公共区块链如何防止像 Lou Pearlman 的“Dirty Pop”骗局这样的庞氏骗局

我最近在 Netflix 上观看了《肮脏流行音乐：男孩乐队骗局》。我对后街男孩和 NSYNC 背后的音乐大亨卢·皮尔曼 (Lou Pearlman) 如何实施美国历史上最大的庞氏骗局之一感到着迷和震惊。

Blockchains, Ponzi Schemes, and the Next Big Scam

区块链、庞氏骗局和下一个大骗局

Recently, I watched ‘Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam’ on Netflix and was simultaneously enthralled and horrified by the story of how Lou Pearlman, the music mogul behind the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, ran one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in American history.

最近，我在 Netflix 上观看了《肮脏流行音乐：男孩乐队骗局》，同时对后街男孩和 NSYNC 背后的音乐大亨卢·皮尔曼 (Lou Pearlman) 如何实施美国历史上最大的庞氏骗局之一的故事感到着迷和震惊。

Pearlman stole approximately $300 million from investors, banks, friends, and family by convincing them to invest in companies that either didn’t exist or weren’t as successful as he claimed. In classic Ponzi scheme fashion, he used money from new investors to pay old ones before getting caught and eventually being sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2008.

皮尔曼说服投资者、银行、朋友和家人投资那些根本不存在或不像他声称的那么成功的公司，从他们那里窃取了大约 3 亿美元。在经典的庞氏骗局中，他用新投资者的钱来支付老投资者，然后被捕并最终在 2008 年被判处 25 年监禁。

Throughout the show, I couldn’t help but think about how a scalable public blockchain could have prevented Pearlman and other Ponzi conmen like Bernie Madoff from duping their victims. While it’s too late for them, it could prevent the next big scam and save investors money and lives.

在整个节目中，我忍不住思考可扩展的公共区块链如何阻止皮尔曼和伯尼·麦道夫等其他庞氏骗子欺骗受害者。虽然对他们来说为时已晚，但它可以防止下一个大骗局，并为投资者节省金钱和生命。

Public Blockchains – The Immutable Truth Machines

公共区块链——不可变的真理机器

In essence, blockchains are public ledgers akin to financial books. Being public, they are transparent and auditable by anyone.

本质上，区块链是类似于金融账簿的公共账本。由于是公开的，它们是透明的并且可以被任何人审计。

Contrary to popular opinion, Bitcoin and similar systems are not anonymous. Every transaction in the system’s history is visible in clear text on the public ledger, and every transaction that occurs on it in the future will be, too.

与流行观点相反，比特币和类似系统不是匿名的。系统历史中的每笔交易都在公共分类账上以明文形式可见，未来发生的每笔交易也将如此。

Furthermore, transaction records cannot be altered once they are confirmed. The ledger’s state is decided by decentralized consensus between nodes, and even if records were updated, those changes would be shown rather than overwriting the original entries.

此外，交易记录一经确认就无法更改。账本的状态是由节点之间的去中心化共识决定的，即使记录被更新，这些变化也会被显示出来，而不是覆盖原始条目。

It’s not difficult to see how such a system could make Ponzi schemes like Pearlman’s difficult to carry out. Fundamentally, these scams depend on keeping multiple sets of books, creating false transactions to make it seem like actual business activity is occurring, and paying older investors with new investors’ money.

不难看出这样的系统如何使像皮尔曼这样的庞氏骗局难以实施。从根本上来说，这些骗局依赖于保留多套账簿，制造虚假交易，使之看起来像是实际的商业活动正在发生，并向老投资者支付新投资者的资金。

Such fraudulent activity would soon become evident if all records were visible on a public blockchain—the false activity wouldn’t show on the ledger, and it would be impossible to erase or cover up old ones. Anyone with basic pattern detection skills could quickly find out that new deposits were paying out old investors.

如果所有记录都在公共区块链上可见，这种欺诈活动很快就会变得明显——虚假活动不会显示在分类账上，而且不可能删除或掩盖旧记录。任何具有基本模式检测技能的人都可以很快发现新存款正在向老投资者支付。

Better yet, blockchains would make it easy to confirm or expose claims like the type Lou Pearlman made to entice investors. Investors would need only to ask for cash positions, assets, and cash flow, and they could check claims against the public records on the blockchain. It would be as simple as saying, “tell me your wallet addresses,” and verifying their balances and transaction histories.

更好的是，区块链将使确认或揭露类似 Lou Pearlman 为吸引投资者而提出的主张变得容易。投资者只需要询问现金头寸、资产和现金流，他们就可以根据区块链上的公共记录检查索赔情况。就像说“告诉我你的钱包地址”并验证他们的余额和交易历史一样简单。

AI Analytics Can Supercharge Fraud Detection

人工智能分析可以增强欺诈检测

Combined with artificial intelligence (AI)-powered analytics, blockchain tech makes it much easier for regulators and law enforcement to spot scams and alert investors. While some suspicious activity might make it past individual investors’ radars, it would be unlikely to do so if regulators with advanced analytics tools were scanning records and looking for red flags.

与人工智能 (AI) 驱动的分析相结合，区块链技术使监管机构和执法部门更容易发现诈骗并向投资者发出警报。虽然一些可疑活动可能会绕过个人投资者的雷达，但如果监管机构拥有先进的分析工具来扫描记录并寻找危险信号，则不太可能这样做。

In a nutshell, public scalable blockchains eliminate the need for trust. What scammers like Lou Pearlman or Madoff claim could be verified or exposed as lies, eliminating the need to rely on their word. There would be one set of immutable financial books with a transaction history that no one can manipulate.

简而言之，公共可扩展区块链消除了对信任的需求。像卢·皮尔曼或麦道夫这样的骗子所声称的内容可以被证实或揭露为谎言，从而消除了依赖他们的话的需要。将会有一套不可变的金融账簿，其中包含任何人都无法操纵的交易历史。

Given how Pearlman’s Ponzi scheme caused his lifelong friend, Jerome Rosen, to take his life and how Madoff’s con led to dozens of suicides, we must move to a blockchain-based financial system as soon as possible.

鉴于皮尔曼的庞氏骗局如何导致他一生的朋友杰罗姆·罗森自杀，以及麦道夫的骗局如何导致数十人自杀，我们必须尽快转向基于区块链的金融系统。

The next big Ponzi could be operating today or coming to a venue near you soon, and it can be prevented by moving to a system where records can be publicly audited, verified, and falsified. For this to happen, blockchains must be public, scalable, and capable of many transaction types.

下一个大型庞氏骗局可能会在今天运作，或者很快就会出现在您附近的场所，并且可以通过转移到可以公开审计、验证和伪造记录的系统来防止它。为了实现这一点，区块链必须是公共的、可扩展的，并且能够处理多种交易类型。

In Satoshi Nakamoto’s immortal words, we need “one global chain” to create the transparent, honest world he hoped to create.

用中本聪的不朽名言来说，我们需要“一条全球链”来创造他希望创造的透明、诚实的世界。