这位投资者认为，比特币价格四年内可能达到70万美元

每年都在纽约召开的佐恩投资会议（Sohn Investment Conference）通常是华尔街顶尖对冲基金经理和投资者介绍亚马逊、瓦兰特制药（Valeant Pharmaceuticals）等一众首选股的场所。上周一，一位投资者在这个有23年历史的会议上首次推荐了一种数字化投资：比特币。

伦敦家族办公室Pfeffer Capital合伙人约翰·菲佛不仅押宝在比特币上，还大胆给出了70万美元（约442.4万元人民币）的目标价，约为目前比特币价格（9500美元）的75倍。

虽然菲佛没有说明上述预测的时间期限，但和风投人士蒂姆·德雷珀等其他有影响力的投资者相比，他的目标价甚至超过了这些人做出的最乐观预期。本月早些时候，德雷珀预测说到2022年比特币价格有望涨至25万美元。

菲佛曾在私募股权公司KKR担任合伙人，他在纽约林肯中心向众多与会者表示：“比特币是有史以来全球第一种切实可行的黄金替代品。因此，如果比特币成为非主权价值储藏领域的主导者，它就有可能成为新的‘黄金’，也就是新的储备货币。”

菲佛的思路是，首先他假设比特币从逻辑上可以取代私人投资者目前持有的所有金条，也就是人们放在保险箱中或者埋在后院里，比纸币更可靠的储值工具（在这里，金条的作用就是人们所说的“价值储藏”）。“比特币的存储和保全要容易得多。”

据菲佛介绍，目前私人所持金条的总价值约为1.6万亿美元。假设比特币全面取代金条时该加密货币的流通数量为1800万枚（比特币的数量上限为2100万枚，目前已制造出1700万枚左右），则相应的价值为每枚9万美元。这是菲佛最保守的估计，他认为这种情况成为现实的可能性为8%。

但菲佛对比特币有更高的期望——它对各国央行的意义最终有可能和如今的传统外汇储备相当（各国政府持有欧元、日元等外币，以便偿还外债并完成其他跨境交易）。菲佛在会上说：“可以想象，比特币将逐步取代部分外汇储备。”

他指出，目前全世界的外汇储备价值12.7万亿美元。比特币不太可能取代所有外汇储备，而菲佛在模型中设定的情景是比特币在外汇储备中占四分之一，那么按比特币当前价格计算出的回报率为20倍。如果比特币的总价值真的达到全球外汇储备的水平，也就是12.7万亿美元，那就意味着取代所有金条和外储后，比特币的单价为70万美元。

菲佛说：“作为投资者，现在最让我们感兴趣的是比特币或许会成为主导性非主权货币。”尽管他预计比特币价格仅有1%的几率真的达到70万美元的，但这种可能性本身就足以让他“以风投方式少量买入比特币并长期持有”。

他补充道，换句话说，自己的策略就是“买票搭车”。

除了比特币，菲佛这两年还小规模投资过其他加密货币，但他随后清理了自己的加密货币持仓，目前只持有比特币。菲佛说，他意识到除比特币外，其他许多加密货币不光发挥着货币功能，还是所谓的实用型代币，意思是它们还用于执行某项具体操作，其作用并非纯粹的货币（比如说，人们用和以太坊网络绑定的代币履行所谓的“智能”合约）。

但菲佛基于费雪交易方程式（equation of exchange）假设，一个加密货币网络的价值就等于其整体经济活动除以使用中货币的流通速度。由于实用型代币的交易本来就很频繁，其价值总会面临压力。菲佛说：“我觉得实际情况会证明它们将成为价值陷阱。”

另一方面，比特币的情况恰好相反，菲佛认为：“有一种途径可以摆脱这样的价值陷阱，那就是人们想把自己的财富储存在加密货币资产中。”比特币的作用就在这里，这反过来也印证了他一开始提出的主题，即比特币将取代黄金。（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审稿：夏林

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.