特朗普挑选的美国国家航空航天局局长贾里德·艾萨克曼是一位在稳定币上押下重注的加密货币亿万富翁

他还是 Shift4 的创始人，这是一家为企业提供安全支付处理解决方案的金融科技公司。

Jared Isaacman, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run NASA, is a 41-year-old space enthusiast, who just months ago commanded the world’s first all-civilian mission to reach orbit.

当选总统唐纳德·特朗普任命的美国宇航局局长贾里德·艾萨克曼是一位 41 岁的太空爱好者，几个月前，他指挥了世界上第一个全民用进入轨道的任务。

He’s also a crypto billionaire.

他也是一位加密货币亿万富翁。

Isaacman is the founder of Shift4, a fintech company that provides secure payment processing solutions for businesses. The company’s stock price has jumped almost 40% this year, lifting its market cap to $9.3 billion. Isaacman started the business in 1999 at age 16 and took it public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2020.

Isaacman 是 Shift4 的创始人，这是一家为企业提供安全支付处理解决方案的金融科技公司。该公司股价今年上涨了近 40%，市值升至 93 亿美元。 Isaacman 于 1999 年 16 岁时创办了这家公司，并于 2020 年在纽约证券交易所上市。

In a Dec. 4 post on his Truth Social platform announcing the nomination, Trump wrote, “Jared has demonstrated exceptional leadership, building a trailblazing global financial technology company.”

特朗普在 12 月 4 日在其 Truth Social 平台上宣布提名的帖子中写道，“贾里德展现了卓越的领导才能，打造了一家开创性的全球金融科技公司。”

That success can be traced in part to a bold bet on crypto almost three years ago.

这一成功可以部分归因于大约三年前对加密货币的大胆押注。

Inside Isaacman’s New York residence near Central Park, around a lofted conference room with glass walls that sits above the apartment’s living area, Isaacman and members of his executive team sat with Alex Wilson and Pat Duffy, two entrepreneurs who were in the final stages of selling their crypto donation marketplace to Shift4. It was early 2022.

在艾萨克曼位于中央公园附近的纽约住所内，在公寓起居区上方一间带玻璃墙的阁楼会议室周围，艾萨克曼和他的管理团队成员与亚历克斯·威尔逊和帕特·达菲坐在一起，这两位企业家正处于出售的最后阶段他们向 Shift4 提供加密货币捐赠市场。那是 2022 年初。

With a whiteboard behind them, they spitballed on how blockchain-based technology could be applied across the payment company’s business.

他们身后有一块白板，讨论如何将基于区块链的技术应用于支付公司的业务。

Bitcoin had hit a record a few months earlier, jumping sixfold from the end of 2019 through the close of 2021. A range of digital tokens were delivering outsized returns. The market was frothy, spirits were high and meme coins were in their prime.

几个月前，比特币创下了新纪录，从 2019 年底到 2021 年底，比特币价格上涨了六倍。一系列数字代币正在带来巨额回报。市场泡沫充沛，人们情绪高涨，模因币正处于鼎盛时期。

But while Elon Musk was touting dogecoin and money was pouring into nonfungible tokens (NFTs), Wilson, Duffy, and Isaacman were focused on a far less glitzy corner of the digital asset world: stablecoins.

然而，当埃隆·马斯克兜售狗狗币并且资金大量涌入不可替代代币（NFT）时，威尔逊、达菲和艾萨克曼却专注于数字资产世界中一个远不那么耀眼的角落：稳定币。

Stablecoins are a subset of cryptocurrencies matched to the value of a real-world asset and are virtually synonymous with U.S. dollar-pegged tokens. Today, they’re collectively worth around $200 billion and are often used to move money across borders at a fraction of the cost of legacy payment systems.

稳定币是与现实世界资产价值相匹配的加密货币的子集，实际上是与美元挂钩的代币的代名词。如今，它们的总价值约为 2000 亿美元，通常用于跨境转移资金，而成本只是传统支付系统的一小部分。

Wilson, 31, said the group around the table at Isaacman’s house “all agreed it was more likely that stablecoins would become a regular medium of exchange than bitcoin or ethereum.” They wanted to build products that took advantage of blockchain but were token agnostic.

31 岁的威尔逊表示，艾萨克曼家里的桌子周围的人“都同意稳定币比比特币或以太坊更有可能成为常规交易媒介。”他们希望构建利用区块链但与代币无关的产品。

“We wanted to meet users where they were and equip our merchants to take payments in whatever ways their customers wanted to pay,” Wilson said.

“我们希望满足用户的需求，并让我们的商家能够以客户想要的任何方式进行付款，”威尔逊说。

In front of the whiteboard with marker in hand, Isaacman walked through ways crypto could be applied to the broader Shift4 business. Wilson said Isaacman has an uncanny ability to get in the weeds despite being the CEO of a company that now has more than 3,000 employees.

在白板前，手里拿着记号笔，艾萨克曼讲述了加密货币如何应用于更广泛的 Shift4 业务。威尔逊表示，尽管艾萨克曼是一家目前拥有 3000 多名员工的公司的首席执行官，但他却拥有一种不可思议的拨乱反正的能力。

Weeks later, on March 1, Shift4 announced it had purchased The Giving Block, Wilson and Duffy’s company, and would pursue a “$45+ billion embedded cross-sell opportunity by bundling crypto donation capabilities with traditional card acceptance.” Shift4 paid $54 million and included in the deal a potential earnout of up to $246 million.

几周后，即 3 月 1 日，Shift4 宣布已收购 The Giving Block、Wilson 和 Duffy 的公司，并将通过将加密货币捐赠功能与传统卡接受服务捆绑在一起，寻求“价值超过 450 亿美元的嵌入式交叉销售机会”。 Shift4 支付了 5400 万美元，并在交易中包含了高达 2.46 亿美元的潜在收益。