📰 讀報時間 📰 區塊鏈終將成日常

「📰 讀報時間 📰」( #deans-review) 記錄本人在學習與閱讀時，所搜集的好文章或重要報導。將註明出處，重點引述，並加上個人意見與評論，與讀者們分享。再請讀者們予以鞭策回饋。（本期開始更改此系列之中文名稱）

本日文章

Bitcoin Will Become a Basic Utility, Just Like Email

Miguel Cuneta。Medium。2018.03.08

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這次讀讀英文文章，就不直接翻譯，重點引述原文後，直接以中文評論。這次文章是前一陣子看的，今天才好好細看，沒什麼太難懂的地方，但我認為這文章提到一個我長久以來認同的觀念；那就是，今日的日常，很多是昨日的異常與新奇；也因此，未來的日常，就很可能是今日的異常與新奇。

如果要的話，這文章可以一句話說完：你所習慣的Email曾經如此陌生與奇怪，今日的區塊鏈很可能就是未來日常生活的基底。

看這文章，還能懷舊一下，溫故而知新，是教你看人類歷史裡的重複邏輯哪！

...... [以下重點節錄] .......

Email is a protocol (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), yet we send emails as if they were letters. Are they letters or not? They read like letters, except they’re digital. You can print it, yes, but does this make it any more “real” than when it was in digital form? Stripped down to its essence, it’s just a bunch of ones and zeroes. Does this make it any less real than an actual letter?

是囉，開始從你熟悉的Email入手，年輕一點的朋友，從小懂事開始，可能都伴隨著Email長大吧？我看信件這詞可能比較會讓你想到Email而不是真的信封裡裝信紙的那種吧？

如果你稍微懂一點點電腦原理，你應該知道，那些文字，從送到收，其實底層都是0跟1，採用的，是一種古老的SMTP協定，讓兩台電腦之間可以溝通，完成信件的傳遞。

作者還引用了一張圖來解釋Email的傳遞，想知道就看看吧！

Seems complicated, right? Imagine trying to teach that to someone who has never touched a computer before. Here, let’s jump back to 1984 and see how they explained Email back then.

我覺得最有趣的是這一段，作者找了一段非常古老的影片不到5分鐘，推薦你去看一看。哇！看到好多熟悉 我爸爸告訴22歲的我的關於古老的通訊與電腦運作的影像呢！例如還在用撥接的Modem，那個熟悉的刺耳嘈雜連線聲音，甚至天啊！連電話撥打都還是用手指轉盤的時代呢！超級懷舊的～～

I still remember when Emails suddenly became accessible to everyone. It wasn’t just because of the web browser. It was the humble Internet Cafe that allowed mainstream users to use Email cheaply and easily. We paid as much $2 per hour for this here in the Philippines, and they used dial-up 56K modems. It was unusable by today’s standards, but I still remember sitting there in awe when the person I randomly chatted with on mIRC told me she was from the United States. We started exchanging emails after that. It was mind blowing.

作者顯然是比我們老很多，他在懷念當年與Email的相遇，以及網咖對於Email普及的深遠影響。當他上聊天室去，遇到來自遠在地球另一端的美國（作者在菲律賓）的朋友時，彼此交互Email，還深深感到震驚呢！

It became so easy to create an email account, but you were advised to never use your real name. This was a just a fancy toy for geeks, and the internet, or “Cyberspace” in general was considered dangerous. Emails were not even considered an official way to communicate. Everyone used some kind of fake name, and you were limited to a certain number of messages in your inbox or else risk emails being bounced back to the sender.
People used weird Email addresses like [email protected]. Business dealings still had to be faxed or done with printed paper or phone calls. It was a whole different world.

那個年代，Email盡管促進了彼此通信的便利，但網上是被告誡要小心的亂世，不要留下真名，商業活動仍大量仰賴傳真、傳統紙張列印與電話等。

是不是開始有一點，區塊鏈等不及想跳上歷史舞台的感覺？還早呢！那可是將近二十年前啊！

Today, we send an Email with a swipe of a finger from a tiny supercomputer containing about $32 MILLION worth of separate 1984 devices in the palm of our hands, with unlimited storage in the cloud and machine learning helping us with automatic responses.
We use Email without thinking about how it works because it has become a basic utility. It just works.

今日的Email也已經完全與那古老的年代不同了，儘管那個協定相差不大，但Email背後有許多更新的科技在讓它運作更有效率...

It’s 1984 For Bitcoin

Bitcoin is a protocol (Bitcoin), yet we send bitcoins as if it was money. Is it money or not? It transacts like money, except it is digital. You can print it, yes, but does this make it any more “real” than when it was in digital form? Stripped down to its essence, it is just a bunch of ones and zeroes. Does this make it any less real than actual physical money?

比特幣登場... 一樣的邏輯，歷史，是否正在重複這樣的邏輯？一樣是一套新的協定，一樣協助你使用電腦，透過網路來溝通與傳遞。只是這回，傳遞的是金錢。但是說到底，也不過是一堆的0與1，但難道這就比實質的紙鈔硬幣更不真實嗎？作者從Email開始，就是要告訴你這件事哪！

那你可能也不知道比特幣的運作方式吧？作者給了一張很常看到的圖來協助讀者了解。喔，忘了這裡是Steem，這裡的人大概都略懂吧！^_^

###The S-Curve of Technology Adoption

這張圖很有意思，所以我就直接引用過來。你看看這一百多年來，人類社會使用各式各樣科技滲透率的成長速度。越是近代，各種科技從發生到人人皆用的速度就越是驚人的快速！意思是，不用太擔心，區塊鏈是死是活，都不會太久就會知道答案的！LOL...

With Bitcoin and Blockchain tech, we are no different from the Email video from 1984 — we still need five-minute videos explaining how it works. People are still afraid of Bitcoin, thinking it is dangerous and only used by criminals in the dark web. The apps themselves are still clunky and too complicated for your average internet user. Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchanges get hacked often, and scams abound the industry. The adoption of the technology on a global scale is not even at 1%, so we have a long way to go before we see this shift.

目前比特幣的全球使用滲透率，據作者說，還不到1%，所以在這歷史圖根本都還談不上開始呢！你們在這裡面泡著，要嘛是眼光好的先行者，要嘛就是一群傻子，哈哈哈！比特幣們，會不會變成當年的Email呢？

In the near future, we will be sending money to each other using the Bitcoin protocol, with a swipe of a finger, without needing to understand how it works. Explaining Bitcoin and Blockchain technology then will be as unnecessary as explaining Email today. It just works.

就像是你甚至不懂得愛迪生發明燈泡的科學原理，你不也天天開燈？你懂汽車引擎原理？鋼筋水泥建築物的構造？手機 4G LTE？互聯網的TCPIP？... 什麼，都不懂？那你還住房子、開車、天天用手機跟上網？所以，不用再費唇舌向人科普區塊鏈原理了，這不是懂不懂的問題，是要不要選擇相信的問題。

Not Just Money

Other Blockchain applications will also become basic utilities for a myriad of uses ranging from smart contracts, marketplaces, governance, provenance, and any service that requires agreement in a trustless environment.
Before we know it, the world will be using the Bitcoin protocol like we use Email today — as a basic utility for transferring information, but in this case, the information will have value.

最後，作者做出我們早已預期的答案：區塊鏈終將，像Email一樣，成為我們生活的日常。不只是金錢，而是與金錢驅動的很多很多相關的人類活動，你看看上面那張圖，那簡直是 騙錢最好用的圖啊 一個美好的生活場景呢！

那最後，就恭喜你囉？^_^

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「📰 讀報時間 📰」，咱們下次見！