專訪美國康奈爾大學(xué)副教授Emin Gün Sirer：關(guān)于區(qū)塊鏈我們需要知道些什么

來源：數(shù)據(jù)觀 時間：2018-11-14 11:46:05 作者：Melanie Lefkowitz

　　Q&A: What we need to know about blockchain

　　數(shù)據(jù)觀丨王婕(譯)

　　

　　Emin Gün Sirer

　　Although it emerged from the field of cryptocurrency, blockchain’s tamper-proof, decentralized technology has important implications not only for the financial industry but for real estate, insurance, the law and other areas. Blockchain functions like a constantly-updated database distributed among a network of computers, instead of being controlled by a single entity.

　　盡管區(qū)塊鏈興起于加密貨幣領(lǐng)域，但其防篡改、去中心化技術(shù)不僅對金融業(yè)具有重要影響，還對房地產(chǎn)、保險、法律和其他領(lǐng)域也產(chǎn)生了重大影響。區(qū)塊鏈的功能類似于分布在計(jì)算機(jī)網(wǎng)絡(luò)中的不斷更新且并不由單個實(shí)體控制的數(shù)據(jù)庫。

　　Emin Gün Sirer, associate professor of computer science and co-director of Cornell’s Initiative for CryptoCurrencies and Contracts (IC3), says the widespread adoption of blockchains and smart contracts is going to be an “extinction-level event” for many companies.

　　計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)副教授、康奈爾大學(xué)加密貨幣與合約項(xiàng)目(IC3)聯(lián)席主任埃米爾·岡·西勒(Emin Gün Sirer)表示，區(qū)塊鏈和智能合約的廣泛采用將成為許多公司的“毀滅性事件”。

　　What is blockchain, and why is it important?

　　記者：區(qū)塊鏈?zhǔn)鞘裁?為什么它如此重要?

　　Blockchain is a set of technologies that enables a set of distrusting parties to collaboratively implement a system. It limits what any single party can do, it ensures that even an insider cannot bring the system down, and it provides assurance to the users that they can check the financial records and perform an audit themselves.

　　Emin Gün Sirer：區(qū)塊鏈?zhǔn)且幌盗心軌蜃尣恍湃畏焦餐瑓f(xié)作以使系統(tǒng)生效的技術(shù)。它限制了任何一方的權(quán)力，確保了即使是內(nèi)部人士也不能讓系統(tǒng)癱瘓，還向用戶提供了保證，讓他們可以自己檢查財(cái)務(wù)記錄并進(jìn)行審計(jì)。

　　For example, the country of Georgia recently placed all of its land records on a blockchain. There is great fear that people who are well-connected will falsify the records and pretend that some piece of government land actually belonged to their grandfather. It’s fairly easy to falsify records left in a locked room someplace, or kept on a single machine someplace. But if you are using blockchain you cannot do this.

　　例如，格魯吉亞最近將其所有土地記錄都實(shí)施上鏈，人們因此非常擔(dān)心那些人脈廣泛的人會偽造記錄，假裝某些政府土地實(shí)際上屬于他們的祖父。實(shí)際上，你可以很容易就偽造那些被鎖在房間里或存儲在某臺機(jī)器上的記錄，但是如果你使用區(qū)塊鏈技術(shù)，你就無法做到這一點(diǎn)。

　　Why are we hearing so much about blockchain right now?

　　記者：為什么我們現(xiàn)在聽到區(qū)塊鏈相關(guān)消息的頻率這么高?

　　Part of the reason is smart contracts, which are a programmatic way to determine how money flows, made possible by blockchains. Think of them as free, standalone programs that can take money, compute things and send money out in a way that nobody can interfere with. This allows us to decentralize traditional corporate tasks, and it allows us to have financial programs that are capable of making their own decisions, independent of any human entity.

　　Emin Gün Sirer：部分原因在于智能合約——一種通過區(qū)塊鏈技術(shù)來確定資金流動方式的程序化方法。你可以把它們視為一種可以獲取資金、計(jì)算事物并以一種任何人都無法干預(yù)的方式實(shí)現(xiàn)匯款的免費(fèi)且獨(dú)立的程序。這使得我們能夠分散傳統(tǒng)的企業(yè)任務(wù)，并做出能夠自主決策且獨(dú)立于任何人類實(shí)體的金融項(xiàng)目。

　　For example, I can say I’d like to donate $5,000 to a new movie, assuming it can raise a million dollars, otherwise I want my money back. It’s very easy to do this with smart contracts; it’s impossible to do with the interfaces the banks give us.

　　例如，我可以說我很樂意為一部電影出資5000美元，當(dāng)然這是在它能夠?qū)崿F(xiàn)100萬美元收益的前提下，否則我就想要回我的錢。用智能合約就很容易做到這一點(diǎn);而銀行提供給我們的界面是不可能做到的。

　　The ability to cut out middlemen is going to be an extinction-level event for many companies. It’s also a great opportunity for new companies to form, because they can do things like build new business models that are much more transparent to the user.

　　對許多公司來說，智能合約這種切斷中間商的能力將是一個毀滅性的事件。但同時對于一些新公司來說，這也是一個很好的機(jī)遇，因?yàn)樗麄兛梢宰鲆恍┦虑?，比如建立對用戶更透明的新商業(yè)模式。

　　What is Cornell’s role in the field?

　　記者：康奈爾大學(xué)在區(qū)塊鏈領(lǐng)域扮演著怎樣的角色?

　　Some of us at Cornell had been working on peer-to-peer cash even prior to [the development of bitcoin]. Bitcoin’s rise in popularity fueled a rush to apply similar technologies to all aspects of financial technology and other areas. We did some strategic hires, and we ended up organizing IC3, a multi-institutional effort providing leadership to this nascent push. Meanwhile, people were developing code in the outside world, but the scientific basis wasn’t there. We not only provided a scientific basis for what they were doing, we also showed that a lot of things people were repeating were false, and we provided new alternatives and sound foundations.

　　Emin Gün Sirer：我們(康奈爾大學(xué))中的一些人甚至在比特幣的發(fā)展之前就開始研究點(diǎn)對點(diǎn)現(xiàn)金。比特幣的迅速興起，促使人們爭相將類似技術(shù)應(yīng)用于金融技術(shù)和其他領(lǐng)域的所有方向。隨后我們進(jìn)行了一些戰(zhàn)略性的招聘，最終我們成立了IC3——運(yùn)用多機(jī)構(gòu)為這個新生項(xiàng)目提供領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的一次實(shí)踐。與此同時，外面的人還在開發(fā)著缺乏科學(xué)依據(jù)的代碼。我們不僅為他們所做的事情提供了科學(xué)依據(jù)，還證明了他們正在重復(fù)做的很多事情都是錯誤的，我們提供了新的選擇和合理的根據(jù)。

　　A recent report identified Cornell as a leader in providing blockchain-related classes. What courses are available at Cornell for students interested in blockchain?

　　記者：最近的一份報(bào)告指出，康奈爾大學(xué)在提供區(qū)塊鏈相關(guān)課程方面處于領(lǐng)先地位?？的螤柎髮W(xué)有哪些課程適合對區(qū)塊鏈感興趣的學(xué)生?

　　The courses we have are typically geared toward advanced undergraduates and graduate students. It’s a fascinating field with lots and lots of interesting applications. It’s interdisciplinary, so there are many different takes.

　　Emin Gün Sirer：我們的課程主要面向高年級本科生和研究生。這是一個吸引人的領(lǐng)域，有很多有趣的應(yīng)用。它還是跨學(xué)科的，所以有許多不同的選擇。

　　At Cornell we value fundamentals. Anybody who is teaching just “blockchain” is probably doing students a disservice. We have a set of very interesting courses that teach the fundamentals of computer science and its interactions with finance, game theory and mechanism design, illustrated through examples in blockchain. I think the idea is to create people who can jump into blockchain because the area is exciting, but who also have the foundation to do anything else in computer science.

　　在康奈爾大學(xué)，我們很重視基礎(chǔ)知識的儲備，任何人如果只教“區(qū)塊鏈”都可能是對學(xué)生有害的。我們有一系列非常有趣的課程來教授計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)的基礎(chǔ)知識及其與金融、博弈論和機(jī)制設(shè)計(jì)(微觀經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)和博弈論的分支領(lǐng)域)的相互作用，期間還會通過區(qū)塊鏈的相關(guān)例子對它們進(jìn)行說明。我認(rèn)為我們的想法就是培養(yǎng)這么一些人，他們既可以因?yàn)檫@一領(lǐng)域令人興奮而一頭扎進(jìn)區(qū)塊鏈，但同時他們也有可以在計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)領(lǐng)域做其他任何事情的基礎(chǔ)。

　　The course I taught last spring, for example, focused on the basics of distributed systems fundamentals. Every single application we examined was in blockchain, such that students leaving the course learned how to build blockchain applications.

　　例如，我去年春天教的課程，重點(diǎn)就是分布式系統(tǒng)的基礎(chǔ)知識。我們測驗(yàn)的每一個應(yīng)用程序都是在區(qū)塊鏈系統(tǒng)中，這樣離開這門課程的學(xué)生就學(xué)會了如何構(gòu)建區(qū)塊鏈應(yīng)用程序。

　　It’s crazy how much interest there is in blockchains. I have undergraduates from all colleges coming by. I taught a 6000-level course in the spring. Normally you’d have three to seven people in those courses, and if you have more than 10 there’s a lot of interest. I had 80-plus people sign up.

　　如此多的人都對區(qū)塊鏈感興趣真是瘋狂。我有從所有大學(xué)來的本科生。在春季，我教了一門6000級(研究生級別)的課程。通常這些課程會有三到七個人參加，如果人數(shù)超過10人，就代表有很多人感興趣，而我這門課程有80多人注冊。

　　What are the downsides of all this interest?

　　記者：這種狂熱興趣的負(fù)面影響是什么?

　　Any time you have a lot of hype you have some fraud. People are selling to the public what appear to be securities, hopes and dreams that are just unattainable. They’re selling cryptocurrency tokens that will someday be worth something when a system is built that cannot be built.

　　Emin Gün Sirer：每當(dāng)某個事物被過分炒作時，就不可避免地會出現(xiàn)欺詐行為。這些人向公眾兜售那些難以企及的證券、希望和夢想。他們出售加密貨幣的代幣，并許諾有一天當(dāng)系統(tǒng)被建立時它們就會變得有價值，而事實(shí)是所謂的系統(tǒng)根本就建立不了。

　　Also, the [kind of blockchain] that made bitcoin famous consumes enormous amounts of power.

?????? 此外，讓比特幣出名的“那種區(qū)塊鏈”消耗了區(qū)塊鏈本身的巨大能量。

　　At IC3, we are working on technologies that can revolutionize financial technology. These tools can achieve millions of transactions per second, and do so with no wasted energy, in a sustainable and green fashion. This, in turn, has the potential to enable new applications far beyond financial technology, that we cannot even fathom today.

　　在IC3，我們正致力于研究能夠革新金融科技的技術(shù)。這些工具可以以一種不浪費(fèi)能源、可持續(xù)且綠色的方式實(shí)現(xiàn)每秒數(shù)百萬次的交易。反過來，這又使金融技術(shù)以外的新應(yīng)用成為可能，而這還有待我們進(jìn)一步的探索。

????? 注：《專訪美國康奈爾大學(xué)副教授Emin Gün Sirer：關(guān)于區(qū)塊鏈我們需要知道些什么》來源于cornell.edu(點(diǎn)擊查看原文)。數(shù)據(jù)觀編譯/王婕，轉(zhuǎn)載請注明譯者和來源。

責(zé)任編輯：黃玉葉