期货对比特币意味着什么？

In recent years, bitcoin has been the wild west of the financial world. Now, however, it is being civilised — a touch. In the coming weeks, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange plans to start listing bitcoin futures, with a centralised clearing mechanism.

最近几年，比特币成了金融世界的狂野西部。然而，现在它略微被“文明化”了一些。芝加哥商品交易所(CME)计划在未来几周推出拥有中央清算机制的比特币期货。

Cboe Global Markets may follow suit. That will enable investors to bet on the coin’s future value without actually holding it — just as investors can use the Chicago exchange to bet on hog prices, say, without ever handling a pig.

芝加哥期权交易所全球市场(Cboe Global Markets)可能效仿。那将让投资者能够押注比特币的未来价值，而无需实际拥有这种虚拟货币——就像投资者可以通过这家芝加哥交易所押注猪肉价格，而不用亲自饲养生猪一样。

Is this a good idea? Some of the CME’s members do not think so. This week Interactive Brokers, an important clearing firm in the exchange, took the extraordinary step of using a newspaper advertisement to ask for more regulatory oversight. It fears that bitcoin is potentially so volatile that these futures will create huge losses for traders, which might then undermine the health of the CME and hurt other brokers, given its part-mutualised structure.

这是一个好主意吗?CME的一些会员不这么认为。最近，CME的一家重要清算机构盈透证券(Interactive Brokers)采取了非同寻常的举措，在报纸上刊登广告呼吁加大监管监督。它担心，比特币潜在具有如此巨大的波动性，以至于这些期货产品会给交易者带来巨大损失，从而损害CME的健康，而且由于其部分共有架构，还会殃及其他经纪商。

The CME — unsurprisingly — dismisses this as poppycock: it argues that any risks will be contained by rules that allow traders to charge more so as to generate fat margins (of about 30 per cent) and thus absorb losses, and by circuit breakers that would stop a trade in the event of wild price swings.

CME不出所料地认为这是一派胡言：它辩称, 任何风险都将受到两方面的遏制：一是允许交易商收取更多费用的规则，让交易商达到大约30%的丰厚利润率，从而能够吸收亏损;二是熔断机制，在价格剧烈波动时暂停交易。

However, it is too early for outsiders to tell whether the naysayers are correct: there is simply not enough clarity on how big any bitcoin futures market will be, how it will operate or on the CME’s capacity to absorb any losses.

然而，对于局外人来说, 判断反对者正确与否为时尚早：对于比特币期货市场的规模会有多大、它将如何运行、以及CME是否有能力吸收亏损，都缺乏足够的清晰度。

But while the regulatory debate bubbles on, there is a more immediate question facing investors: bitcoin prices. Until now, it has been an article of faith among bitcoin evangelists that if — or when — the currency became more “civilised”, this will boost the price.

但是, 尽管监管辩论仍在继续, 投资者面临的一个更直接的问题是比特币的价格。迄今为止，比特币传道者的信条是，如果比特币变得更加“文明化”，那将会提振其价格。

After all, the argument goes, assimilating bitcoin into the mainstream investment world should boost its appeal and demand, making it more valuable. It is highly likely there will be an opposite effect. Until now, investors have not had an easy way to bet against bitcoin — the only “short” was to sell coins. But the CME futures contract will let investors place those negative bets. You do not need to be a conspiracy theorist to imagine that some bitcoin cynics will be doing just that.

这种观点认为, 毕竟, 将比特币同化为主流投资, 应该能提高其吸引力和需求，使其更有价值。但这也很有可能产生相反的效果。此前投资者没有一个简单的方法来做空比特币——唯一的“做空”是卖出比特币。但CME的期货合约将让投资者能够做空比特币。你不需要成为一个阴谋论者就可以想象，一些比特币怀疑者真的会做空比特币。

And there is a second, more subtle issue too: the cultural “map” of finance, to use an anthropological term. Until now, bitcoin has essentially been perceived as a ringfenced product. The unstated assumption among investors has been that it occupied a distinctive space where normal investing rules did not apply. But as bitcoin becomes integrated into the derivatives market, that boundary may break down and investors apply for “normal” criteria in their valuations. Given the unresolved questions about how bitcoin works, that may lead to more scepticism; indeed, it is precisely what has often happened in the evolution of financial markets before.

还有第二个、更微妙的问题：金融的文化“地图”(借用人类学的术语)。到目前为止，比特币在本质上被视为一种受到圈护的产品。投资者之间没有言明的假设是，它占据了正常投资规则不适用的某个独特空间。但是，随着比特币融入衍生品市场，这一界限可能消失，使投资者在估值的时候应用“正常”标准。鉴于有关比特币如何运作的问题悬而未决，这可能引发更多怀疑;的确，这正是过去金融市场发展进程中经常发生的情况。

Think, for example, about Japan. Before the mid-1980s, its stock market seemed to exist on a planet of its own, subject to its own valuation rules. But when Japanese equity derivative contracts were launched, and then integrated within the wider global market system as a result of financial reform, that sense of “otherness” broke down. The change in how Japan was seen through a comparative investment lens was not the only reason for the 1990 Nikkei crash, but it contributed.

比如，考虑一下日本的情况。在上世纪80年代中期之前，日本股市似乎存在于自己的星球上，遵从自己的估值规则。但是，当日本的股票衍生品合约问世、随后作为金融改革的结果融入整个全球市场体系后，这种“差异”感就瓦解了。通过比较投资的透镜看待日本的方式发生变化，并不是1990年日经(Nikkei)崩盘的唯一原因，但它起到了推波助澜的作用。

So too with US mortgages. Until 2005 or so, outsiders could not easily assess or price the risks of America’s subprime mortgages: mortgage-backed bond prices were opaque, and the only way to short the market was to sell bonds. But when mortgage derivatives, such as the ABX index, were launched, it suddenly became easy to make negative bets. Then, the ABX index was published in newspapers, such as the Financial Times, in 2007, creating a visible barometer of sentiment. That helped a sense of panic to feed on itself after 2008.

美国的抵押贷款也是如此。在差不多2005年之前，局外人无法轻易评估美国次贷风险，或对其估价：抵押贷款支持债券价格不透明，卖空该市场的唯一方法是抛售债券。但是，当ABX指数等抵押贷款衍生品被推出后，卖空突然变得容易了。之后，ABX指数于2007年开始在英国《金融时报》等报纸上刊登，创建了一个看得见的市场情绪晴雨表。这推动了2008年后市场恐慌情绪愈演愈烈。

Of course, in the long term, this type of evolution is highly desirable. Markets exist to enable investors to express price bets. They are usually more stable in the long run if prices are transparent and there is a wide pool of players. If bitcoin futures had existed a few years ago, the prices would probably not have swung so crazily this month.

当然，从长远来看，这类演变非常可取。市场之所以存在，就是为了让投资者表达他们对价格走向的押注。如果价格透明且拥有大量参与者，市场通常在长期更加稳定。如果比特币期货几年前就已经存在，那么本月比特币的价格可能不会如此疯狂波动。

But as the tale of the ABX or Nikkei 225 futures shows, that bigger philosophical point is scant comfort when investors and their counter-parties get burnt. Which, of course, is precisely why Interactive Brokers has paid for that ad. Investors and regulators need to take note: fat margins might protect the Chicago exchange as a whole (they hope) from bitcoin shocks; they will not shield unwary punters.

但是正如ABX或日经225指数期货的故事所表明的那样，当投资者及其交易对手方遭受巨亏时，这种宏大的哲学道理并不令人满意。当然，这正是盈透证券花钱打广告的原因。投资者和监管机构需要注意：丰厚的利润率可能会保护整个芝加哥商品交易所(他们希望如此)免受比特币的冲击;但它们保护不了毫无警惕之心的投机者。