Have you seen my lottery ticket, Sam? I seem to have lost it somewhere…
你看过我的彩票吗，山姆？我好像把它丢在了某个地方......
Sam(山姆)
Is this another one of your get-rich-quick schemes, Neil? People invent all kinds of ways to make a lot of money quickly and with little effort. Well, if you really want to get rich quick, maybe you should copy technology tycoon Elon Musk. Recently he invested one and a half billion dollars in the cryptocurrency, bitcoin.
Bitcoin has made some people very rich, very quickly, but as we’ll be hearing in this programme, it’s not without its critics.
比特币已经让一些人变得非常富有，非常迅速，但正如我们将在本节目中听到的那样，它并非没有批评者。
Sam(山姆)
Creating bitcoins, a process known as mining, uses huge amounts of electricity and green campaigners are now questioning bitcoin’s impact on global energy use.
OK, we’ll find out the answer later in the programme.
好的，我们将在节目后面找到答案。
Sam(山姆)
In this programme, we are going to talk about bitcoin. The use of the virtual currency… it’s all very well for billionaires like Elon Musk, but what about the ordinary, average person – is bitcoin a good option for them?
Well, that’s exactly what BBC World Service programme Tech Tent wanted to find out by interviewing people in the street. Here’s what one bitcoin fan, Heather Delany, had to say:
I invested in bitcoin a number of years ago… with the initial investment of only around five dollars it meant that my risk was essentially the cost of a cup of coffee and a pastry, and as somebody who’s quite risk-averse when it comes to investment, it did allow me to dip my toe into bitcoin. Over time I was able to invest at various points as I really see bitcoin as more of a long-term investment and part of my overall pension plan.
So, everything seems to be working out for Heather.
所以，一切似乎都在为希瑟而努力。
Sam(山姆)
But the recent buzz around bitcoin has also highlighted another, less positive side of the story - bitcoin’s environmental footprint.
但最近围绕比特币的嗡嗡声也凸显了故事的另一个不那么积极的一面 —— 比特币的环境足迹。
Neil(尼尔)
Mining bitcoins, the complex process that creates new coins, uses a lot of electricity. Recent estimates show that bitcoin has now overtaken the entire annual electricity use of Argentina!
Michel Rauchs works at Cambridge University’s Centre for Alternative Finance which monitors bitcoin’s electrical consumption. Here he is in conversation with BBC World Service’s, Tech Tent:
Bitcoin consumes just a colossal amount of electricity and now whether that electricity expenditure is really worth the benefits, I think that really depends on how you value bitcoin itself… but just looking at the electricity consumption, I think we need to put things a bit into perspective… so, on the one hand if you compare it to a country like Argentina, it’s just incredible, awe-inspiring… on the other hand, if you compare it to, for example, home appliances that are always on – on standby but not being used – in the US alone, that consumes twice as much electricity on a yearly basis as the entire bitcoin network.
Michel thinks that to assess bitcoin’s energy use we must put things into perspective - find the true, objective value of something.
米歇尔认为，要评估比特币的能源使用情况，我们必须正确看待事物 —— 找到事物的真实、客观价值。
Neil(尼尔)
Comparing bitcoin’s energy use to a huge country like Argentina sounds monstrous. But looked at another way, bitcoin only consumes half the electricity used by all US televisions and other home appliances left on standby – which means powered on and ready to work when needed.
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