纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英一座价值600万美元比特币矿场的神秘中国主人

Jerry Yu has the trappings of what the Chinese call second-generation rich. He boasts a Connecticut prep-school education. He lives in a Manhattan condominium bought for $8 million from Jeffrey R. Immelt, the former General Electric chief executive. And he is the majority owner of a Bitcoin mine in Texas, acquired last year for more than $6 million.

杰里·俞（音）这种人在中国被称为“富二代”。他拥有一间康涅狄格州预科学校的学历，住在以800万美元从前通用电气首席执行官杰弗里·伊梅尔特手中买下的曼哈顿共管公寓里。他还是得克萨斯州一家比特币矿场的大股东，去年以600多万美元的价格收购了这家矿场。

Mr. Yu, a 23-year-old student at New York University, has also become — quite unintentionally — a case study in how Chinese nationals can move money from China to the United States without drawing the attention of authorities in either country.

23岁的杰里·俞是纽约大学的一名学生，他也无意间成为了一个研究案例，说明中国人如何在不引起两国当局注意的情况下将资金从中国转移到美国。

The Texas facility, a large computing center, was not purchased with dollars. Instead, it was bought with cryptocurrency, which offers anonymity, with the transaction routed through an offshore exchange, preventing anyone from knowing the origin of the financing.

得克萨斯州的矿场是一个大型计算中心，购买它使用的不是美元而是加密货币，这种货币具有匿名性，交易通过离岸交易所进行，没人知道资金的来源。

Such secrecy allows Chinese investors to avoid the U.S. banking system, and the accompanying oversight of federal regulators, as well as sidestep Chinese restrictions on money leaving China. In a more traditional transaction, a bank receiving the funds would know where they were coming from and would be required by law to report any suspicious activity to the U.S. Treasury.

这种保密性使中国投资者可以避开美国银行体系和随之而来的联邦监管机构的监督，也可以避开中国对资金流出中国的限制。在更传统的交易中，接受资金的银行可以知道资金的来源，并按照法律要求向美国财政部报告任何可疑活动。

None of this would be known had Mr. Yu’s company — BitRush Inc., also known as BytesRush — not run into troubles in the tiny Texas Panhandle town of Channing, population 281, where contractors say they weren’t fully paid for their work on his mine there.

要不是杰里·俞的公司BitRush Inc.（又名BytesRush）在得克萨斯州潘汉德尔只有281人的小镇钱宁遇到麻烦，这一切都不会为人所知。该公司的承包商称其拖欠工程款。

A flurry of lawsuits over the work has shaken loose documents that bring to light transactions not normally made public as Chinese investors have flooded into the United States, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build or run crypto mines, after the Chinese government banned such operations in 2021.

围绕这些工程项目的一系列诉讼披露文件曝光了通常不会公开的交易，中国政府于2021年禁止加密货币采矿之后，中国投资者涌入美国，花费数亿美元建造或运营加密货币矿。

The mines are a way for Chinese investors to generate cryptocurrency, primarily Bitcoin, which they can cash in for U.S. dollars on exchanges. The Channing mine, built on an open field, consists of several dozen buildings designed to hold 6,000 specialized computers that can operate day and night trying to guess the right sequence of numbers that earn new Bitcoins, currently worth more than $40,000 each. Such sites can place a burden on the nation’s electrical grid, The New York Times has reported, and their Chinese ownership has drawn national security scrutiny.

这些矿是中国投资者生产加密货币（主要是比特币）的一种方式，他们可以在交易所把加密币兑换成美元。钱宁矿场建在一块开阔的土地上，由几十座建筑组成，可容纳6000台专用计算机，这些计算机可以日夜运转，试图猜出正确的数字序列，从而获得新的比特币，目前每个比特币的价值超过4万美元。据《纽约时报》报道，这类矿场可能会给美国电网带来负担，它们的所有者的中国人身份也引起了国家安全方面的审视。

In one of the lawsuits involving Mr. Yu — who is a Chinese national and U.S. resident — Texas-based Crypton Mining Solutions alleges that investors in the Channing mine “are not only Chinese citizens, but citizens in highly political and influential business positions.”

在涉及中国公民和美国居民杰里·俞的一项诉讼中，总部位于得克萨斯州的Crypton采矿解决方案公司声称钱宁矿场的投资者“不仅是中国公民，而且是身居高位、具有高度政治影响力和商业地位的公民”。

The suit offers no conclusive evidence of those ties, and the public money trail ends at Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange. By using a cryptocurrency called Tether and routing it through Binance’s offshore exchange, Mr. Yu’s investors made it impossible to know the source of the funds. At the time of the transaction, Binance’s offshore operations were not adhering to American banking rules, according to the U.S. government.

该诉讼没有提供这些联系的确凿证据，公开的资金线索终止于加密货币交易所币安。通过使用一种名为Tether的加密货币，并通过币安的离岸交易所进行转账，杰里·俞的投资者将资金的来源完全隐蔽了起来。据美国政府称，在交易发生时，币安的离岸业务并未遵守美国的银行业务规定。

Last month, Binance pleaded guilty to violating anti-money-laundering regulations, agreeing to pay more than $4.3 billion in fines and forfeitures. At the heart of the federal case was Binance’s failure to comply with laws including the Bank Secrecy Act, obligating lenders to verify customers’ identities and flag suspicious money transfers.

上个月，币安承认违反了反洗钱法规，接受了超过43亿美元的罚款和没收。这起联邦案件的核心是币安未能遵守《银行保密法》等法律。该法律要求贷款方核实客户身份，并标记可疑的资金转移。

Mr. Yu referred questions to Gavin Clarkson, a lawyer for BitRush, who said in an email that the company “complies with all required federal, state and local laws and regulations, including banking laws and regulations.” He said the claims made by Crypton, including that it was not paid for services at the mine, were “baseless and without merit.”

杰里·俞将问题转给了BitRush的律师加文·克拉克森，后者回复电子邮件表示，该公司“遵守所有必要的联邦、州和地方法律法规，包括银行法律法规”。他说，Crypton公司的说法，包括该公司在矿场的服务没有得到报酬，都是“毫无根据、毫无道理的”。

“BitRush is owed money, not the other way around,” he said. In a lawsuit against Crypton, BitRush alleges “gross negligence” and seeks $750,000 in damages.

“被欠钱的是BitRush，而不是反过来，”他说。在针对Crypton的诉讼中，BitRush指控其犯有“重大过失”，并要求赔偿75万美元。

In Channing, the arrival of BitRush last year garnered a lot of attention, and some residents landed jobs constructing the mine, which was built next to an electrical substation.

BitRush在去年来到钱宁，吸引了很多关注，一些居民找到了建造矿场的工作，这个矿场建在一个变电站旁边。

One of them, Brent Loudder, is a judge, the town’s volunteer fire chief and the husband of the county’s deputy sheriff. Mr. Loudder, who oversaw the electrical and plumbing work for Crypton, said the contractors did not get paid until they protested by holding work stoppages. An electrical contractor, Panhandle Line Service, is also locked in a suit and countersuit with BitRush over pay.

其中一位名叫布伦特·劳德，他是一名法官，也是该镇的志愿消防队长，县副警长的丈夫。劳德负责监督Crypton的电气和管道工程，他说，承包商们通过停工抗议才拿到工资。电气承包商潘汉德尔线路服务公司也因薪酬问题与BitRush陷入了诉讼和反诉。

Documents shared with The Times by David Huang, a lawyer for Crypton, reveal how BitRush planned to buy the Texas site: The seller, Outlaw Mining, would receive $6.33 million in Tether. Using Tether, whose price is fixed at $1, offered the anonymity of other cryptocurrencies without the price volatility of some of them. The purchase agreement listed a wallet address — a 42-character alphanumeric sequence — where the funds would go.

Crypton的律师戴维·黄（音）向时报提供文件揭示了BitRush如何计划收购得克萨斯州的矿场：卖家“不法采矿”(Outlaw Mining)将获得价值633万美元的Tether。Tether的价格固定在一美元，在具有其他加密货币的匿名性的同时，又不会像其中一些加密货币那样出现价格波动。购买协议列出了一个钱包地址——一个42个字符的字母数字序列——资金将会流向这个地址。

The records specified that $5,077,000 was due at closing, and publicly available transaction records show that the wallet, registered to a crypto brokerage company called FalconX, accepted $5,077,146 in Tether around that time last year. The documents said $500,000 in Tether had already been paid as a deposit, with the remaining $750,000 to come — also to be paid in Tether — after BitRush took possession of equipment, supplies and materials at the site.

记录显示，交易结束时应支付507.7万美元，公开的交易记录显示，该钱包注册在一家名为FalconX的加密货币经纪公司名下，去年大约在这个时候接受了5077146美元的Tether。文件称，已支付50万美元Tether作为定金，剩下的75万美元将在BitRush接管现场的设备、用品和材料后以Tether支付。

The source of the funds, however, was not publicly recorded and is known only to Binance, the exchange that handled the transaction. The agreement never specified exactly who would make the payment, and Mr. Clarkson said BitRush itself never sent or received any money through Binance.

然而，这笔资金的来源没有公开记录，只有处理这笔交易的交易所币安知道。该协议从未具体说明谁将支付这笔款项，克拉克森说，BitRush本身从未通过币安发送或接收过任何款项。

FalconX “had no visibility into the origin of the funds,” Purvi Maniar, deputy general counsel for the company, said in a statement. “This illustrates why it is increasingly vital for centralized intermediaries in crypto to be regulated.”

FalconX副总法律顾问普尔维·马尼亚尔在声明中表示，该公司“不清楚资金的来源”。“这表明了对加密货币领域的中心化中介机构进行监管的必要性与日俱增。”

It is an issue recognized by groups that analyze the blockchain, a digital ledger that records cryptocurrency transfers. “Once funds are sent to a centralized service on the blockchain, they can no longer be traced to the individual who sent it to that exchange without a legal process” such as a court order, said Madeleine Kennedy, a spokeswoman for Chainalysis, a company that tracks crypto transactions.

这是分析区块链（一种记录加密货币转账的数字分类账）的团体所认识到的一个问题。追踪加密货币交易的Chainalysis公司发言人玛德琳·肯尼迪说：“一旦资金被发送到区块链上的中心化服务，在没有法院命令等法律程序的情况下，就无法再追踪到将资金发送到该交易所的个人。”

Jessica Jung, a spokeswoman for Binance, said that crypto wallets from three Binance accounts sent the Tether payments and that all of them belonged to foreign nationals who were not U.S. residents. “Binance.com does not have or serve any U.S. customers,” she wrote in an email, adding that the site deploys “rigorous” procedures to verify customers’ identities.

币安发言人杰西卡·郑（音）表示，来自三个币安账户的加密钱包发送了Tether付款，所有这些付款都属于非美国居民的外国人。“Binance.com没有任何美国客户，也没有为其提供服务，”她在电子邮件中写道，她还说该网站部署了“严格”的程序来验证客户的身份。

Paying with Tether is widespread in the Bitcoin-mining industry. One miner in Arkansas said he used Tether to buy millions of dollars of specialized computers made by a Chinese company. Another miner in Wyoming said he did the same. One of the benefits of those transactions can be avoiding sales and capital gains taxes.

用Tether支付在比特币挖矿行业很普遍。阿肯色州的一名挖矿者说，他用Tether购买了一家中国公司生产的价值数百万美元的专用电脑。怀俄明州的另一位挖矿者说他也是这么做的。这些交易的好处之一是可以避免营业税和资本利得税。

One document shared by Mr. Huang identified some of the shareholders in BitRush at the time of the Channing purchase. After Mr. Yu, the biggest was an investor from IMO Ventures, a China-focused venture capital firm in San Mateo, Calif. Another shareholder was identified in the document as “Lao Yu,” which can translate as “Old Yu.”

戴维·黄提供的一份文件列出了收购钱宁矿场时BitRush的一些股东。位列杰里·俞之后，最大的股东是来自加州圣马特奥专注于中国的风险投资公司IMO公司的一名投资者。文件中称另一名股东为“老俞”（音）。

The two people who signed the mortgage documents for Mr. Yu’s Manhattan apartment, Yu Hao and Sun Xiaoying, match the names of a married couple in China who own stakes in companies worth more than $100 million, according to records on WireScreen, a company that provides Chinese business intelligence. A person named Sun Xiaoying is also listed as a BitRush director.

根据提供中国商业情报的公司WireScreen的记录，为杰里·俞在曼哈顿的公寓签署抵押文件的两个人是俞浩（音）和孙晓英（音）——这两个名字与一对中国夫妇相符，这对夫妇拥有的公司股份价值超过1亿美元。一个名叫孙晓英的人还被列为BitRush的董事。

Mr. Clarkson, Mr. Yu’s lawyer, would not confirm the identities of the BitRush shareholders or Mr. Yu’s possible relation to any of them.

杰里·俞的律师克拉克森不愿确认BitRush股东的身份，也不愿确认杰里·俞与其中任何股东的可能关系。

The founder of Outlaw Mining, Josey Parks, said in a phone call that he could not comment on his financial arrangement with BitRush because he was bound by a nondisclosure agreement.

“不法采矿”的创始人乔西·帕克斯在电话中表示，他无法对自己与BitRush之间的财务安排置评，因为他受到保密协议的约束。

“Jerry is a college student in the U.S.A. with a very wealthy family from what I was told,” Mr. Parks said later in a text message. “I don’t know of any of his investors or relation to foreign entities.”

“据我所知，杰里是在美国上学的一名大学生，家庭非常富裕，”帕克斯后来在短信中说。“我不知道他有任何投资者，也不知道他与外国实体有什么关系。”