A novel version of money is sprouting online, letting people shop in complete anonymity.
網上出現了一種新奇的貨幣，可以讓人們以完全匿名的方式進行購物。

What if people could use the Internet to create a new kind of money, one that didn’t involve governments and central banks and could be used anonymously,like cash? That is the idea behind Bitcoin, a virtual currency that has caught the attention of computer geeks, financial speculators, and drug dealers. For the first time, you can buy anything online without giving your credit-card number or bank-account information—leaving no trace at all.
比特幣是一種引起電腦極客、金融投機家和毒販注意的虛擬貨幣，你能用它在網上購買任何東西而不必給出信用卡號碼或銀行帳戶資訊——根本不會留下任何蛛絲馬跡，這可是頭一回碰到的事情。

Hundreds of merchants accept Bitcoins for things like books, computers, and professional services. The currency trades on a handful of Bitcoin exchanges,where the price of a Bitcoin fluctuates based on demand. Not long ago a single Bitcoin sold for less than a dollar, but in recent months the price climbed to$8, then to $20, then above $30, before falling back to $18, the current level.
這種貨幣在少數幾家比特幣交易所進行交易，而它在交易所中的價格在需求的基礎上上下波動。

What exactly are you buying? A Bitcoin is basically just a little bit of encrypted code that can be zipped over the Internet and stored in a digital wallet. The concept was proposed by a mysterious hacker named Satoshi Nakamoto(no one knows who he is, and the name is believed to be a pseudonym), who published a white paper describing a way in which computers connected over the Internet could be used to create an unregulated “cryptocurrency.”
比特幣本質上就是能在互聯網上快速傳遞和存儲在電子錢包中的一小串加密代碼。比特幣的想法是由一個名叫Satoshi Nakamoto（沒有人知道他是誰，這個名字被認為是一個假名）的神秘駭客提出的，在他發表的白皮書中，描述了一種利用聯網電腦創造一種不受管理的“秘密貨幣”的方法。

New York Sen. Charles Schumer recently called Bitcoin “an online form of money laundering,” after learning about an online warehouse called Silk Road where sellers advertise an astounding array of illegal wares—marijuana, hashish, LSD, ecstasy, cocaine, heroin—and where the only currency accepted is the Bitcoin. (Silk Road is currently shut down, though its anonymous manager claims he intends to start back up soon.)
在得悉一家叫做“絲路（SilkRoad）”的線上商店的賣主們為了出售大量非法商品——大麻、印度大麻製劑、迷幻藥、搖頭丸、可卡因、海洛因而打出廣告，並且只允許使用比特幣進行交易之後，紐約參議員查理斯•舒曼近來表示，比特幣是“一種線上形式的洗錢”（絲路公司目前被關停，但是其匿名的經理聲稱，他打算馬上再開一家）。

Right now there are about 6.5 million Bitcoinsin circulation. The money supply is controlled by software algorithms and the total supply will max out at 21 million coins. You can crank out Bitcoins on a PC, but it’s an incredibly computer-intensive task, and it will keep getting harder as the number of Bitcoins in existence increases. Some people have pooled together hundreds of machines to “mine” Bitcoins. Most folks, however, just buy them on an exchange.
目前有大約650萬比特幣正在流通，這種貨幣的供應量由軟體演算法控制，總供應量最高值為2100萬比特幣。你可以在電腦上製造比特幣，但這需要擁有極為強大的計算能力，而且隨著現存比特幣數量逐漸增多，製造比特幣將變得愈加困難。一些人為“開採”比特幣彙集了數百台電腦，而大多數人只是通過兌換的方式購買。

Some already are hoarding Bitcoins,expecting a Bitcoin bubble will drive the value up to hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars per coin. The biggest holder, whose identity is not known,is sitting on about 300,000 coins, currently worth about $6 million, says Donald Norman, who runs the London-based Bitcoin Consultancy, which advises companies that want to get in on the action.
一些人已經在積聚比特幣，期望比特幣泡沫將每個比特幣的價格推高到數百，甚至數千美元。倫敦一間名叫 Bitcoin Consultancy 公司，負責為意欲涉足比特幣業務的公司提供建議。

Norman says the power of Bitcoins is that they can free people from the tyranny of middlemen: banks; credit-card companies; and money shippers like Western Union, which charge exorbitant fees for performing a rather simple task.
比特幣的魅力就在於它能讓人們免于中間人——銀行、信用卡公司、貨幣托運人如西聯匯款（Western Union）的盤剝，這些中間人的工作極為簡單，卻要收取過高的費用。

But for a lot of people the appeal lies in the chance to get rich quick by getting in early on the next Internet craze. Still, investing in Bitcoins is extremely risky. You don’t know who’s running the exchanges, and you can’t be sure these guys won’t just take your money and run.
但是對於許多人來說，比特幣之所以充滿吸引力，是因為他們想在下一次互聯網熱潮早期跟進，從而一夜暴富。不過，投資比特幣風險極高，你不知道誰在經營匯兌業務，你也不能確保這些人不會白拿了你的錢之後一走了之。

Adding to the risk, authorities might take action. But even if Bitcoin goes away, others like it will spring up. “Now that we have the technology to create decentralized currencies,” Norman says, “they are definitely here tostay.”
官方有可能採取的行動，也令風險進一步增加。但是即使比特幣消失了，與它類似的其他貨幣也會迅速湧現。但是“既然我們的技術允許我們創造去中心化貨幣（decentralized currency），那麼這些貨幣肯定會永遠存在下去”。