A few hundred years ago, only a few visionary people dared to join the stock market. Who would dare to fund a crew of explorers to explore the uncharted water in the Far East? In addition, most people were uneducated, and had no idea what a share certificate represented; they would rather choose to buy bread.
It may be a mistake to equate the rise of Bitcoin to Tulip Mania: the buyers in the two scenarios are completely different. Over the past 24 hours, 18 billion US dollars worth of Bitcoin have been transacted. But are you and your friends buying Bitcoin? Until now, I cannot see any bubble of Bitcoin, not a bit The rise of Bitcoin price does not mean bubble. A bubble is when even your mom is buying.
The Bitcoin phenomenon means much more than Bitcoin itself and even the market of cryptocurrency as a whole; Bitcoin phenomenon is shaking the world of the Internet. Everyone is talking about Bitcoin because the media is covering it every day. You may be aware of Ether, because of CryptoKitties. The real deal most of the general public has ignored is that the genius of blockchain engineer is now working hard to solve the bottleneck of the technology of cryptocurrency, and this is what you should be aware of: the emergence of blockchain technology. Bitcoin is just like the earliest generation of mobile phone, the “brick phone” back to the 80’s, whereas Ether is like the early generations of Nokia. The era of cryptocurrency has just begun.
Furthermore, we’ve just got one or two futures exchanges started the trading of Bitcoin futures. How many exchanges are coming? How many risk capitals are poised to join the race as well? Apart from bitcoin, how many quality blockchain startups have launched or ready to launch?
Cryptocurrency is a completely new market. Whether you participate or not has no bearing on this market, just like the absence of general public investors would not stop trailblazers from exploring the Island of the Gold in the Far East.
(Thanks Alexa Cheung for helping in the translation and polishing works of the English version of this article. Alexa is a student journalist currently studying in the University of Hong Kong.)
(originally posted on 8 Dec 2017 on Forbole's Blog)
你买的是郁金香，还是东印度公司？
几百年前，只有非常少量而最前瞻的人够胆参与当时在一条桥上面开始的股票交易所。资助航海去东方未知国度？谁够胆投？另外，大部份人都只是教育水平低的群众，根本不知手执一纸股票代表甚么，他们只懂面包代表甚么。
用郁金香泡沫来形容比特币 (Bitcoin)，或许是一个错误：两个情况的买家彻底不一样。过去 24 小时，比特币交投金额 180 亿美元，大家问问身边朋友谁真正买了比特币？目前为止，莫说泡沬，我根本连泡沬的影子都看不到，比特币升到多少并不代表泡沬，真正代表泡沬的是当你妈妈都买比特币之时。
比特币现象不只代表比特币自身，甚至不只是代表加密代币 (cryptocurrency) 的巿场，而是整个互联网世界。大家只看到比特币，因为传媒每天讲，好吧，你或许亦已开始留意到以太币 (Ether)，因为现在有以太猫。但大家更应该关注的是区块链技术的兴起：懂技术的人已知目前的加密代币的技术瓶颈在哪。比特币就像 80 年代的水壸大哥大，以太币就像初期的诺基亚。加密代币的时代才刚开始。
而且，现在才刚开始有一两家交易所出比特币期货，全球有多少交易所？有多少风险资本？比特币以外又有多少越来越优质的区块链初创已诞生或即将诞生？
加密代币是一个全新的巿场，你参不参与根本无伤大雅，当时的普罗群众投不投，都不会阻止创业家探索远东的黄金岛。
(鸣谢 Alexa Cheung 协助本文英语版本的翻译及修饰工作。Alexa 是一名学生记者，目前正在香港大学修读。)