如果您尚未出售以太坊（ETH -0.51％），尽管它下降了

如果您尚未出售以太坊（ETH -0.51％），尽管今年到目前为止下降了约40％

If you haven't sold your Ethereum (ETH -0.51%) yet despite its decline of about 40% so far this year, you're almost certainly convinced of its long-term utility and there are plenty of reasons to support that thesis. But if you're holding this coin for the long haul, you should be aware of one insidious risk in particular that's quickly emerging. It's an issue that's probably significant enough to encourage some investors to sell their holdings right now. Let's evaluate this new threat to see if that's a smart move or not.

如果您尚未出售以太坊（ETH -0.51％），尽管今年到目前为止下降了约40％，那么几乎可以肯定，您相信它的长期效用，并且有很多理由支持该论文。但是，如果您长期以来持有这枚硬币，那么您应该意识到一个阴险的风险，特别是很快就会出现。这个问题可能足够重要，可以鼓励一些投资者立即出售其持股。让我们评估这一新威胁，看看这是否是明智之举。

Tech upgrades may make it a victim of its own success

技术升级可能使其成为自己成功的受害者

As you may know, for each transaction processed on Ethereum's network, the transactor must pay a "gas fee" with the blockchain's coin, Ether. As of noon on May 1, the average gas fee to make a swap of one token for another is $1.15 on average. The majority of each gas fee gets burned -- in other words, destroyed, removing coins from the total supply.

如您所知，对于在以太坊网络上处理的每项交易，交易者必须用区块链的硬币Ether支付“汽油费”。截至5月1日中午，将一个令牌交换的平均汽油费平均为1.15美元。每笔汽油费的大部分都被烧毁了 - 换句话说，被摧毁，从总供应中清除硬币。

The fact that gas fees are destroyed means that Ethereum's total supply is constantly under downward pressure. At the same time, new Ether is slowly disbursed by the protocol to the network's stakers to reward them for locking up their capital. So the coin's supply isn't inherently inflationary or deflationary, though it has trended toward mild to moderate inflation during most of its existence so far.

汽油费被破坏的事实意味着以太坊的总供应不断下降。同时，该网络的Stakers协议逐渐宣布了新的Ether，以奖励他们锁定资本。因此，硬币的供应不是固有的通货膨胀或通货膨胀，尽管到目前为止，它的大部分存在都趋向于轻度至中度通货膨胀。

Separately, the Ethereum network has long struggled with high gas fees compared to its competitors. Its efforts to fix that have involved a series of upgrades to its technology as well as a few innovative solutions, like spinning off as much traffic as possible to more efficient independently operated subnetworks called Layer 2s. Those efforts have been phenomenally successful in absolute terms, even if they haven't yet made the Ethereum chain as cheap to use as its peers. During the past three years, average Ethereum transaction fees have fallen by more than 98%.

另外，与竞争对手相比，以太坊网络长期以来一直在高汽油费中挣扎。它的修复努力涉及对其技术的一系列升级以及一些创新的解决方案，例如，将尽可能多的流量转移到更有效的独立运行的子网络，称为第2层。这些努力在绝对的角度取得了惊人的成功，即使他们还没有像同行一样使以太坊链变得便宜。在过去的三年中，平均以太坊交易费用下降了98％以上。

But that's a problem from the perspective of the coin's total supply. As gas fees have fallen dramatically, so have the amounts of the coin burned with each transaction. With much weaker downward pressure on supply, the impact of its new coin issuance is higher, and because of the tech upgrades already made -- not to mention future updates on the way that will likely send gas fees even lower -- there's not going to be as strong of a counterweight to its supply growth ever again. There's thus now a risk that Ethereum's value will get steadily diluted more rapidly over the next few years.

但这是从硬币总供应的角度来看的问题。随着气体费用急剧下降，每笔交易都燃烧的硬币量也是如此。由于供应的下降压力较小，其新硬币发行的影响更高，而且由于技术升级已经进行了 - 更不用说未来可能会使汽油费甚至更低的更新 - 不会像供应增长一样强大。因此，现在有一种风险，即以太坊的价值将在未来几年内稳步稀释。

For investors who had expected Ethereum to retain its value over time -- as misguided of an expectation as that may have been -- this new risk is doubtlessly quite alarming.

对于那些期望以太坊随着时间的推移保留其价值的投资者而言，这种新风险无疑是令人震惊的。

Don't sweat too much about this just yet

不要为此汗水太多

Let's put the risk in context. Right now, Ethereum's supply is expected to grow by about 0.7% annually. Meanwhile, its total supply only rose by 9% during the past five years.

让我们在上下文中冒险。目前，以太坊的供应预计每年增长约0.7％。同时，在过去五年中，其总供应量仅增长了9％。

That means that supply growth is not a reason to sell your coins. Nor is it a reason for panic. The Ethereum protocol could be adjusted to be net-neutral or even slightly deflationary given gas fees that are the same or even lower than they are now. That would likely further drive down the rewards for staking, discouraging some investors from parking capital on the chain, but it would at least protect the value of the coin over time. There is also a chance that volume could increase on the network in a durable fashion if sentiment improves, which would result in a higher burn rate and a reduction of the already fairly low supply growth rate. So there are at least a couple of ways this risk could be defused entirely.

这意味着供应增长不是出售硬币的原因。这也不是恐慌的原因。可以将以太坊协议调整为净中性或什至稍微放置，因为气体费用相同甚至低于现在。这很可能会进一步推动奖励，以使某些投资者从链条上的停车资本中劝阻，但它至少会随着时间的推移而保护硬币的价值。如果情绪改善，也有可能以持久的方式在网络上增加数量，这将导致较高的燃烧率和已经相当低的供应增长率的降低。因此，至少有几种方式可以完全抗拒这种风险。

There are also a couple of ways that the supply growth could escalate into a real problem that would warrant selling your holdings. Those would likely require strategic mistakes by the chain's developers (such as orienting tech development in a direction that doesn't result in a better ability to compete in growth segments) or for capital devoted to staking to flee to another chain. Neither of those two things is destined to occur, but the chance of at least one of them happening at some point is moderate, and it's important to recognize that a bad strategic move would likely spur capital flight.

供应增长也可以通过几种方式升级为一个真正的问题，需要出售您的股份。这些可能需要链的开发人员的战略性错误（例如，朝着技术开发方向发展，这不会导致更好的能力在增长领域竞争）或投资专门用于逃脱的资本逃离另一个连锁店。这两件事都没有注定要发生，但是在某个时候，其中至少有一个发生的机会是温和的，重要的是要认识到，糟糕的战略举动可能会刺激资本飞行。

In short, this is an issue worth keeping an eye on even if it isn't extremely threatening today. The longer you plan on holding Ethereum, the more you should care about whether it's trending toward a higher inflation rate or not.

简而言之，这是一个值得关注的问题，即使今天的威胁并没有极大威胁。您计划持有以太坊的时间越长，您应该越关心它是否朝着更高的通货膨胀率趋势。