在中國“鬼城”的比特幣礦場裏“淘金”

DALAD BANNER, China — They worked as factory hands, in the coal business and as farmers. Their spirits rose when a coal boom promised to bring factories and jobs to this land of grassy plains in Inner Mongolia. When the boom ebbed, they looked for work wherever they could.

中國達拉特旗——他們在工廠打過工，在煤炭行業幹過，還當過農民。在煤炭行業的繁榮預示着能給這片位於內蒙古的草原帶來工廠和工作機會時，他們情緒高漲。當這種繁榮褪去時，他們到處找工作。

Today, many have found it at a place that makes money — the digital kind.

如今，很多人在一個地方找到了賺錢的工作，但是數字的那種錢。

Here, in what is locally called the Dalad Economic Development Zone, lies one of the biggest Bitcoin farms in the world. These eight factory buildings with blue-tin roofs account for nearly one-twentieth of the world’s daily production of the cryptocurrency.

在被當地人稱之為達拉特經濟開發區的地方，坐落着全球最大的比特幣礦場之一。這八棟藍色鐵皮屋頂的廠房，佔全球比特幣日產量的近二十分之一。

Based on today’s prices, it issues $318,000 in digital currency a day.

按照今天的價格，它每天發行價值31.8萬美元（約合210萬元人民幣）的數字貨幣。

From the outside, the factory — owned by a company called Bitmain China — does not look much different from the other buildings in the industrial park.

從外面看，一家名叫比特大陸的公司擁有的這家工廠和這個工業園裏的其他建築沒有太大的不同。

Its neighbors include chemical plants and aluminum smelters. Some of the buildings in the zone were never finished. Except for the occasional coal-carrying truck, the roads are largely silent.

它的鄰居包括化工廠和鍊鋁廠。開發區裏的部分建築一直沒有完工。除了偶爾出現的拉煤的卡車外，這裏的馬路大部分時候都悄無聲息。

Inside, instead of heavy industrial machinery, workers tend rows and rows of computers — nearly 25,000 computers in all — crunching the mathematical problems that create Bitcoin.

工廠裏面，沒有重工業機械，工人們照看着一排排電腦——總共近2.5萬台。它們正在解決能創造比特幣的數學問題。

Workers carry laptop computers as they walk the aisles looking for breakdowns and checking cable connections. They fill water tanks that keep the computers from melting down or bursting into flame. Around them, hundreds of thousands of cooling fans fill the building with whooshing white noise.

工作人員拿着筆記本電腦沿走廊巡視，尋找出故障的地方，檢查線路連接。他們把水箱裝滿水，防止電腦死機或起火。在他們周圍，成千上萬台冷卻風扇讓大樓裏充滿呼呼的白噪聲。

Bitcoin’s believers say it will be the currency of the future. Purely electronic, it can be sent across borders anonymously without oversight by a central authority. That makes it appealing to a diverse and sometimes mismatched group that includes tech enthusiasts, civil libertarians, hackers and criminals.

推崇比特幣的人認為，它會成為未來的貨幣。只需通過電子手段，就可以匿名將比特幣轉移出境，不會受到中央機構的監管。這讓它吸引了一個多元，並且有時差異懸殊的羣體，包括科技發燒友、公民自由主義者、黑客和罪犯。

Bitcoin is also, by and large, made in China. The country makes more than two-thirds of all Bitcoin issued daily.

比特幣總體上是在中國製造的。在每天發行的所有比特幣中，中國的佔比超過三分之二。

China has mixed feelings about Bitcoin.

中國對比特幣感情複雜。

On one hand, the government worries that Bitcoin will allow Chinese people to bypass its strict limits on how much money they can send abroad, and could also be used to commit crimes. Chinese officials are moving to close Bitcoin exchanges, where the currency is bought and sold, though they have not set a time frame. While that would not affect Bitcoin manufacturing directly, it would make buying and selling Bitcoin more expensive in one of its major markets, potentially hurting prices.

一方面，政府擔心比特幣讓民眾得以避開它對資金出境的嚴格限制，並且比特幣可能還會被用於犯罪。中國官方正在採取行動，關閉比特幣交易平台，不過官方尚未確定期限。儘管這不會直接影響比特幣的製造，但它會增加在比特幣主要的市場之一中國買賣比特幣的代價，並可能打擊到比特幣價格。

On the other hand, the digital currency may represent an opportunity for China to push into new technologies, a motivation behind its extensive push into other cutting-edge areas, like driverless cars and artificial intelligence. China continues to offer Bitcoin makers like Bitmain cheap electricity — making Bitcoin requires immense amounts of power — and other inducements.

另一方面，這種數字貨幣可能代表着中國推進新技術的一個機會。這也是中國全面推動其他尖端領域，比如無人車和人工智能背後的動機。中國繼續為比特大陸等比特幣制造商提供廉價的電力——生產比特幣耗電量巨大——和其他激勵措施。

Dalad Banner may be far away from Beijing’s internet start-up scene and southern China’s gadget hub. Still, many of the workers and surrounding residents see a digital opportunity for Dalad Banner and the rest of their part of Inner Mongolia, an area famous in China for half-finished factories and towns so empty that they are sometimes called ghost cities.

達拉特旗也許遠離北京的互聯網創業盛況和集聚小型電子產品生產的中國南方。但是，這裏的很多工人和周邊居民看到了達拉特旗和內蒙古其他地區的一個數字機遇。在中國，內蒙古因為爛尾的工廠和太過空曠以至有時被稱作鬼城的城鎮而出名。

“Now the mine has about 50 employees,” said Wang Wei, the manager of Bitmain China’s Dalad Banner facility, using one of several metaphors for the work being done there. “I feel in the future it might bring hundreds or even thousands of jobs, like the big factories.”

“咱們礦場現在有員工50人左右，”比特大陸達拉特工廠的廠長王偉説。“礦場”是形容此間工作的幾個比方之一。“我感覺在未來是非常可能像大型生產企業一樣，擁有幾百、上千個員工。”

Mr. Wang, a 36-year-old resident and former coal salesman, purchased one Bitcoin about six months ago. It has since more than doubled in value. “I made quite a lot of money,” he said.

36歲的王偉是當地人，曾做過煤礦銷售員，他在大約六個月前購買了一個比特幣。現在它的價值翻了一倍多。“我掙了不少錢，”他説。

China also sees a potential new source of jobs, particularly in underdeveloped places like Dalad Banner. The county of about 370,000 people on the edge of the vast Kubuqi Desert boasts coal reserves and coal-powered heavy industries like steel. But it lags behind much of the rest of the country in broadly developing its economy. It is part of the urban area of Ordos, a city about 350 miles away from Beijing famous for its empty buildings.

中國出現了一些潛在的新工作來源，尤其是在達拉特旗這種不發達地區。這個縣大約有37萬人，位於廣袤的庫布齊沙漠的邊緣，以煤炭儲備和鋼鐵等以煤為動力的重工業聞名。但是在經濟的整體發展上，它落後於該國的大部分地區。它屬於鄂爾多斯市區，鄂爾多斯離北京約350英里，是著名的“鬼城”。

Dalad Banner is not the sort of place that at first glance looks like a home for high-tech work. Indeed, the idea took some getting used to, even among the workers.

達拉特旗不是那種一眼看上去就像高科技園區的地方。的確，有些人慢慢才適應了這個想法，甚至包括那些工人。

“I didn’t know anything about Bitcoin then,” said Li Shuangsheng, a 28-year-old resident who maintains the operations of one of the eight factories.

“之前我對比特幣不瞭解，”28歲的當地居民李雙生説。他負責維持八座工廠中一座的運行。

He bounced from job to job — the chemical plant was too noisy and polluted, he said — before he landed about one month ago at Bitmain China’s Dalad Banner factory, one of the few lucrative job opportunities in the sparsely populated region.

他之前換過很多工作，他説化工廠太吵而且有污染。大約一個月前，他開始在比特大陸的達拉特工廠工作。在這個人口稀少的地區，這是為數不多的一個報酬豐厚的工作機會。

Mr. Li does not yet own any Bitcoin, but he is happy with the work and studying up on the subject online when family time permits.

李雙生尚未購買比特幣，但他喜歡這份工作，有空的時候，會在網上研究比特幣。

“Now,” he said, “I’m starting to have some idea.”

“現在，”他説，“我大概對比特幣有一些瞭解了。”

Many at the farm have experienced the ups and downs of the local economy.

礦場裏的很多人都經歷了當地經濟的起起落落。

Bai Xiaotu was laid off from a state-owned furniture factory in 1997. He had been doing different menial jobs until he went to work at Bitmain’s Dalad Banner farm in December as a cleaner.

1997年，白小兔從一家國營傢俱廠下崗。之後他打過各種工，去年12月，他開始在比特大陸的達拉特礦場當清潔工。

“Look around, there are abandoned factories on both sides of our farm,” said Mr. Bai, a 53-year-old with a weather-beaten face. “Many factories are not doing that great.”

“你看這兩邊淨是廢棄的廠，”53歲的白小兔説。他有着一張飽經風霜的臉。“好多廠都不景氣。”

But the industry is still new to most. Bai Dong, Mr. Bai’s 31-year-old son, had never heard of Bitcoin when his father first got the job. After searching on the internet, he found that the Bitcoin price was rising quickly and that the farm was one of the biggest in the world. “I feel positive about the future of the industry,” Mr. Bai said.

不過，對大部分人來説，這個行業依然很新鮮。白小兔31歲的兒子白東在父親開始做這份工作之前從未聽説過比特幣。他在網上搜索之後發現，比特幣的價格在快速上漲，而這個礦場是全世界最大的一個。“我覺得這個行業挺有發展前景的，”白東説到。

But he is still confused what Bitcoin mining is.

不過，他依然對比特幣挖礦感到不解。

“We have coal mines,” he said. “Now we have a Bitcoin mine. They are both mines. What’s their relationship?”

“我們有煤礦，”他説。“比特幣也是礦嘛，都是礦，這有什麼關係呢？”