[imtoken钱包下载安卓最新版本]比特币疯狂分叉，今年或分裂50次

审稿：夏林

加密货币研究机构CryptoCompare首席执行官查理·海特说：“比特币现金很成功，势头相当强劲。现在其他交易者也想尝试一下，看看自己能否弄出同样的东西来。”

Even some of Bitcoin’s initial forks are getting forked, with Bitcoin Cash getting a proposed derivative, Bitcoin Candy.

进行分叉的动机各不相同。一些支持者是为了改进比特币。别的人则打算迅速捞上一票。开发者通常会在所谓的“后挖矿”过程中获得一些新产生的比特币，但价格未必能长期保持不变。

“Unfortunately, most fork-based projects we see today are more of a sheer money grab,” said George Kimionis, chief executive officer of Coinomi, a wallet that lets Bitcoin owners collect their new forked coins. “Looking back a few years from now we might realize that they were just mutations fostered by investors blinded by numerical price increases — rather than honest attempts to contribute to the blockchain ecosystem.”

Years ago, entrepreneurs drew on Bitcoin’s code to launch alternatives such as Litecoin and later Dogecoin, seeking to differentiate themselves in name and often in features. But while Dogecoin now has a $770 million market value, younger clones Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold already dwarf it. Bitcoin Cash, launched in August, is now the fourth most valuable coin, worth a total of about $28 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.com.

A fork can often make millions for its developers as well as the server farms running and supporting the new software. Bitcoin Gold distributed 100,000 coins, currently worth about $190 apiece, to an endowment funding its ecosystem and development. About 5,000 of those coins went to the core team that created the fork. If the coins appreciate, that’s a boon for the developers as well.

He predicts forking may soon sideline a more popular alternative, initial coin offerings, in which startups raise money by selling entirely new tokens. That market has gotten crowded after raising about $3.7 billion last year, and smaller offerings have struggled.

Forks can also help startups raise funds in countries such as China, where ICOs have been banned, said Susan Eustis, CEO of WinterGreen Research.

Coinomi CEO基米沃尼斯指出：“我们把选择权交给用户，让他们决定自己打算使用哪种资产，不用哪种资产。我们并没有替他们做出决定。”（财富中文网）

比特币上帝（Bitcoin God）上个月“降临”。比特币披萨（Bitcoin Private）1月份“到货”。比特币隐私（Bitcoin Private）的发行日期……仍是个迷。

译者：Charlie

矿工，也就是用自己的计算机和服务器进行加密货币交易的人，一直在帮助创造新币种，其目的是大赚一笔。区块链金融机构Bitbank和一些中国矿工是在比特币核心开发者杰夫·加齐克创造出联合比特币（UnitedBitcoin）时购置的设备，联合比特币2017年12月出现了分叉。和其他许多分叉一样，这个分叉可以用无法在比特币网络上和最先进计算机竞争的老设备挖矿。也就是说，如果联合比特币价格上涨，使用支持该币种的老机器的矿工就会获得高额收益。

Worth Billions

They’re just a few of the growing stable of so-called forks — a type of spinoff in which developers clone Bitcoin’s software, release it with a new name, a new coin and possibly a few new features. Often, the idea is to capitalize on the public’s familiarity with Bitcoin to make some serious money, at least virtually.

一些比特币初始分叉甚至又有了自己的分叉，比特币现金就即将衍生出比特币糖果（Bitcoin Candy）。

小矿工

雷特·克赖顿正在准备即将出现的比特币隐私分叉，他在接受电话采访时说：“比特币分叉是一种新的山寨币。以后会出现一大堆比特币分叉，而且它们将开始取代一些排在前100位的山寨币。”比特币隐私做出的承诺是和原始比特币相比，它提供的隐私功能更多。

矿工的支持并不总是足以支撑价格。一位创造者发出的邮件显示，去年12月底出现的SegWit2x [B2X]分叉吸引了一万多名矿工。但比特币交易所Yobit.net的数据表明，B2X的价格持续下滑，12月22日以来其价值已蒸发逾90%。

Miners — whose computers and servers process cryptocurrency transactions — have been helping create new coins, hoping for fat rewards. Bitbank and some Chinese miners were instrumental when Bitcoin core developer Jeff Garzik created UnitedBitcoin, which forked in December. Like many other forks, it can be mined using older gear that can’t compete with state-of-the-art machines on the Bitcoin network. So if UnitedBitcoin takes off, miners with older machines that support it will be minting money.

Motives behind the efforts vary. Some backers try to improve on Bitcoin. Others seek a quick profit. Developers typically score a cache of newly minted coins in a process called post-mining. Yet prices don’t necessarily hold up for long.

基米沃尼斯预测，分叉可能很快就会让另一种更受欢迎的方法靠边站，后者被称为代币发行融资，也就是初创公司通过出售崭新代币来筹集资金。去年代币发行融资规模约为37亿美元，现在这个市场已经变得拥挤起来，规模较小的发行融资遇到了困难。

市场研究机构WinterGreen Research首席执行官苏珊·尤斯蒂斯指出，分叉可能还有助于在中国等禁止代币发行融资的国家筹集资金。

“Bitcoin Cash was successful, quite a lot of momentum,” Charlie Hayter, CEO of coin researcher CryptoCompare, said in a phone interview. “Now other traders try to see if they can pull off the same thing.”

加密货币通用钱包Coinomi允许比特币持有者在其中存放他们新分叉出来的比特币，该公司首席执行官乔治·基米沃尼斯说：“可惜，目前我们看到的大多数基于分叉的项目都更多地以捞钱为目的。回顾几年前的情况，我们或许会意识到它们只是那些被价格上涨蒙蔽了双眼的投资者孕育出来的变异体，而不是真的打算为区块链生态系统做贡献。”

Some 19 Bitcoin forks came out last year — but up to 50 more could happen this year, according to Lex Sokolin, global director of fintech strategy at Autonomous Research. Ultimately, the number could run even higher now that Forkgen, a site enabling anyone with rudimentary programming skills to launch a clone, is in operation. In a Jan. 14 tweet, hedge fund manager Ari Paul predicted more than 10 percent of the current value of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash will reside in new offshoots.

几年前，创业者借鉴比特币的代码推出了其他加密货币，比如莱特币和后来的狗币。这些加密货币通过名字，也经常通过新功能让自己区别于比特币。不过，虽然目前狗币的市值为7.70亿美元，但新克隆出来的比特币现金和比特币黄金（Bitcoin Gold）已经超过了它。比特币现金去年8月份问世，CoinMarketCap.com的数据显示，目前它是价值第四高的加密货币，总市值约为280亿美元。