BIS总裁：各国央行应打击比特币

Central banks must clamp down on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to stop them “piggybacking” on mainstream institutions and becoming a “threat to financial stability”, the head of the Bank for International Settlements has warned. 国际清算银行(Bank for International Settlements)总裁奥古斯丁•卡斯滕斯(Agustín Carstens)警告称，各国央行必须打击比特币和其他加密数字货币，阻止它们“依附”主流机构，成为“金融稳定的威胁”。

Agustín Carstens, general manager of the BIS — known as the bank for central banks because it is where they hold accounts — condemned bitcoin as “a combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster”. 国际清算银行有“央行的央行”之称，因为各国央行在这里设立账户。卡斯滕斯指责比特币是“泡沫、庞氏骗局(Ponzi)和环境灾难的组合”。

His comments came as growing signs of a backlash against cryptocurrencies by mainstream financial institutions contributed to another steep fall in the price of bitcoin, which means it has lost almost two-thirds of its market value in a month. 此际，越来越多的迹象表明，主流金融机构对加密货币的抵触造成比特币价格又一次大幅下挫，使比特币市值在一个月内就蒸发近三分之二。

“To date, many judge that, given cryptocurrencies’ small size and limited interconnectedness, concerns about them do not rise to a systemic level,” Mr Carsten said in a speech at Goethe University in Germany yesterday. 卡斯滕斯昨日在德国歌德大学(Goethe University)的一次演讲中表示：“到目前为止，很多人判断，鉴于加密货币规模小且相互关联性有限，对它们的担忧没有上升到系统水平。”

“But if authorities do not act pre-emptively, cryptocurrencies could become more interconnected with the main financial system and become a threat to financial stability.” “然而，如果政府不先发制人，加密货币与主要金融系统的关联性可能会增强，并成为金融稳定的威胁。”

Cryptocurrencies exploded in number and value in 2017, hitting a combined market capitalisation of $830bn in early January before a sell-off took nearly 70 per cent off that value. 去年，加密货币在数量和价值方面出现爆炸性增长，今年1月初，总计市值达到8300亿美元，之后的一场抛售导致近70%的市值蒸发。

But most banks refuse to touch cryptocurrencies, which raise anti-money laundering concerns because of their anonymity. 但多数银行拒绝触及加密货币，因为其匿名性引发反洗钱担忧。

UK lenders have even declined to provide mortgages to people who have funded their deposit by selling cryptocurrencies, which means their money cannot be traced. Many US and UK banks have also blocked customers from buying cryptocurrencies using their credit cards. 英国贷款机构甚至拒绝向通过出售加密货币来存款的人提供抵押贷款，因为这意味着他们的钱不能被追查。许多美国和英国的银行也阻止客户使用信用卡购买加密货币。

However, there are already signs of the crypto-asset class permeating Wall Street, such as December’s creation of bitcoin futures contracts by two big US exchanges — the CME 然而，现在已经有迹象表明加密资产类别正在渗透华尔街，例如美国两大交易所——芝加哥商品交易所(CME)和芝加哥期权交易所(CBOE)在去年12月创造了比特币期货合约。

and Cboe. 与此同时，投资者对加密货币和“首次代币发行”(Initial Coin Offerings,简称ICO)的兴趣激增。ICO为区块链初创公司提供了融资，后者去年在这个几乎完全没有监管的市场上筹集了超过34亿美元的资金。

Meanwhile, investor interest is surging in cryptocurrencies and the initial coin offerings that finance blockchain-based start-ups, which last year raised more than $3.4bn in an almost completely unregulated market. 墨西哥央行前行长卡斯滕斯承认，世界上许多主要中央银行都已密切关注利用区块链或分布式账本技术(DLT)改造自身业务的可能性。DLT是加密货币的基础。

Mr Carstens, former head of Mexico’s central bank, conceded that many of the world’s main central banks had closely examined the potential to transform their own operations using blockchain, or distributed ledger technology (DLT), which underpins cryptocurrencies. 但他表示：“实际上，中央银行的实验表明，基于DLT的系统运行起来成本非常高，速度比传统的支付结算系统慢，效率也低得多。”

But he said: “In practice, central bank experiments show that DLT-based systems are very expensive to run and slower and much less efficient to operate than conventional payment and settlement systems.” 译者/何黎