FTX 和加密货币泡沫破灭显示了资本主义的局限性

投资者被市场的误导性信号引入歧途。它诱使他们“全力以赴”中心化交易所，而不是专注于代币化价值交换的现实用例。

The spectacular failure of FTX and other crypto firms has exposed the limits of capitalism and the urgent need for better information and regulation in the digital-asset industry.

FTX 和其他加密货币公司的惨败暴露了资本主义的局限性，以及数字资产行业迫切需要更好的信息和监管。

Investors were misled by false market signals that directed them to "go all in" on centralized exchanges like FTX instead of focusing on real-world use cases for tokenized value exchange.

投资者被虚假的市场信号误导，这些信号引导他们“全力以赴”FTX 等中心化交易所，而不是专注于代币化价值交换的现实用例。

The absence of transparency in the crypto industry, at least until 2022, prevented the formation of reliable price signals that could have guided investors toward sound investment decisions.

至少在 2022 年之前，加密行业缺乏透明度，阻碍了可靠价格信号的形成，而这些信号本可以引导投资者做出明智的投资决策。

We're not just talking about FTX's mind-boggling accounting practices (or lack thereof). I'm referring to what we knew, or didn't, about the conditions driving the soaring token prices that attracted millions of retail customers into multiple crypto exchanges and lending platforms, inflows that spun up billions of dollars in fees and, by extension, attracted great gobs of venture funding to those companies.

我们谈论的不仅仅是 FTX 令人难以置信的会计实践（或缺乏会计实践）。我指的是我们所知道或不知道的推动代币价格飙升的条件，这些条件吸引了数百万零售客户进入多个加密货币交易所和借贷平台，资金流入增加了数十亿美元的费用，进而，为这些公司吸引了大量风险投资。

We're all astounded that FTX, now essentially worth nothing, was valued at $32 billion a few months ago, and that lending service Celsius Network clocked in at $3.5 billion before it went under. But we should be asking similar questions about the investments and deposits that poured into Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, Crypto.com and other such exchanges. I'm not suggesting that they too are on the verge of bankruptcy or are suspected of fraud, rather that we should reflect on the inflated expectations for long-term growth that drew the influx into the entire industry.

我们都感到惊讶的是，现在基本上一文不值的 FTX 几个月前的估值为 320 亿美元，而贷款服务摄氏度网络在破产前的估值为 35 亿美元。但我们应该对涌入 Binance、Coinbase、Kraken、Crypto.com 和其他此类交易所的投资和存款提出类似的问题。我并不是说他们也濒临破产或涉嫌欺诈，而是我们应该反思对长期增长的过高预期，从而吸引了大量资金涌入整个行业。

Investors fell for a kind of capitalism head fake. For a time, the spectacular outsized profits generated by these centralized rent-extracting machines suggested to venture capitalists that they were the businesses into which they should be investing. According to the rationale of the market, they were onto something. The market was saying “this is the future.”

投资者被一种资本主义的假象所迷惑。有一段时间，这些集中式的租金抽取机器所产生的巨额利润向风险资本家表明，它们才是他们应该投资的企业。根据市场的基本原理，他们是有想法的。市场说“这就是未来”。

Tragically, we now know this was a false signal. There was no there there. A good chunk of the token exchange and lending business was built on a house of cards, an elaborate interconnection of leveraged positions across a crypto ecosystem sustained by a collective belief in “number go up.” It was really just a toxic mix of momentum trading, opportunism and rehypothecation (allowing assets to collateralize several transactions). It was never sustainable.

可悲的是，我们现在知道这是一个错误信号。那里没有。代币交易和借贷业务的很大一部分是建立在纸牌屋之上的，这是整个加密生态系统中杠杆头寸的精心互连，由“数字上涨”的集体信念维持。这实际上只是动量交易、机会主义和再抵押（允许资产抵押多项交易）的有毒组合。它从来都不是可持续的。

We should have recognized from the start that the triple-digit yields offered on various decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms during boom periods in 2021 were unjustified, not just because they were insanely high relative to traditional finance but also because there was insufficient real-world utility underpinning them. The same could be said for the trading activity and fees earned by centralized finance (CeFi) platforms.

我们从一开始就应该认识到，2021 年繁荣时期各种去中心化金融（DeFi）平台提供的三位数收益率是不合理的，不仅因为它们相对于传统金融而言高得离谱，还因为现实世界的不足支撑它们的实用性。中心化金融（CeFi）平台的交易活动和费用也是如此。

For there to have been enough base-level utility to sustain the trading prices higher up the chain, there needed to be a lot more investment in underlying real-world use cases for tokenized value exchange, such as in decentralized energy. But the market wasn't signaling that that's where the money should go. It was saying “go all in” on FTX, Celsius and their ilk.

为了有足够的基础实用程序来维持链上更高的交易价格，需要对代币化价值交换的潜在现实世界用例进行更多投资，例如去中心化能源。但市场并没有发出信号表明这就是资金应该流向的地方。人们对 FTX、Celsius 等同类产品表示“全力以赴”。

How do we fix this?

我们该如何解决这个问题？

Sadly, we can't just exhort people to reject get-rich-quick promises in favor of smaller, more sustainable opportunities in cross-border remittances, non-fungible token (NFT) loyalty projects, distributed digital identity solutions or any number of other real-world applications. Speculators are gonna speculate.

可悲的是，我们不能只是劝告人们拒绝快速致富的承诺，转而支持跨境汇款、不可替代代币（NFT）忠诚度项目、分布式数字身份解决方案或任何其他领域的更小、更可持续的机会。现实世界的应用程序。投机者将会猜测。

What we need is more reliable information about crypto businesses and industries, not just data on the short-term profitability of exchanges and lenders but in-depth details on the underlying foundation of those returns and their long-term sustainability.

我们需要的是有关加密业务和行业的更可靠信息，不仅仅是有关交易所和贷方短期盈利能力的数据，而是有关这些回报及其长期可持续性的根本基础的深入细节。

Perhaps with that information, venture investors will ignore short-term opportunities associated with speculation and instead invest in real, longer-term projects.

也许有了这些信息，风险投资者就会忽视与投机相关的短期机会，转而投资于真正的长期项目。

But there's still a problem here and it lies with Silicon Valley. Given that token models now offer venture capitalists the prospects of a much earlier exit than the five-year liquidity lockups they're traditionally subjected to, they may still be incentivized to ignore indications of long-term challenges and continue to bet on short-term bubble moments, knowing they can always pass their bags to the next greater fool. They can do this because they get early access to exclusive “data rooms” during funding round deals, giving them an informational advantage over later-arriving small investors.

但这里仍然存在一个问题，这个问题出在硅谷。鉴于代币模型现在为风险投资家提供了比他们传统上面临的五年流动性锁定更早退出的前景，他们可能仍然会被激励忽视长期挑战的迹象，并继续押注于短期泡沫时刻，知道他们总是可以将行李传递给下一个更大的傻瓜。他们之所以能够做到这一点，是因为他们可以在融资轮交易期间尽早进入专有的“数据室”，这使他们比后来到达的小投资者拥有信息优势。

This is the “information asymmetry” problem that securities laws are supposed to guard against. We can think about it in terms of the parties in any later-stage funding round: the investable entity itself, which knows everything; its early investors, who know a lot but not everything; and the prospective targeted investors, who are much more in the dark. These kinds of asymmetries are one of the fundamental causes of price signal distortions. Forced disclosures by securities regulations narrow that information gap.

这就是证券法应该防范的“信息不对称”问题。我们可以从任何后期融资的各方角度来思考：可投资实体本身，它知道一切；它是早期投资者，他们知道很多，但不是所有的；以及潜在的目标投资者，他们更加蒙在鼓里。这些不对称是价格信号扭曲的根本原因之一。证券法规强制披露缩小了信息差距。

It should be obvious by now that for CeFi exchanges such as FTX, tougher regulation, including registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is unavoidable. The question is how far should such regulation

现在应该很明显的是，对于 FTX 等 CeFi 交易所来说，更严格的监管，包括向美国证券交易委员会注册，是不可避免的。问题是这样的监管应该走多远