrives when an Antiques Roadshow expert tells some schlemiel that the disposed dust sleeve of a rare book meant the difference between a six-figure auction and a pittance. It’s too bad, really, but it’s also just too good.

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You can tell I didn’t buy (and hold) bitcoin at $0.08, because I’m writing articles on the internet instead of polishing the gilded fixtures of my yacht. To live with this folly, I have told myself many stories. For one, I am proud to have been uninvolved in underwriting the scams perpetrated by bitcoin aficionados. For another, I am glad to have avoided contributing directly to the energy consumption required to operate the blockchain. For a third, I am happy to be spared participation in the overall crypto subculture, a community one would, presumably, be tempted to honor had it been the source of massive personal wealth.

Read: The internet is just investment banking now

But mostly, I take glee in the certainty that, had I actually figured out how to create and store circa-2010 bitcoins in an online “wallet,” I surely, without a doubt, would have stored that wallet on a hard drive that ended up malfunctioning, or lost the cryptographic key needed to unlock it. To lose $350 million down a storm drain would be far worse than never having had it in the first place.

I’m sorry—also glad—to say that the crypto crash has spread to other online assets, too. Non-fungible tokens are also in distress. The blue-chip NFTs, such as Bored Apes, have lost half their hypothetical value, while other, less popular issues are falling even faster, and trades of these digital goods are slowing overall. Here again, schadenfreude is selling high. Whether all this pleasure taken at the expense of rubes who bought in only to lose out will continue expanding in the weeks ahead—or if it’s just a short-term bubble of its own—remains to be determined. The collapse of cryptocurrencies could reverse into another boom at any moment. It’s happened before. Proponents urge their fellow believers to “buy the dip” and keep the faith, and that faith has sometimes been rewarded.

Whatever happens, though, the jagged history of crypto shows that foolish risk creates its own aesthetics. The crypto-bro investor does not evoke vicarious excitement, like a stuntman jumping motorcycles or a daredevil mountaineer, because his antics at the keyboard don’t appear to take much skill. He’s more like a bettor at the track who picks the winning horse at random, or a country-club jerk who hits a lucky hole in one. Watching him may elicit wonder at his cosmic luck—a mathematical sublimity. But no one would describe his victory as a beautiful achievement.

That’s why we end up feeling nauseated at the crypto bro’s success: It’s so unearned, it makes us sick. But our schadenfreude is a product of the same illusion. We’re not reveling in our prudence, so much as we’re indulging in an even lamer form of grandiosity. “It could have been me” was a lie from the start: Sure, we might have profited 10,000-fold—and then lost everything a few years later—but probably not. If my folks and I had purchased Netscape at its IPO, we wouldn’t now be plutocrats. We’d have put a few thousand dollars in, at most, and then sold off our stocks when their value had tripled or quadrupled. We’d have made a little money and been glad. As for crypto, I bought a thousand bucks’ worth a while back and am down by half. Whatever. The fantasy of failing to achieve a massive gain, and then also of averting bankruptcy, flatters us twice over. The truth is more banal: It could never have been me.

This article originally stated that the crash occurred when a stablecoin called tether lost its peg to the U.S. dollar. The crash had more to do with another stablecoin, terra, that also lost its peg.

Ian Bogost is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the Director of the Program in Film & Media Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. His latest book is Play Anything.




技术
加密货币暴跌的感觉很奇妙
这可能是我。我很高兴它不是我。

作者：Ian Bogost
傻瓜塔罗牌，有一个无聊的猿人头和比特币的符号
Paul Spella / The Atlantic; Alamy
2022年5月18日，美国东部时间下午4点50分

更新于美国东部时间2022年5月18日下午6点10分

"你觉得网景这家公司怎么样？"我父母问。那是1995年，他们用座机给我打电话，那时候座机只是指电话。网景是一家生产图形化网络浏览器的公司--网络浏览器，真的，但它是免费提供的。它的利润表显示只有少量的收入（和大量的损失）。网络是新的、令人兴奋的，但未经证实，所以我引导我的家人远离网景的IPO。

哈哈哈。网景公司的股票在上市当天将其28美元的发行价翻了一番，使其创始人成为半个亿万富翁，并迎来了网络时代的到来。到年底，股价达到174美元，当美国在线在1999年收购该公司时，就在互联网崩溃之前，这笔交易的价值为100亿美元。


十几年后，一种被称为比特币的新数字 "货币"，由解决数学问题的计算机来支付，价值还不到一毛钱。即使这个价格似乎也太高了。比特币并不真正存在，没有人接受它的支付，而且它几乎不可能被创造、存储和交易。我想，多么愚蠢啊。如果我的父母再次打电话给我，问他们是否应该买入，我会再次告诉他们不要。但是，2010年在正确的时刻 "投资 "于比特币的1,000美元，去年变成了6.25亿美元，当时这种加密货币达到了50,000美元。即使是现在，当加密货币市场从本月的大崩溃中恢复过来时，这1000美元仍将价值超过3.5亿美元。

当你意识到你放弃了不费吹灰之力就能致富的机会时，一种特殊的、酸溜溜的感觉油然而生。这种感觉比嫉妒更强烈，但比遗憾更轻，它是一种精神上的恶心，而不是肠胃上的恶心。网景和比特币（以及GameStop，甚至可能是特斯拉）是暴利的幻想。事后看来，如果他们在关键时刻站在船舷上，只有白痴才会错过这条船。

现在所有的失败者--像我和我的父母（对不起，妈妈）--都拿着望远镜站在岸边，想知道加密货币号是否即将沉入大海。这个月的崩溃发生了，至少在近似的意义上，当一个名为terra的所谓稳定币失去与美元的挂钩时，这个事件你真的不需要了解，以继续阅读这篇文章。最终的原因更多：通货膨胀和利率上升在整体上破坏了金融市场的稳定，而科技证券的波动尤其大。比特币的价值现在已经退化到只有去年秋天的一半。许多最近买入的人已经失去了他们的衬衫。许多把钱投入其他加密货币的人已经失去了很多。

唉，但也是：万岁。我对正在遭受痛苦的个人表示同情，但在更广泛的意义上，"这可能是我 "的挫折感已经换成了 "我很高兴这不是我 "的黑暗快乐和解脱。当古董路演专家告诉某个笨蛋，一本罕见的书被处理过的防尘套意味着六位数的拍卖和微不足道的价格之间的区别时，这也是一种幸灾乐祸的感觉。这实在是太糟糕了，但它也实在是太好。

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你可以知道我没有在0.08美元时买入（并持有）比特币，因为我在互联网上写文章，而不是在擦拭我游艇上的镀金装置。为了与这种愚蠢的行为共处，我给自己讲了很多故事。其一，我为自己没有参与承保比特币爱好者实施的骗局而感到自豪。第二，我很高兴避免了对区块链运行所需的能源消耗的直接贡献。第三，我很高兴没有参与整个加密货币亚文化，如果它是大量个人财富的来源，一个人大概会被诱惑去尊重这个社区。

阅读。互联网现在只是投资银行

但最主要的是，我很高兴地看到，如果我真的想出了如何创建并将2010年左右的比特币存储在一个在线 "钱包 "中，我肯定会毫无疑问地将这个钱包存储在一个最终发生故障的硬盘上，或者丢失解锁所需的加密密钥。将3.5亿美元打入下水道，将比一开始就没有这个钱包更糟糕。

我很遗憾--也很高兴地说，加密货币的崩溃也已经蔓延到了其他在线资产。不可伪造的代币也处于困境中。蓝筹NFTs，如Bored Apes，已经失去了一半的假设价值，而其他不太受欢迎的问题下降得更快，这些数字商品的交易总体上正在放缓。在这里，幸灾乐祸的情绪又在高价出售。所有这些以买入后却失去的红宝石为代价的快乐是否会在未来几周继续扩大，或者这只是自己的一个短期泡沫，仍有待确定。加密货币的崩溃随时可能逆转为另一种繁荣。这以前就发生过。支持者敦促他们的同伴 "买入下跌 "并保持信心，而这种信心有时也会得到回报。

不过，无论发生什么，加密货币的参差不齐的历史表明，愚蠢的风险创造了自己的美学。加密货币投资者不会像特技演员跳摩托车或敢死队登山者那样唤起人们的兴奋，因为他在键盘上的滑稽动作似乎并不需要太多的技巧。他更像是赛马场上的赌徒，随意挑选获胜的马匹，或者是乡村俱乐部的混混，一杆进洞的运气。观察他可能会对他的宇宙运气感到惊讶--一种数学上的升华。但没有人会把他的胜利描述为一个美丽的成就。

这就是为什么我们最终会对加密货币兄弟的成功感到恶心。它是如此不值得，让我们感到恶心。但我们的幸灾乐祸是同一幻觉的产物。我们不是在为自己的谨慎而陶醉，而是沉浸在一种更蹩脚的自大中。"这可能是我 "从一开始就是一个谎言。当然，我们可能会获利一万倍，然后在几年后失去一切，但可能不会。如果我和我的家人在网景公司上市时购买了它，我们现在就不会成为财阀了。我们最多投入几千美元，然后在股票价值翻了三倍或四倍的时候卖掉。我们会赚一点钱，并感到高兴。至于加密货币，我前段时间买了一千美元的价值，现在跌了一半。不管怎么样。幻想没能取得巨大收益，然后还能避免破产，这让我们倍感受宠若惊。事实是更平庸的。这绝不可能是我。

这篇文章最初说，崩盘发生在一个叫tether的稳定币失去与美元挂钩的时候。崩溃更多的是与另一个稳定币terra有关，该稳定币也失去了挂钩。

Ian Bogost是《大西洋》杂志的特约撰稿人，也是圣路易斯华盛顿大学电影和媒体研究项目的主任。他的最新著作是《Play Anything》。