2022.06.26 加密货币的老板们到底学到了什么吗？

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Have the Crypto Bosses Learned Anything At All?
The crash should have been a humbling moment for the industry. Instead, companies are doubling down.

By Will Gottsegen
An image of a clown with the Bitcoin logo in its eyes
The Atlantic; Getty
JUNE 26, 2022
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Last Monday marked one of the biggest TV events of June—Game 5 of the NBA finals. So naturally the crypto exchange Coinbase used the opportunity to air an ad poking fun at crypto’s more enthusiastic doomsayers. A series of tweets declaring “Crypto is dead”—some new, others nearly a decade old—fades in and out over a rendition of Chopin’s funeral march. Then a new slogan rises up in a harsh blue font: “Long live crypto.”

The very next day, Coinbase laid off 1,100 employees, about a fifth of its workforce. Maybe the doomsayers were onto something: The prices of bitcoin and Ethereum, the two most popular coins, have tumbled more than 70 percent from pandemic highs; the NFT market has cratered; and optimism is in short supply. Everywhere you look, the dominoes are falling: One prominent firm, Three Arrows Capital, is reportedly approaching collapse, while other companies are desperately seeking bailouts to stay afloat. In the past three months, the crypto market has shed more than $1 trillion. (A spokesperson for Coinbase explained the ad’s timing by saying it was “part of a prearranged package that came with our sponsorship of the NBA.”)

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And yet the overwhelming sentiment among many of these companies, even as they’re bleeding out, is that crypto isn’t really dead at all. All across the industry, you can spot the rhetorical gesture of that Coinbase ad—an insistence on the idea that the investors and onlookers are all taking the recent downtrends a little too seriously. You would think that a crash of this magnitude—the first since crypto has fully entered the mainstream—would be a humbling moment for the industry, one that would compel some of the movement’s biggest proponents to hunker down and build sturdier systems. But at this point, many crypto kings are refusing to reflect at all.

Read: The crypto crash feels amazing

Not coincidentally, the companies doing the least reflecting are the ones with their hands deepest in the cookie jar. Part of what spurred on the current crash was a cryptocurrency called TerraUSD, a type of so-called stablecoin designed to more or less equal the value of the U.S. dollar. The whole point of stablecoins is that they’re supposed to be less volatile than other cryptocurrencies, a way of protecting your money while still keeping your chips in the casino. That was the idea, at least: TerraUSD was tied to another cryptocurrency called Luna, and when its value plummeted in early May, investors promptly dumped their TerraUSD. Tokens meant to sell for $1 a pop were suddenly trading for almost nothing, and, according to Bloomberg, $60 billion of investors’ money was zapped away.


Do Kwon, the 30-year-old co-founder of the company that created Terra, responded to the chaos with a simple proposition: Terra 2.0. It would be like if Bear Stearns launched “Bear Stearns 2.0” in 2008, an act of hubris so extreme that it almost defies belief. Kwon, who didn’t respond to a request for comment, relaunched the new tokens with a slightly tweaked battle plan, and Luna holders approved the reboot. While the rest of the world awaits more concrete answers about that $60 billion, Kwon has been doubling down on Terra 2.0 with a series of Twitter threads. But of course the trust isn’t there—after an initial upswing, the price has been in a steady decline.

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As the wider crypto market has tanked in the weeks since the Terra collapse, other flailing companies have been similarly unwilling to publicly reflect on the damage. The crypto lender Celsius Network made it big by promising yields much higher than those of traditional bank accounts. That approach generated gobs of money when crypto was booming, but apparently it hasn’t fared so well during the downturn. As rumors began to circulate about Celsius’s financial issues, the company’s founder, Alex Mashinsky, dismissed it all as “FUD,” crypto shorthand for “fear, uncertainty, and doubt.” “Do you know even one person who has a problem withdrawing from Celsius?” he tweeted. Just over 24 hours later, the company put a freeze on all withdrawals, locking customers out of their accounts. (The freeze remains in place almost two weeks later.)

Mashinsky, whose Twitter profile picture depicts him as a Roman emperor, laurel wreath and all, has gone dark on social media, and paused the company’s regularly scheduled “ask me anything” sessions. A note from the company, released a week ago, shed little light on the situation: No word on the whereabouts of investors’ funds, or on the ongoing investigations into the company’s operations from regulators in at least five states. (Celsius and Mashinksy did not respond to a request for comment.)

Though the company now displays a somber banner on its website referencing the freeze and has released a short FAQ about it, Celsius also still touts a product with “military-grade security, next-level transparency, and a do-it-all app designed to help you reach your financial goals—whether you’re HODLing long-term or swapping daily.” (HODL is an intentionally misspelled call to “hold” your coins, even if the value of your investment drops.) The implicit message is that customers should continue to put their faith in Celsius, even as the walls begin to close in.


Read: How crypto disappeared into thin air

Throughout the industry, there’s a sense from the biggest players in crypto that if we all just keep the faith, traders can effectively spend their way out of the crisis. Cameron Winklevoss, the billionaire co-founder of the crypto exchange Gemini, recently tweeted that the bitcoin dip feels “irrational,” because “the underlying fundamentals, adoption, and infrastructure have never been stronger.” It’s not a question of fundamentals, though; asking people to look more closely at the tech will not somehow end the bear market. A few days ago, Michael Saylor, whose software company, MicroStrategy, has spent billions of dollars acquiring bitcoin, called the cryptocurrency “a lifeboat, tossed on a stormy sea, offering hope to anyone in the world that needs to get off their sinking ship.” But right now, bitcoin is the sinking ship.

I don’t claim to know how best to respond to a situation like this, but if you’re an executive hoping to recover your reputation after losing billions of dollars of other people’s money, it’s probably ideal to drop the notion that everything’s going to be okay. No one is expecting crypto companies to critique crypto—but the most culpable actors could at least tone down that “buy the dip” ethos as everyone’s portfolios start to crumble. Sometimes, it’s actually prudent to admit defeat; at least in 2008 we weren’t subjected to a barrage of defensive Twitter antics from the bankers asleep at the wheel.


These aren’t just numbers on a screen, after all. It’s easy to feel smug about the crypto crash if you’ve been wary of the whole subculture, but a sort of mental-health crisis has been unfolding on crypto-centric Reddit forums, as traders find community in commiseration. (Suicide hotlines were at one point pinned to the top of a forum for Terra enthusiasts.) People who took out loans from Celsius are on the brink of losing their homes. And as the contagion begins to infect other firms, like the crumbling Three Arrows Capital, those with the least to lose will be the hardest hit.

But even if the doubling down is an awkward move, it fits squarely within the larger free-market libertarianism that stretches back to the origin of bitcoin: the idea that market corrections should help shake out the fraudsters and give investors more robust options in the future. It’s up to traders to “DYOR” (“Do your own research”) and make cautious investments, the thinking goes; the government shouldn’t have to bail you out if things go south. It doesn’t help that the industry still feels like it has a chip on its shoulder, Rohan Grey, a law professor at Willamette University who studies crypto, told me, in part because of its historically uneasy relationship with the traditional banking system. Crypto companies are “always trying to prove that not only are you pro-market and pro-profit, all those things that the rest of Wall Street loves,” he said, “but you’re also doing it with this big middle finger up to the traditional elites.”


And yet people like Kwon and Mashinsky are the elites. The industry’s riches are creating a new set of rules in real time: Newly minted crypto billionaires are already pouring money into media and politics, with an eye toward creating new institutions more friendly to their ambitions. The project of crypto is, in some sense, about avoiding the protections and guardrails we’ve come to associate with traditional finance. Maybe that worked in 2013, when bitcoin was more of a niche curiosity—but it’s different now that crypto has grown by leaps and bounds. When the numbers go up again (and they will almost certainly go up again), you can expect a fair amount of I-told-you-so’s from this same crowd. But if there’s no sense of responsibility on the part of these giant firms, we could end up right back where we started.

Will Gottsegen is a writer based in New York.




加密货币的老板们到底学到了什么吗？
崩溃本应是该行业的一个谦卑的时刻。相反，公司正在加倍努力。

作者：Will Gottsegen
一张眼睛里有比特币标志的小丑图片
The Atlantic; Getty
2022年6月26日

上周一是6月份最大的电视事件之一--NBA总决赛第五场比赛。因此，加密货币交易所Coinbase自然而然地利用这个机会播放了一则广告，嘲笑加密货币更热情的末日论者。一系列宣称 "加密货币已死 "的推文--有些是新的，有些是近十年前的--在肖邦葬礼进行曲的演绎中渐渐消失。然后，一个新的口号以刺眼的蓝色字体升起。"加密货币万岁"。

第二天，Coinbase就解雇了1100名员工，约占其员工总数的五分之一。也许那些预言家们发现了什么：比特币和以太坊这两种最受欢迎的币的价格已经从大流行的高点跌落了70%以上；NFT市场已经崩溃；乐观情绪也很匮乏。无论你看哪里，多米诺骨牌都在倒下。据报道，一家著名的公司--三箭资本（Three Arrows Capital）正接近崩溃，而其他公司正拼命寻求救助以维持生存。在过去三个月里，加密货币市场已经损失了超过1万亿美元。(Coinbase的一位发言人解释说，这则广告的时间是 "我们赞助NBA时预先安排的套餐的一部分"）。

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然而，在这些公司中的许多人中，即使他们正在流血，压倒性的情绪是，加密货币根本没有真正死亡。在整个行业中，你可以发现Coinbase那则广告的修辞姿态--坚持认为投资者和旁观者都把最近的下跌趋势看得有点太严重。你会认为，这种规模的崩溃--自加密货币完全进入主流市场以来的第一次--对该行业来说是一个谦卑的时刻，这将迫使该运动的一些最大支持者蜷缩起来，建立更坚固的系统。但在这一点上，许多加密货币大王根本就拒绝反思。

阅读。加密货币崩溃的感觉很奇妙

并非巧合的是，做反思最少的公司是那些手在饼干罐里最深的公司。刺激当前暴跌的部分原因是一种名为TerraUSD的加密货币，这是一种所谓的稳定币，旨在或多或少地与美元的价值相等。稳定币的全部意义在于，它们应该比其他加密货币的波动性更小，这是一种保护你的钱的方式，同时仍然保持你在赌场的筹码。至少是这样的想法。TerraUSD与另一种名为Luna的加密货币挂钩，当其价值在5月初暴跌时，投资者迅速抛出他们的TerraUSD。据彭博社报道，本应以每枚1美元的价格出售的代币，突然以几乎一无所有的价格交易，投资者的600亿美元的资金被抽走。


创建Terra公司的30岁的联合创始人Do Kwon用一个简单的提议回应了这场混乱。Terra 2.0。这就像贝尔斯登在2008年推出 "贝尔斯登2.0 "一样，这种狂妄行为如此极端，几乎令人难以置信。权志龙没有回应评论请求，他重新推出了新的代币，并略微调整了作战计划，月球持有人批准了重新启动。当全世界都在等待关于那600亿美元的更具体的答案时，权健一直在用一系列的推特线程来加倍宣传Terra 2.0。但当然，信任并不在那里--在最初的上升之后，价格一直处于稳定的下降之中。

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随着更广泛的加密货币市场在Terra崩溃后的几周内陷入困境，其他摇摆不定的公司也同样不愿意公开反思其损失。加密货币贷款机构Celsius Network通过承诺比传统银行账户的收益率高得多而大获成功。在加密货币蓬勃发展的时候，这种方法产生了大量的资金，但显然在经济低迷时期它的表现并不理想。当关于Celsius财务问题的传言开始流传时，该公司的创始人亚历克斯-马辛斯基(Alex Mashinsky)将其视为 "FUD"，即加密货币 "恐惧、不确定和怀疑 "的简称。"你知道哪怕是一个从Celsius提款有问题的人吗？"他在推特上说。仅仅过了24小时，该公司就冻结了所有提款，将客户从他们的账户中锁定。(两周后，该冻结措施仍在执行）。

马辛斯基在推特上的个人照片将他描绘成一个罗马皇帝，戴着月桂花环，他在社交媒体上消失了，并暂停了该公司定期举行的 "问我任何问题 "会议。该公司一周前发布的一份说明对这一情况几乎没有说明。没有关于投资者资金下落的消息，也没有关于至少五个州的监管机构正在对该公司的运营进行调查的消息。(Celsius和Mashinksy没有回应评论请求）。

尽管该公司现在在其网站上展示了一个阴郁的横幅，提到了冻结，并发布了一个简短的常见问题，但Celsius仍然吹嘘其产品具有 "军事级别的安全性，下一个级别的透明度，以及一个旨在帮助你实现你的财务目标的全能应用程序--无论你是长期HODL还是每天交换。" (HODL是一个故意拼错的称呼，即 "持有 "你的硬币，即使你的投资价值下降。） 隐含的信息是，客户应该继续把他们的信心放在Celsius上，即使墙壁开始关闭。


阅读：加密货币如何消失在空气中

在整个行业中，加密货币的最大参与者有一种感觉，如果我们都保持信心，交易者可以有效地花费他们的方式来摆脱危机。加密货币交易所Gemini的亿万富翁联合创始人Cameron Winklevoss最近在推特上说，比特币的下跌感觉 "非理性"，因为 "基本面、采用和基础设施从未如此强大。" 不过，这不是一个基本面的问题；要求人们更仔细地看技术，不会以某种方式结束熊市。几天前，迈克尔-赛勒（Michael Saylor），他的软件公司微策略（MicroStrategy）花费了数十亿美元收购比特币，他称加密货币是 "一艘救生艇，被抛在暴风雨的海上，为世界上任何需要离开他们的沉船的人提供了希望。" 但现在，比特币就是那艘沉船。

我并不声称自己知道如何最好地应对这样的情况，但是如果你是一个希望在失去其他人数十亿美元的资金后恢复自己声誉的高管，放弃一切都会好起来的观念可能是理想的。没有人期望加密货币公司批判加密货币--但是，当每个人的投资组合开始崩溃时，最应受到谴责的行为者至少可以淡化 "买跌 "的精神。有时，承认失败实际上是谨慎的；至少在2008年，我们没有受到睡着了的银行家们在Twitter上的一连串防御性滑稽动作。


毕竟，这些并不只是屏幕上的数字。如果你对整个亚文化保持警惕，很容易对加密货币的崩溃感到自鸣得意，但在以加密货币为中心的Reddit论坛上，一种心理健康危机已经展开，因为交易者在同情中找到社区。(自杀热线一度被钉在一个泰拉爱好者论坛的顶部）。从Celsius贷款的人正处于失去家园的边缘。而当这种传染病开始感染其他公司，如摇摇欲坠的三箭资本，那些损失最小的人将受到最严重的打击。

但是，即使翻倍是一个尴尬的举动，它也完全符合更大的自由市场自由主义，这可以追溯到比特币的起源：市场修正应该有助于震慑骗子，并在未来为投资者提供更强大的选择。这种想法认为，交易者应该 "DYOR"（"做你自己的研究"）并进行谨慎的投资；如果事情发生变化，政府不应该保释你。研究加密货币的威拉米特大学(Willamette University)法律教授罗汉-格雷(Rohan Grey)告诉我，该行业仍然觉得自己有一个筹码，这并没有什么帮助，部分原因是它与传统银行系统的关系历来不稳定。他说，加密货币公司 "总是试图证明，你不仅是亲市场和亲利润的，所有这些华尔街其他人喜欢的东西，"他说，"而且你还在做这个大的中指，对传统的精英。"


然而，像Kwon和Mashinsky这样的人就是精英。这个行业的财富正在实时创造一套新的规则。新晋的加密货币亿万富翁已经将资金投入到媒体和政治中，着眼于创建对他们的野心更友好的新机构。从某种意义上说，加密货币项目是为了避免我们与传统金融有关的保护和护栏。也许这在2013年是有效的，当时比特币更像是一个小众的好奇心，但现在不同了，加密货币已经飞速发展。当数字再次上升时（他们几乎肯定会再次上升），你可以期待来自这群人的相当数量的 "我说你也是 "的声音。但如果这些巨头公司没有责任感，我们最终可能会回到我们开始的地方。

Will Gottsegen是驻纽约的一名作家。