比特幣讓許多人感到困惑，其中包括著名的投資專業人士。最近，我揭穿了十大最普遍的誤解和另外五個。
Misconception #16: Divisibility Means Debasement Bitcoin has a fixed supply of 21 million. However, each of the 21 million Bitcoins can be divided into 100,000,000 units called satoshis (or sats). Each sat is worth 0.00000001 of one Bitcoin. That means the Bitcoin supply can be expressed as 2.1 quadrillion satoshis or 2,100,000,000,000,000 sats. This confuses some people, who think that because Bitcoin’s supply can be defined as such a gigantic number, it somehow represents debasement. Clearly, divisibility and debasement are not the same thing. Consider the example of dividing a pizza. It doesn’t matter how many slices you cut; it’s still one pizza. Similarly, some people think Bitcoin is not scarce because there is an ever-increasing number of altcoins—all cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin. However, altcoins and Bitcoin are not at all the same thing. (If you think otherwise, try using an altcoin instead of Bitcoin and see what happens.) The growing number of altcoins has absolutely no effect on Bitcoin’s 21 million supply. That would be like thinking increasing the supply of pyrite dilutes the gold supply. Misconception #17: Satoshi Controls Bitcoin Recently, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan, claimed that Satoshi Nakamoto—Bitcoin’s anonymous Cypherpunk creator who disappeared in 2011—controls Bitcoin and could change the fixed supply of 21 million. Of course, Dimon did not explain the technical details of exactly how this could happen because he couldn’t. He simply made a confident assertion and probably hoped most people would lap it up because of his appeal to authority. However, Dimon’s sentiment reveals a profound misunderstanding of how Bitcoin works. Let’s start with the basics and build from there to clarify this misunderstood topic. Bitcoin is open-source software, which means its code is available for anyone to download, inspect, suggest changes, and run. Bitcoin was released in 2009, and anyone has had many years to inspect the open-source code, but nobody has ever found anything sinister. If you think there is something sinister in the Bitcoin code, nothing is stopping you from proving it. Think of the Bitcoin blockchain as simply a public database of transactions distributed to over 18,000 computers worldwide. The computers that retain the entire blockchain and run the Bitcoin software are called “full nodes.” Full nodes enforce the Bitcoin protocol and consensus rules—like its issuance and supply. The more full nodes there are, the more secure Bitcoin is. So it’s crucial the average person can easily operate one. The average computer can easily handle running a full node now and in the future, which is essential for Bitcoin to remain decentralized. Any desktop, laptop, Raspberry Pi—and even some cell phones—have the potential to become Bitcoin full nodes. Furthermore, as technology advances, running a full node will become even more accessible. The fact that anyone can run a full node makes the enforcement of Bitcoin’s protocol decentralized. So it’s unlikely that any individual, corporation, or government—or groups of them—could get together to enforce their will on the network by coercing the full nodes. As a practical matter, anyone can change any cryptocurrency whenever they want. All you have to do is take the open-source code—available to anyone—and make your desired changes to the protocol. But that doesn’t mean anyone will follow your lead or value your new cryptocurrency. For example, I can easily create a new version of Bitcoin that changes the supply from 21 million to 22 million and call it “Bitcoin 2.0.” But that doesn’t mean I can inherit the monetary properties of the original Bitcoin, which are related to the credibility of its supply, which I’ve just undermined by changing the protocol. That’s why the market is unlikely to assign any value to Bitcoin 2.0. In short, anyone can create a cryptocurrency in minutes. That’s the easy part. Making one that nobody controls is the hard part. If someone wanted to change to the Bitcoin protocol, it would require the agreement of most of the over 18,000 full nodes that enforce the protocol. Otherwise, the only thing they would succeed in doing is creating an increasingly worthless knockoff. Here’s another way to think of it. Imagine someone wanting to change the rules of chess so pawns could move backward. Of course, anyone could do so anytime, but that doesn’t mean people will follow the new rule. Of course, nothing is impossible, but it would be so improbable that such a move would gain traction that it’s irrelevant. In my view, getting the consensus of the full nodes to change the Bitcoin protocol—to
誤解#16：可分割性意味著貶值 比特幣的固定供應量為 2,100 萬枚。然而，2,100 萬個比特幣中的每一個都可以分為 100,000,000 個稱為 satoshis（或 sats）的單位。每個 sat 價值 0.00000001 個比特幣。這意味著比特幣供應量可以表示為 2.1 兆聰或 2,100,000,000,000,000 sat。這讓一些人感到困惑，他們認為由於比特幣的供應量可以被定義為如此巨大的數字，因此它在某種程度上代表貶值。顯然，可分性和貶低不是一回事。考慮一下分割披薩的例子。切多少片並不重要；它仍然是一份披薩。同樣，有些人認為比特幣並不稀缺，因為山寨幣（除比特幣之外的所有加密貨幣）數量不斷增加。然而，山寨幣和比特幣根本不是一回事。 （如果您不這麼認為，請嘗試使用山寨幣代替比特幣，看看會發生什麼。）山寨幣數量的增加對比特幣 2100 萬枚的供應絕對沒有影響。這就像認為增加黃鐵礦供應會稀釋黃金供應一樣。誤解#17：中本聰控制比特幣最近，摩根大通首席執行官傑米·戴蒙(Jamie Dimon) 聲稱，2011 年失踪的比特幣匿名密碼朋克創造者中本聰(Satoshi Nakamoto) 控制著比特幣，並且可以改變2100 萬枚的固定供應量。當然，戴蒙並沒有解釋這到底是如何發生的技術細節，因為他無法解釋。他只是做出了一個自信的斷言，並且可能希望大多數人會因為他對權威的訴求而接受它。然而，戴蒙的觀點揭示了人們對比特幣運作方式的深刻誤解。讓我們從基礎知識開始，並以此為基礎來澄清這個被誤解的主題。比特幣是開源軟體，這意味著任何人都可以下載、檢查、建議更改和運行其程式碼。比特幣於 2009 年發布，任何人都有很多年的時間來檢查開源程式碼，但沒有人發現任何險惡的東西。如果你認為比特幣程式碼中有什麼險惡的東西，沒有什麼可以阻止你證明它。將比特幣區塊鏈視為分佈到全球 18,000 多台電腦的公共交易資料庫。保留整個區塊鏈並運行比特幣軟體的電腦稱為「全節點」。全節點執行比特幣協議和共識規則—例如它的發行和供應。全節點越多，比特幣就越安全。因此，普通人能夠輕鬆操作是至關重要的。普通電腦現在和將來都可以輕鬆運行完整節點，這對於比特幣保持去中心化至關重要。任何桌上型電腦、筆記型電腦、Raspberry Pi，甚至一些手機，都有可能成為比特幣全節點。此外，隨著技術的進步，運行完整節點將變得更加容易。任何人都可以運行完整節點的事實使得比特幣協議的執行去中心化。因此，任何個人、公司或政府（或他們的團體）都不可能聚集在一起，透過強制全節點來在網路上強制執行他們的意願。實際上，任何人都可以隨時更改任何加密貨幣。您所要做的就是獲取任何人都可以使用的開源程式碼，並對協議進行所需的更改。但這並不意味著任何人都會追隨您的領導或重視您的新加密貨幣。例如，我可以輕鬆創建一個新版本的比特幣，將供應量從 2100 萬更改為 2200 萬，並將其稱為「比特幣 2.0」。但這並不意味著我可以繼承原始比特幣的貨幣屬性，這些屬性與其供應的可信度有關，而我只是透過更改協議破壞了它。這就是為什麼市場不太可能賦予比特幣2.0任何價值。簡而言之，任何人都可以在幾分鐘內創建加密貨幣。這是最簡單的部分。製作一個無人控制的系統是困難的部分。如果有人想要更改為比特幣協議，則需要獲得執行該協議的 18,000 多個全節點中的大多數節點的同意。否則，他們唯一能成功的就是製造出越來越毫無價值的仿冒品。這是另一種思考方式。想像一下，有人想要改變西洋棋規則，以便棋子可以向後移動。當然，任何人都可以隨時這樣做，但這並不意味著人們會遵守新規則。當然，沒有什麼是不可能的，但這樣的舉動不太可能獲得關注，以至於變得無關緊要。在我看來，改變比特幣協議需要獲得全節點的共識——
