????2013年，比特幣不僅價值一飛沖天，基礎設施、配套服務、用戶接受程度也同樣突飛猛進。而最近隨著主流電商Overstock.com和美職籃（NBA）的薩克拉門托國王隊（Sacramento Kings）公開宣布將接受數字貨幣作為支付方式，比特幣熱潮更是達到了頂點。

????有些人還在質疑比特幣的有用性和耐用性，但2014年這些抱懷疑態度的人可能會進一步跟不上形勢的發展——開發者和企業家們已開始在比特幣協議的基礎上努力開發各種功能。它們將使各種金融服務實現分散操作，從貨幣對沖到貸款，從股票發行到租賃及購買合同，都會如此。這些新服務都要靠同一個分布式安全和記錄的工作量證明（proof-of-work）模型來實現，正是這個模型讓比特幣的總值超過100億美元后仍能保持安全。長期來看，點對點融資將會弱化銀行和其他金融機構，對它們的生存造成威脅，正如當年點對點文件傳輸讓音樂產業如臨大敵一樣——而這個金融納普斯特（Napster，當年著名的點對點MP3下載分享軟件——譯注）的一些建構師似乎很樂于看到這種前景變成現實。

????比特幣協議（它與比特幣根本不同，是比特幣建立的基礎）是為了支持更復雜的交易和金融關系而從頭至尾一點點構建起來的，簡單的轉賬不是它服務的對象（比如什么“轉五個比特幣給斯蒂夫”這類業務）。比特幣支持的幾種交易方式中有一種所謂“N的M”（M of N）交易。它要求一群人中的特定子群之間簽有協議，并能用于第三方支付、仲裁或財務管理共享；鎖時交易，即比特幣按照嚴格的時間進程分發，用于信托或遺囑；甚至還包括基于數據的交易，即腳本利用谷歌（Google）的定期搜索信息這類數據監控現實中可能會自動觸發支付或其他交易行為的各種事件。更依賴基礎設施開發的是可能出現的“智能財產”（smart property），即通過和比特幣數據區塊鏈（blockchain，數據區塊記錄了整個比特幣網絡上的交易記錄數據，并且這些數據是被所有比特幣節點共享的。通過數據區塊，可以查詢到每一筆比特幣交易的歷史——譯注）相互作用的數碼鎖執行的合同來管理現實世界的合同、抵押貸款和采購合同。

????這些交易的所有環節都是經過編程并自動完成的，交易可靠性由比特幣數據區塊鏈來保障。這個數據區塊會經常接受大批“礦工”的審核，而他們主要靠維護連串比特幣的工作而獲酬。實際上，拿納普斯特來打比方并不十分確切，因為納普斯特是用中央服務器來追蹤音樂分享的，而比特幣交易則是完全分散的。這就意味著，貸款不需要通過銀行，簽合同無需律師幫忙，炒股也不用假手經紀人。所有這些交易都通過分散在全球各地的成千上萬臺服務器來完成并記錄在案。

????咨詢師安德里亞斯?M. 安托諾坡羅斯回應軟件開發者J.R.威利特所寫的一份2012年白皮書時稱，比特幣協議對于分散式金融正像當年的互聯網協議對于分布式信息的意義一樣：“數據區塊鏈就是IP地址。控制好這個就能打造一個完全不同的系統。”正如IP和組成互聯網的網絡節點基礎設施現在支持從電子郵件到流媒體視頻這些功能一樣，比特幣協議及其礦工也能為眾多金融功能提供支持。不過，安托諾坡羅斯建議應把“比特幣數據區塊鏈”看成“擁有一種API（應用程序接口）”。它能讓其數據為第三方所用，就像Buffer公司或Hootsuite公司這類第二層服務供應商使用Twitter的API用稍作調整或重新組織的形式呈現Twitter數據或與之互動一樣。

????In 2013, bitcoin's valuation didn't just skyrocket, but its infrastructure, services, and adoption exploded as well, culminating in recent announcements that major online retailer Overstock.com and NBA team the Sacramento Kings would accept the digital currency as payment.

????Some still doubt bitcoin's usefulness and durability, but 2014 may leave skeptics even further behind -- developers and entrepreneurs are already hard at work building features on top of the Bitcoin protocol that will allow for the decentralized execution of financial services, from currency hedging to loans to stock issuance to rental and purchase contracts. These new services rely on the same innovative proof-of-work model of distributed security and record-keeping that has kept the bitcoin currency secure as its value ballooned well past $10 billion. In the long term, peer-to-peer finance threatens to weaken banks and other financial agents just as peer-to-peer file sharing did the music industry -- and some of the architects of this financial Napster seem gleeful about the possibility.

????The Bitcoin protocol (crucially distinct from bitcoin, the currency it underlies) was built from the ground up to support far more complex transactions and relationships than simple value transfers. (Example: "Send five bitcoins to Steve.") Some of the kinds of transactions that Bitcoin can support include so-called M of N transactions, which require agreement between a certain subset of a group, and can be used for escrow, mediation, or shared financial management; time-locked transactions, in which bitcoins are distributed on a strict schedule, useful for trusts or wills; and even data-conditional transactions, in which a script uses a data input such as a regular Google search to monitor real-world events that would automatically trigger disbursements or other actions. More conditional on infrastructure development is the possibility of "smart property," with contracts enforced by digital locks interacting with the Bitcoin blockchain to manage real-world leases, mortgages, and purchase contracts.

????All aspects of these transactions would be programmed and automatic, with their transactional integrity guaranteed by the Bitcoin blockchain, constantly vetted by the vast network of "miners" rewarded for their maintenance work with a stream of bitcoin. In fact, the comparison to Napster is somewhat inaccurate, since Napster used centralized servers to track music sharing, while Bitcoin is entirely distributed. That means loans without banks, contracts without lawyers, and stocks without brokers, executed and recorded across hundreds of servers at all corners of the earth.

????Consultant Andreas M. Antonopoulos, echoing a 2012 white paper by software developer J.R. Willett, says that the Bitcoin protocol is to distributed finance what Internet Protocol has been to distributed information. "The blockchain is IP. And through manipulation of that we can build a whole other system." In the same way that IP and the infrastructure of network nodes that make up the Internet now support functions from e-mail to video streaming, the Bitcoin protocol and its miners can support a variety of financial functions. Alternately, Antonopoulos suggests thinking of the "Bitcoin blockchain as having an API" (application programming interface) that makes its data usable by third parties, in the same way that second-layer services like Buffer or Hootsuite use the Twitter API to present and interact with Twitter data in slightly modified or reorganized forms.