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FT stories don’t tend to involve Moo Deng and Hawk Tuah Girl. The only one that does is this morning’s sixth most-read on FT.com:
英国《金融时报》的报道通常不涉及Moo Deng和鹰图阿女孩(Hawk Tuah Girl)。唯一涉及的是今天早上FT.com上阅读量排名第六的文章：
Cryptocurrencies representing a euthanised grey squirrel, a Thai pygmy hippopotamus and a cartoon dog have exploded in value since last month’s US presidential election, as Donald Trump’s victory triggers a surge in speculation in so-called memecoins.
自上个月美国总统选举以来，代表被安乐死的灰松鼠、泰国侏儒河马和卡通狗的加密货币价值飙升，因为唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的胜利引发了对所谓模因币的投机热潮。
It’s a fun story, but is it really about financial markets? There are familiar terms, like market value and liquidity, and the familiar theme of extraordinary popular delusion. Bigwigs from legitimate businesses are quoted to the effect that things gone too far. “Memecoins are little more than frothy assets representing the market’s over-exuberance,” say “critics, including some of the biggest figures in the crypto industry.”
这是一个有趣的故事，但它真的与金融市场有关吗？其中有一些熟悉的术语，比如市值和流动性，还有一个熟悉的主题，即非同寻常的大众妄想。合法企业的大人物被引用说事情已经过头了。“批评者，包括加密行业的一些大人物，说‘迷因币不过是代表市场过度狂热的泡沫资产’。”
That’s all fine and good, but unless memecoins are securities, why should we care?
这都很好，但除非迷因币是证券，否则我们为什么要在意呢？
The US Securities and Exchange Commission takes the view that many crypto tokens are securities, and should trade only within the confines of US securities law. And under the leadership of Chair Gary Gensler, SEC actions against crypto companies have been based on one clear and easy-to-apply rule: don’t try anything. Consumer protection is by prohibition. The SEC’s pursuit of Coinbase, for example, would seem to send the message that crypto trading is bad even if there’s US-grade levels of regulatory compliance at the corporate level.
美国证券交易委员会(SEC)认为，许多加密代币是证券，应该只在美国证券法的框架内交易。在主席加里•根斯勒(Gary Gensler)的领导下，美国证券交易委员会对加密公司的行动基于一个明确且易于执行的规则：不要尝试任何事情。消费者保护是通过禁止来实现的。例如，美国证券交易委员会对Coinbase交易所的追诉似乎传达了这样一个信息：即使在公司层面达到美国级别的监管合规，加密交易仍然是不被认可的。
Memecoins are in effect exploiting a loophole in that regulatory perspective, which was framed around the last-but-one crash, when everyone was getting bilked by DeFi and Web3 vapourware. As Gensler said in a 2022 speech:
模因币实际上是在利用监管视角中的一个漏洞，这个视角是围绕倒数第二次崩盘而制定的，当时每个人都被去中心化金融和Web3的虚拟产品欺骗。正如根斯勒在2022年的一次演讲中所说：
Of the nearly 10,000 tokens in the crypto market, I believe the vast majority are securities. . . In general, the investing public is buying or selling crypto security tokens because they’re expecting profits derived from the efforts of others in a common enterprise.
在加密市场上近一万种代币中，我相信绝大多数都是证券。总体而言，投资者购买或出售加密证券代币是因为他们期望从共同企业中他人的努力中获利。
No one talks much about common enterprise projects any more. Selling tokens on the claim that the money will be used to build or maintain something is, the SEC says, creating unauthorised investment securities. Selling tokens that lack common enterprise and involve no effort from anyone are more like caricatures of investment securities, so they slip below the regulatory threshold. The Howey Test is difficult to apply to a mark in a ledger that has the same name as an internet-famous hippo and relates to nothing.
现在几乎没有人再谈论共同企业项目了。美国证券交易委员会表示，声称出售代币所筹资金将用于建设或维护某物，这实际上是在创建未经授权的投资证券。出售缺乏共同企业且不需要任何人付出努力的代币更像是投资证券的讽刺画，因此它们低于监管门槛。很难将Howey测试应用于一个在账本中与网络知名河马同名且与任何事物无关的标记。
Gensler’s exit in January, when memePOTUS is inaugurated, is widely predicted to mean pro-crypto regulation. There are two ways to read that:
人们普遍预测，根斯勒将在1月memePOTUS就职时离任，这将意味着支持加密货币的监管。对此有两种解读方式：
US securities laws are rejigged to make crypto a conventional asset class that’s integrated into the mainstream financial system, which would add all sorts of regulatory costs and frictions.
Crypto continues to do what it does and US regulators are instructed to look the other way. This would be exciting and would make a lot of people rich, though it would also make a lot of people poor, so it;s impossible to say if it’s bad or not.
美国的证券法律被重新调整，使加密货币成为一种传统资产类别，并融入主流金融体系，这将增加各种监管成本和摩擦。
加密货币继续按照其方式运作，而美国监管机构被指示对其视而不见。这将是令人兴奋的，并且会让很多人变得富有，但同时也会让很多人变得贫穷，因此很难说这到底是好还是坏。
In scenario one, memecoins could be in trouble. They are very unlikely to be classified as securities, and the recent resurgence is pretty much irrelevant to the integrity of capital markets, but that’s no reason to pursue two-tier regulation. Even the most pro-crypto lobbyist may see some risks in letting shitcoin shenanigans run rampant when trying to give bitcoin the same status as T-bills.
在第一种情境中，迷因币可能会遇到麻烦。它们被归类为证券的可能性很小，最近的复苏几乎与资本市场的完整性无关，但这并不是推行双重监管的理由。即使是最支持加密货币的游说者，在试图赋予比特币与国库券相同地位时，也可能会看到放任劣质币恶作剧泛滥的一些风险。
In scenario two, memecoins are pretty much unaffected. The chances of a novelty token being classified as a security moves from vanishingly small to zero and the current nonsense can continue for as long as people find entertainment in it. Of the two scenarios, this feels the most plausible.
在第二种情境中，迷因币几乎不受影响。新奇代币被归类为证券的可能性从微乎其微变为零，只要人们觉得有趣，当前的胡闹就可以继续。在这两种情境中，这种情境似乎最为可信。
The SEC’s consumer-protection-by-prohibition regime failed because it started in the wrong place. It was a mistake to lump crypto in with capital markets based on their superficial similarities.
美国证券交易委员会通过禁止来保护消费者的制度失败了，因为它的出发点是错误的。将加密货币与资本市场混为一谈，仅仅因为它们的表面相似性，这是一个错误。
It’s reasonable for a regulator to ban any crypto tokens that could be mistaken for investment securities. But the hostile environment that created has hindered any possibility of useful innovation in the mainstream, while ignoring the growth of a home-brew gambling industry where all the cards are crimped and all the dice are capped.
监管机构禁止任何可能被误认为投资证券的加密代币是合理的。然而，这种敌对环境阻碍了主流中任何有用创新的可能性，同时忽视了一个自制赌博行业的增长，在这个行业中，所有的牌都被做了手脚，所有的骰子都被动了手脚。
Any government that wanted to stop its citizens putting wagers on digital Jenga would be better served by giving the task to different types of regulators.
任何希望阻止其公民在数字积木游戏上下注的政府，最好将这项任务交给不同类型的监管机构。
And perhaps the newly pro-crypto US will take the lead? We’re one high-profile rugpull away from public sentiment turning, with industry grandees like CZ already preparing for the backlash. With the SEC soon to be bypassed, it’s within the realms of possibility that Trump’s government introduces federal legislation that mandates some form of crypto exchange licensing on top of the US’s state-level patchwork of gambling regulations.
或许新近支持加密货币的美国将会引领潮流？我们距离一次引人注目的骗局仅一步之遥，公众情绪可能会因此转变，行业大佬如CZ已经在为可能的反弹做准备。随着美国证券交易委员会即将被绕过，特朗普政府有可能在美国州级赌博法规的基础上，推出联邦立法，要求某种形式的加密货币交易所许可。
It’d be a useful reclassification. Tokenised assets would be regulated by whichever regulators are already responsible for those assets, whereas tokens without assets would be gaming chips. Consumer protection would move into the realm of gambling-related harm. Instead of saying the PEPE token has the market value equal to Sainsbury’s, we could say it’s worth a third of a Super Bowl sportsbook. Neither comparison is perfect, but the latter is probably more informative than the former.
这将是一次有益的重新分类。代币化资产将由已经负责这些资产的监管机构进行监管，而没有资产的代币将被视为游戏筹码。消费者保护将转向与赌博相关的危害领域。与其说PEPE代币的市场价值等同于塞恩斯伯里，不如说它相当于超级碗体育博彩的三分之一。两者的比较都不完美，但后者可能比前者更具信息性。
In the meantime, the most useful thing we can do is stop thinking of memecoins as securities. They’re not securities. They’re not going to be securities any time soon. They’re tokens for MMOG games of chicken.
与此同时，我们能做的最有用的事情就是不再将模因币视为证券。它们不是证券。它们在短期内也不会成为证券。它们是大型多人在线(MMOG)“胆小鬼”游戏的代币。
There’s a common assumption that chicken is a stupid game played by stupid people. That may be true at the margin, but most of the players are acting rationally. They have rightly deduced that their chances of getting out in time are improved by choosing a funny name, or wash-trading a tiny free float up to some absurd valuation, or tapping the virtual boiler rooms, or whatever the hell GOAT is. Even those arriving late can profit if, for example, an influential media organisation puts the memecoin on its homepage and pulls in more punters willing to try their luck.
人们普遍认为，“胆小鬼游戏”是愚蠢的人玩的愚蠢游戏。这在某些情况下可能成立，但大多数玩家的行为是理性的。他们正确地推断出，通过选择一个有趣的名字，或通过洗售少量自由流通股以达到荒谬的估值，或利用虚拟锅炉房，或不管GOAT是什么，他们逃脱的机会会更大。即使是那些迟到的人也能获利，例如，如果一个有影响力的媒体组织将这个迷因币放在其主页上，并吸引更多愿意碰碰运气的投机者。
This keeps working because most financial news doesn’t reference Moo Deng and Hawk Tuah Girl. It’s mostly about securities, which are by design quite boring.
这之所以一直有效，是因为大多数金融新闻没有提到Moo Deng和鹰图阿女孩。金融新闻主要涉及证券，而证券本身设计得相当无聊。
Once we stop thinking about memecoins as if they’re securities and treat them like any other gambling market, the parasitical attention cycle should be broken. But for that to happen, you’ll have to stop clicking on stories like this one. It’s your fault we keep doing this, basically.
一旦我们不再将迷因币视为证券，而是像对待其他赌博市场一样对待它们，这种寄生性的关注循环就会被打破。但要实现这一点，你必须停止点击像这样的报道。基本上，我们一直这样做都是因为你。
Further reading
延伸阅读
— 安然现在正在社交媒体上发布消息