听力课堂TED音频栏目主要包括TED演讲的音频MP3及中英双语文稿，供各位英语爱好者学习使用。本文主要内容为演讲MP3+双语文稿:非同质化代币（NFT）如何构建未来的互联网，希望你会喜欢！

【主讲人】Kayvon Tehranian
创新技术专家
Foundation（一个用于买卖数字商品的网站）首席执行官和创始人
该平台使创作者能够使用区块链来使他们的作品货币化

【演讲主题】How NFTs are building the internet of the future
为什么NFTs（互联网上的一种数字资产）是一种技术突破？该演讲探讨了NFTs如何将权力和经济控制权交回数字创作者的手中，并推动互联网的下一步发展。

【中英文稿】
NFTs are not a scam. NFTs are not a fad. In fact, NFTs are the building blocks of the internet of the future. But in order for us to see this future clearly, we first need to go back into the past. The year is 1992. The World Wide Web is only three years old. This is what it looks like. For the first time in human history, we share a global commons, where, irrespective of where we are in the physical world, we can convene and share information freely. Most people at that time couldn't see what it meant to be connected by a network of computers. In fact, many people thought the internet itself was a scam or a fad. But a few early internet pioneers saw the potential in this burgeoning technology. One of those early internet pioneers, John Perry Barlow, saw both the opportunities and pitfalls inherent in our new digital world. And, of early cyberspace, he posed a prescient riddle all the way back in 1992, that I'll paraphrase for you: "If our property can be infinitely reproduced and instantaneously distributed across the planet without cost, how are we going to protect it? How are we going to get paid for the work we do with our minds? And if we can't get paid, what will assure the continued creation and distribution of such work?”
非同质化代币（NFT）不是个骗局。NFT 不是昙花一现的狂热。事实上，NFT 是未来互联网的基石。但为了洞悉它的未来，我们得先回到过去。那还是 1992 年，万维网（WWW）才三岁。这就是它当时的样子。纵观整个人类历史，我们（通过万维网）首次做到了资源全球共享。无论我们的身体栖于何处，我们都可以自由地收集并分享信息。当时大多数人不明白当计算机连上网络意味着什么。其实许多人曾认为互联网是个骗局，或者只是一时的风潮。但一些早期的互联网先驱看到了这一新兴技术的潜力。其中一位互联网先驱约翰·佩里·巴洛（John Perry Barlow）看到了这个新兴数字世界中 与生俱来的机遇和险阻。早在 1992 年，他就基于网络空间提出了一个预见性的谜题。用我自己的话解释一下：如果我们拥有的东西可以被无限复制，还能瞬间免费地发送到世界各地，我们该如何保护自己的所有物呢？我们该如何获取自己脑力作品的报酬呢？如果我们拿不到报酬，该拿什么来保障我们今后稳定地创作和发布任何作品呢？

A lot has changed on the internet since 1992. The internet itself is an alive and evolving technology. And as predicted by its earliest champions, the internet has increasingly become our default context. Today, one's job, wealth, relationships, sense of self, are all often more mediated through our digital contexts than our physical ones. Yet, Barlow's riddle has remained vexingly unsolved. Concepts like property and ownership -- ideas that have been with us for centuries in the physical world -- have evaded us in our digital spaces. We’ve tried to foist copyright, DMCA, DRM and watermarks onto the internet to protect our ideas and to restrain their distribution. None of these approaches have worked. Why? Because, as Stewart Brand, another early internet pioneer, famously coined: information wants to be free. It wants to travel effortlessly, without hindrance, without encumbrance. This is what allowed the internet to succeed in the first place.
自 1992 年以来互联网发生了很多变化。互联网本身就是鲜活和不断进化的技术。如同早期的互联网支持者预估的那样：互联网正日益成为我们生活的必要部分。如今，一个人的工作、财富、人际关系、个人身份等通常更加依托于数字世界，多过实体的世界。然而巴洛（Barlow）的谜题依旧让人绞尽脑汁。实体世界中的个人资产和所有权概念存在好几个世纪了，如今这些概念也渗入了数字世界。我们试过将版权、DMCA（数字千年版权法）、DRM（数字版权管理方案）和浮水印强加到互联网上，以保护我们的想法并限制其传播。没有一个起过作用。为什么？正如同另一个著名的互联网先驱斯图尔特·布兰德所说：信息向往自由！它想要毫不费力地周游世界，没有障碍，没有负担。这就是互联网最初成功的原因。

Since 1992, we've uploaded trillions of photos and videos and even cat memes to the internet for free. And what business model has allowed this information to be free? Advertising. Advertising is the internet's default business model, not because that's what we want, but because it's what pays the bills. Right now, the few large corporations that run the most effective ad networks control most of the value on today's internet, not the people creating its content. On today's internet, we don't get paid for the work we do with our minds. And what's more, the content we upload to these services is trapped there. These services not only make money from our content, they control it. Until NFTs.
自1992 年以来，数万亿张照片和视频，甚至是猫咪的表情包被免费地上传至互联网。请问是什么商业模式在为这些行为买单？广告。广告之所以成为互联网默认的商业模式，不是因为我们想要，而是因为它支付账单。如今几个规模最大、效益最高的广告公司控制着互联网的大部分价值，而不是那些真正创造内容的人。在如今的互联网上，我们的脑力劳动是没有报酬的。甚至我们的内容一上传至服务器就被 “挟持” 了。这些服务不仅从我们的内容中榨取利益，他们还有控制权。直到 NFT 的出现。

NFTs are a technological breakthrough. They offer us the opportunity to break away from that broken system. So you're asking yourself: What is an NFT? It's a certificate of ownership registered on the blockchain for everyone to see. It's not too dissimilar to the deed you get when you buy a house in the physical world. But instead of a house, an NFT denotes ownership of a file on the internet. And unlike copyright or watermarks, which are ancient technologies rooted in bygone eras, NFTs are internet native. They are born of the internet for the internet. And NFTs don't simply port our existing model of ownership from the physical world, they improve it. In the physical world, ownership actually fences people out. It precludes others from enjoying what you own. I wouldn't expect to feel welcome in your home uninvited. Digital space, however, is expansive. It's home to the infinite, the exponential, the instantaneous. NFTs offer a system of ownership that reflects this expansiveness. With NFTs, my owning something doesn't preclude others from enjoying it. In fact, it's the opposite. The more an NFT is seen, appreciated and understood, the more possibility it has to increase in value.
NFT 是一个技术性的突破。它给了我们一个机会来摆脱那个坏掉了的系统。你可能会问：什么是 NFT？它是登记在区块链上的所有权证书，这个证书大家有目共睹。它和你在实体世界里 买栋房子得到的房契区别不大。只不过这份契约证明的是你对互联网上某个档案的所有权。版权或浮水印是根植于旧时代的老古董，NFT 和它们不同，NFT 是一个纯正的数字原住民。它由互联网所生，为互联网而生。NFT 并非简单地移植实体世界的所有权模型，而是改进了这个模型。在实体世界里所有权驱逐着其他人，阻止其他人享受你有的东西。如果我不请自来的潜入你家，没人会欢迎我。然而数字空间如此地广阔，数字空间是无限的、指数型增长的、电光石火般快速的。NFT 提供的独特所有权制度体现了这种广阔性。有了 NFT ，就算一件东西归我所有也不妨碍别人享受它。恰恰相反，一个 NFT 越被大家发现、欣赏，且熟知，它就越容易增值。

Let's take an example: Nyan Cat, a wildly popular, instantly recognizable cat meme. Since it was uploaded to the internet a decade ago, it has accumulated hundreds of millions of views. And precisely because of that virality, when it was auctioned as an NFT, it sold for 300 ETH, or the equivalent of over 600,000 dollars. And the person who now owns this NFT, they're not preventing anyone from liking, resharing or remixing Nyan Cat -- Nyan Cat is free to travel the internet as it always has. What's different now is that, as Nyan Cat's popularity continues to grow, so can the value of the NFT.
举个例子：彩虹猫，一个辨识度极高的猫咪模因。自从10 年前被上传至互联网，它已经积累了数亿浏览量。正因为这种病毒式的传播，当它被作为 NFT 拍卖时，售价是 300 以太币，相当于 60 多万美元。现在拥有这个NFT的人也不会阻止大家对彩虹猫点赞、分享、二次创作。彩虹猫依旧可以自由地在网上漫游，如同往常一样。不同的是在彩虹猫越来越火地同时，它的 NFT 的价格也在上涨。

Because of NFTs, Chris Torres, Nyan Cat's creator, has received direct compensation for his creation. But what's more is he'll continue to receive compensation every single time the NFT is resold. This is because of the royalty system baked into the smart contracts that govern NFTs. NFTs are software; they can be programmed. And with something as complicated as royalties, which require enormous amounts of legal and manual labor to implement in our analog world, we can now express them in a few simple lines of code. This represents a breakthrough innovation for any industry predicated on royalty payments, such as publishing or music. And just as blogs and MP3s re-architected, these industries in decades past, NFTs will catalyze their next evolution.
就因为NFT，彩虹猫的创作者克里斯·托雷斯（Chris Torres）直接从他的创作中获得了报酬。 而且每当这个NFT 被转售，他都会继续得到报酬。这都得感谢管理 NFT 的智能合同中包含的版税制度。NFT 是软件，可以被编译。一个像版税一样复杂，需要大量法律和人力才能在实体世界中实施的制度，现在可以简单地用几行代码表示。这代表突破性的创新，适用于任何依靠版权付费而生存的行业，比如出版业或是音乐界。正如博客和 MP3 在几十年前重构了这些行业一样，NFT 将催生下一次演变 。

The internet dissolved our geographic boundaries. NFTs dissolve economic boundaries. Yatreda, an Ethiopian artist collective, created these beautiful portraits of heroes and heroines from Ethiopia's past. They sold them as NFTs, and in one weekend, they made 13 ETH, or the equivalent of over 40,000 dollars. And they were paid out instantly. No customs, no foreign exchange, no international wire transfers. An artist collective based out of Addis Ababa has the same economic tools at their disposal now as an artist in LA, New York or London. And while the NFTs for Nyan Cat and Yatreda were created and sold on the same platform, they're not confined there -- remember: information wants to be free. And unlike the current internet, where information is made available through proprietary apps and platforms, NFTs are portable. Instead of living on a company's private servers, They live on decentralized infrastructure that is peer to peer, open and transparent.
互联网消除了我们的地理限制，NFT 消除经济的限制。雅崔达（Yatreda）是一个埃塞俄比亚的艺术家团队。创作了这些埃塞俄比亚历史中男女英雄的美丽肖像，把这些肖像作为 NFT 出售。一个周末他们就赚了13 以太币，相当于 4 万多美元。瞬间支付，没有海关，无需外汇，无需国际转账。一个来自亚的斯亚贝巴（Āddīs Ābebā）的艺术团队现在支付时使用的的经济手段，和洛杉矶、纽约、 伦敦的艺术家用的一样。虽然彩虹猫和雅崔达的 NFT 都在同一个平台上创造和销售，但他们远不止局限于此；记住：信息渴望自由！和目前的互联网不同，在如今的互联网上，信息只能通过基本的应用和网络平台获取。NFT 却是可移植的。它们不封存在公司的私有服务器里，而是存在于公开、透明的，去中心化的点对点网络中。

But understanding this complex decentralized infrastructure is not a prerequisite to understand what NFTs unlock for the human experience. Once digital value and ownership are no longer the sole domain of a few corporations, radical new possibilities emerge. In other words, 30 years later, NFTs finally solved John Perry Barlow's riddle. And this isn't science fiction; the technology already works. NFTs are already being used by the next generation of internet pioneers. And in the coming decade, NFTs will reshape the internet as we know it, with property rights baked into its code. So what does the internet of the future look like with NFTs as its building blocks? An internet where economic control rests in the hands of creators, not platforms. An internet where our ideas and creativity can be directly supported. An internet where information can be free, but where we get paid for the work we do with our minds.
当然，你无需理解这个复杂的去中心化结构来搞明白 NFT 能为人类解锁的无上潜力。一旦数字的价值和所有权不再被少数集团独家掌控，全新的可能就会涌现。换句话说，30 年后的今天，NFT 终于解开了约翰·佩里·巴罗的谜题。这可不是科幻小说，NFT 技术已经起了不少作用。下一代互联网先驱已经开始使用 NFT 了。接下来的十年里，NFT 以及刻印在它代码里的产权将会重塑我们对互联网所知的一切。一个以 NFT 为构成要素的未来互联网会是什么样子呢？它会是一个非由平台，而是创作者拥有经济控制权的网络。一个使得我们的想法和创意被直接支持的网络。一个信息自由，而我们以自己的头脑换取报酬的网络。

Thank you.
谢谢！