每年都在紐約召開的佐恩投資會議（Sohn Investment Conference）通常是華爾街頂尖對沖基金經理和投資者介紹亞馬遜、瓦蘭特制藥（Valeant Pharmaceuticals）等一眾首選股的場所。上周一，一位投資者在這個有23年歷史的會議上首次推薦了一種數字化投資：比特幣。

倫敦家族辦公室Pfeffer Capital合伙人約翰·菲佛不僅押寶在比特幣上，還大膽給出了70萬美元（約442.4萬元人民幣）的目標價，約為目前比特幣價格（9500美元）的75倍。

雖然菲佛沒有說明上述預測的時間期限，但和風投人士蒂姆·德雷珀等其他有影響力的投資者相比，他的目標價甚至超過了這些人做出的最樂觀預期。本月早些時候，德雷珀預測說到2022年比特幣價格有望漲至25萬美元。

菲佛曾在私募股權公司KKR擔任合伙人，他在紐約林肯中心向眾多與會者表示：“比特幣是有史以來全球第一種切實可行的黃金替代品。因此，如果比特幣成為非主權價值儲藏領域的主導者，它就有可能成為新的‘黃金’，也就是新的儲備貨幣?！?

菲佛的思路是，首先他假設比特幣從邏輯上可以取代私人投資者目前持有的所有金條，也就是人們放在保險箱中或者埋在后院里，比紙幣更可靠的儲值工具（在這里，金條的作用就是人們所說的“價值儲藏”）?！氨忍貛诺拇鎯捅Ｈ菀椎枚?。”

據菲佛介紹，目前私人所持金條的總價值約為1.6萬億美元。假設比特幣全面取代金條時該加密貨幣的流通數量為1800萬枚（比特幣的數量上限為2100萬枚，目前已制造出1700萬枚左右），則相應的價值為每枚9萬美元。這是菲佛最保守的估計，他認為這種情況成為現實的可能性為8%。

但菲佛對比特幣有更高的期望——它對各國央行的意義最終有可能和如今的傳統外匯儲備相當（各國政府持有歐元、日元等外幣，以便償還外債并完成其他跨境交易）。菲佛在會上說：“可以想象，比特幣將逐步取代部分外匯儲備?！?

他指出，目前全世界的外匯儲備價值12.7萬億美元。比特幣不太可能取代所有外匯儲備，而菲佛在模型中設定的情景是比特幣在外匯儲備中占四分之一，那么按比特幣當前價格計算出的回報率為20倍。如果比特幣的總價值真的達到全球外匯儲備的水平，也就是12.7萬億美元，那就意味著取代所有金條和外儲后，比特幣的單價為70萬美元。

菲佛說：“作為投資者，現在最讓我們感興趣的是比特幣或許會成為主導性非主權貨幣?！北M管他預計比特幣價格僅有1%的幾率真的達到70萬美元的，但這種可能性本身就足以讓他“以風投方式少量買入比特幣并長期持有”。

他補充道，換句話說，自己的策略就是“買票搭車”。

除了比特幣，菲佛這兩年還小規模投資過其他加密貨幣，但他隨后清理了自己的加密貨幣持倉，目前只持有比特幣。菲佛說，他意識到除比特幣外，其他許多加密貨幣不光發揮著貨幣功能，還是所謂的實用型代幣，意思是它們還用于執行某項具體操作，其作用并非純粹的貨幣（比如說，人們用和以太坊網絡綁定的代幣履行所謂的“智能”合約）。

但菲佛基于費雪交易方程式（equation of exchange）假設，一個加密貨幣網絡的價值就等于其整體經濟活動除以使用中貨幣的流通速度。由于實用型代幣的交易本來就很頻繁，其價值總會面臨壓力。菲佛說：“我覺得實際情況會證明它們將成為價值陷阱。”

另一方面，比特幣的情況恰好相反，菲佛認為：“有一種途徑可以擺脫這樣的價值陷阱，那就是人們想把自己的財富儲存在加密貨幣資產中?！北忍貛诺淖饔镁驮谶@里，這反過來也印證了他一開始提出的主題，即比特幣將取代黃金。（財富中文網）

譯者：Charlie

審稿：夏林

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The annual Sohn Investment Conference in New York is usually a place where Wall Street’s best hedge fund managers and investors present their top stock picks—from Amazon to Valeant Pharmaceuticals. And for the first time in the event’s 23-year history, one of those investors used the Sohn conference stage Monday to recommend a certain digital investment: Bitcoin.

John Pfeffer, a partner at his London-based family office Pfeffer Capital, is not only betting on Bitcoin, but giving it a bold price target of $700,000—about 75 times the current Bitcoin price of nearly $9,500.

While Pfeffer did not put a time frame on his prediction, his target exceeds even optimistic forecasts from other influential investors such as venture capitalist Tim Draper, who earlier this month predicted the Bitcoin price would reach $250,000 by 2022.

“Bitcoin is the first viable candidate to replace gold the world has ever seen,” Pfeffer, a former partner at private equity firm KKR, told the crowd at the Sohn Investment Conference at New York’s Lincoln Center. “So if Bitcoin becomes the dominant non-sovereign store of value, it could be the new gold, or new reserve currency.”

Pfeffer’s math works like this: First, he assumes that Bitcoin can logically replace all of the gold bullion currently held by private investors—in other words, the gold bars that people keep in a safe-deposit box or bury in their backyard, simply as a way to park their money in something more dependable than paper. (The gold bars in this example are also what’s known as a “store of value.”) “Bitcoin is vastly easier to store and secure,” Pfeffer said.

The current value of all privately held gold bullion is about $1.6 trillion, according to Pfeffer. Assuming there will be 18 million Bitcoins in circulation by the time the cryptocurrency fully replaces gold bullion (about 17 million Bitcoins have been produced so far, out of the maximum 21 million that can exist), the implied value of a Bitcoin would then be $90,000. This is Pfeffer’s most conservative scenario, which he gives 8% odds of coming to fruition.

But Pfeffer has even higher hopes for Bitcoin—that it could eventually be to central banks what traditional foreign reserve currencies are today. (From euros to Japanese yen, governments hold foreign cash to pay down international debts and complete other cross-border transactions.) “It’s imaginable that Bitcoin displaces some form of reserves over time,” Pfeffer said at the conference.

Total foreign reserves are currently worth $12.7 trillion, he added. While it’s unlikely Bitcoin would fully replace all foreign reserve currency, Pfeffer also modeled scenarios in which Bitcoin would account for a quarter of foreign reserves, which would imply a 20x return from current prices. And if the total value of Bitcoin does rise to the equivalent of all foreign reserves, or $12.7 trillion—including both gold bullion and reserves combined—then that would mean a Bitcoin price of $700,000.

“As an investor, what interests us most at this point is that Bitcoin might become the dominant non-sovereign currency,” said Pfeffer. Although he puts just 1% odds on Bitcoin actually hitting $700,000, the possibility alone is enough for him “to make a small, venture capital-style, buy-and-hold longterm bet on,” he said.

Put another way, Pfeffer added, his strategy is: “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

In addition to Bitcoin, Pfeffer previously dabbled with investing in other cryptocurrencies over the past two years, but he has since pared his crypto portfolio back to just Bitcoin again. He came to the realization, he said, that many other cryptocurrencies besides Bitcoin don’t function as simply money, but as so-called utility tokens—meaning, the coins are used to perform a specific operation, and serve as something other than a pure currency. (Tokens tied to the Ethereum network, for example, are used to execute so-called “smart” contracts).

But using the economic theory of money known as the “equation of exchange,” Pfeffer posited that a cryptocurrency network is only as valuable as its total economic activity, divided by the velocity at which the money changes hands. Because utility tokens, inherently, will be exchanged frequently, their value will constantly be under pressure, Pfeffer said: “I think they’re going to turn out to be value traps.”

Bitcoin, on the other hand, offers the opposite proposition, Pfeffer added: “There is one way out of this value trap, which is if people wanted to store their wealth in a crypto asset,” he said. That’s where Bitcoin comes in—supporting his original thesis that Bitcoin will replace gold.