区块链行业并没有像我想象的那样动摇

作者：基伦·詹姆斯·鲁宾。以太坊 (ETH) 于 2013 年底构思，并于 2015 年 7 月推出。我于 2014 年夏天开始从事以太坊工作，这使得我在该领域度过了看似深不可测的 10 年。

Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) was conceived in late 2013 and launched in July 2015. I got my start working on Ethereum in summer 2014, which makes it a seemingly unfathomable 10 years in the space. When such milestones pass it can be useful to check in on what we expected versus what actually transpired.

以太坊（加密货币：ETH）于 2013 年底构思，并于 2015 年 7 月推出。我于 2014 年夏天开始从事以太坊工作，这使得我在该领域度过了看似深不可测的 10 年。当这些里程碑过去时，检查我们的预期与实际发生的情况可能会很有用。

Chains and coins have proliferated rather than consolidated

区块链和货币并未得到整合，而是激增

Blockchains have strong network effects, almost by definition. As such, one might expect there to be a handful of blockchains or even a single blockchain where the bulk of end-user activity occurs. Ethereum was created, in part, as “one chain to rule them all,” in contrast with the practice at the time of making a new blockchain for each new feature.

区块链几乎可以定义为具有强大的网络效应。因此，人们可能会期望存在少量区块链，甚至单个区块链，其中发生大部分最终用户活动。以太坊的创建在一定程度上是为了“一条链来统治它们”，这与当时为每个新功能创建一个新区块链的做法形成鲜明对比。

Social networks and stock markets show consolidation behavior — we get approximately one popular social network per purpose (X/Twitter — text, Instagram — images, YouTube — video, and so on). The United States has two popular stock markets. Most countries have one or none, with only the top 20 or so really being globally significant. In contrast, there are approximately 2.5 million cryptocurrencies — up a factor of five from 2021. While many of these coins and chains may not see heavy use, there are more than 50 with a market cap in the billions as of September 2024.

社交网络和股票市场表现出整合行为——每种目的我们都会获得大约一种流行的社交网络（X/Twitter — 文本、Instagram — 图像、YouTube — 视频等）。美国有两个受欢迎的股票市场。大多数国家/地区有一个或没有，只有前 20 名左右真正具有全球重要性。相比之下，加密货币的数量约为 250 万种，比 2021 年增加了五倍。虽然其中许多硬币和链可能不会被大量使用，但截至 2024 年 9 月，已有 50 多种加密货币的市值达到数十亿美元。

Blockchains and coins built on top of them have been relatively easy to build and finance, so it makes sense that a lot of them have appeared. Ethereum greatly facilitated this activity, reducing the launch of a new token to a small code snippet or even a few clicks. Private investment often chases hot areas, with tons of funding flowing to one particular category — such as AI and blockchain, or in the past, things such as ride-share companies.

区块链和建立在其之上的硬币相对容易构建和融资，因此它们的出现是有道理的。以太坊极大地促进了这一活动，将新代币的发布减少到一小段代码甚至几次点击。私人投资通常会追逐热门领域，大量资金流向某一特定类别，例如人工智能和区块链，或者过去流向共享出行公司等领域。

We usually see consolidation come after with one to three winners consuming most market share, and other players being acquired or going out of business. In contrast, blockchains and blockchain-native tokens are oddly resilient, with some projects sticking around forever even if they are no longer actively developed. And some come back — Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE), for instance, had a long quiet period but has seen a resurgence of activity from 2020 onward.

我们通常会看到整合发生后，一到三个赢家占据了大部分市场份额，而其他参与者被收购或倒闭。相比之下，区块链和区块链原生代币具有奇怪的弹性，一些项目即使不再积极开发，也会永远存在。有些人又卷土重来——例如，狗狗币（加密货币：DOGE）经历了很长一段安静期，但从 2020 年开始，活动开始复苏。

The “markets for everything” thesis has not borne out (yet)

“一切皆有市场”的论点尚未得到证实（尚未）

Around 2014 or so, every lengthy discussion about the uncensorable nature of blockchain technology would eventually turn to assassination markets — markets which allow speculators to bet on the time of someone’s death. Assassination markets did in fact first appear in 2018, but do not appear to have had any sustained presence. Prediction markets have gotten popular in areas that were popular before the blockchains existed — elections and sports — with huge volumes of late.

大约在 2014 年左右，每一次关于区块链技术不可审查性质的冗长讨论最终都会转向暗杀市场——允许投机者押注某人死亡时间的市场。事实上，暗杀市场确实于 2018 年首次出现，但似乎并未持续存在。预测市场在区块链出现之前就很流行的领域——选举和体育——已经变得流行起来，而且最近交易量巨大。

Less dramatically, decentralized on-chain insurance was conceptualized early on, but seems to remain fringe. One can imagine an infinity of micro-insurance markets — will my train arrive on time? And if not, can I be compensated? But the mere capability is not enough for these markets to exist. People aren’t interested enough for these markets to be functional — yet.

不太引人注目的是，去中心化的链上保险很早就被概念化了，但似乎仍然处于边缘地位。人们可以想象无限的小额保险市场——我的火车会准时到达吗？如果没有的话，我可以得到补偿吗？但仅仅有能力还不足以让这些市场存在。人们对这些市场的运作还没有足够的兴趣。

Institutional adoption has proceeded differently than some expected

机构采用的进展与一些人的预期不同

Institutional adoption has been more about new assets than migrating business processes while legacy assets have been slower to get on chain than expected.

机构采用更多的是关于新资产而不是迁移业务流程，而遗留资产上链的速度比预期慢。

In the very early days of the tech industry, it was common for the government (defense, in particular) to be your first customer. Deep-pocketed institutions employed technologists who could work with not-quite-mature products and get a better outcome versus what was then in use. This could have been the adoption path for blockchain technology, especially considering the significant interest from the legacy financial institutions.

在科技行业的早期，政府（特别是国防）成为您的第一个客户是很常见的。财力雄厚的机构雇用的技术专家可以使用不太成熟的产品，并获得比当时使用的产品更好的结果。这可能是区块链技术的采用路径，特别是考虑到传统金融机构的巨大兴趣。

Instead, numerically successful use cases for larger institutions have leaned towards the consumer. The technology is perhaps too transformative and difficult to adopt incrementally for legacy players to use for core business processes. New asset classes have been of primary interest, with brands such as Nike (NYSE:NKE) earning a remarkable $185 million in non-fungible token (NFT) revenue, while the iShares Bitcoin Trust (NYSE:BITI) is managing something north of $20 billion.

相反，大型机构在数字上成功的用例已经倾向于消费者。该技术可能变革性太大，难以让传统参与者逐步采用以用于核心业务流程。新的资产类别一直备受关注，耐克 (NYSE:NKE) 等品牌的非同质代币 (NFT) 收入高达 1.85 亿美元，而 iShares 比特币信托 (NYSE:BITI) 管理的收入超过 20 美元十亿。

Startups have had more success bringing legacy assets on chain than legacy institutions. At $120 billion in market capitalization, Tether (CRYPTO: USDT) is the most obvious success story. Major financial institutions have much more AUM, with BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) in the lead at $9 trillion. But relatively speaking, they have moved very little on-chain to date.

与传统机构相比，初创公司在将传统资产上链方面取得了更多成功。 Tether（加密货币：USDT）的市值为 1200 亿美元，是最明显的成功案例。主要金融机构的资产管理规模要高得多，其中贝莱德（BlackRock，纽约证券交易所股票代码：BLK）以 9 万亿美元的资产处于领先地位。但相对而言，迄今为止他们在链上的转移很少。

The industry has not shaken out the way I expected at all. It’s been strange, disappointing in some ways and amazing in others. In his 1997 shareholder letter — a year in which Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) made $150m in revenue — Jeff Bezos referred to the Web as

这个行业根本没有像我预期的那样发生变化。这很奇怪，在某些方面令人失望，但在其他方面却令人惊奇。 1997 年，亚马逊 (NASDAQ:AMZN) 的收入达到 1.5 亿美元，在他的股东信中，杰夫·贝索斯 (Jeff Bezos) 将网络称为