The price of the cryptocurrency bitcoin surged yesterday to its highest in more than a year amid a wave of Chinese testimonials for a “social financial network” called MMM, which bears the hallmarks of a pyramid scheme.

随着一些中国人热炒一个叫做“MMM”的“社交金融网络”，加密货币比特币的价格昨日飙升至一年多以来的最高点。该平台具备了传销的特征。

New members of MMM have to buy bitcoins to join the scheme, the brainchild of Sergey Mavrodi, a former Russian parliamentarian once jailed for fraud.

MMM的新会员必须购买比特币来加入这项由谢尔盖氠夫罗季(Sergey Mavrodi)提出的计划。马夫罗季是俄罗斯前议员，曾因诈骗入狱。

The bitcoins are sent to other members of the network as “mutual aid”. Participants are promised a 30 per cent return a month, with bonuses for referrals or posting testimonials online.

作为一种“互助”，比特币被发送给MMM网络中的其他会员。网站承诺予以参与者每月30%的回报，介绍其他人入会或者在线上传证言将获得奖金。

“Today, on October 31, I received 20 per cent interest and [a bonus] as a recommender, for a total of $7,750. I truly experienced the greatness of 3M and the sincerity of all the participants,” said Wen Qiang, one of the hundreds of MMM evangelists taking to YouTube in the past 24 hours.

“今天，10月31日，我获得了20%的利息，以及作为推荐者的‘奖金’，总额达到7750美元。我真正体会到了MMM的伟大，以及所有参与者的真诚，”文强（音译）说，他是过去24小时内数百名在YouTube上宣传MMM的人之一。

The bitcoin price surged by more than a fifth to above $490 in the latest spike for the virtual currency created in 2008.

这种2008年问世的虚拟货币的价格出现最新涨势，飙涨逾五分之一，至490美元以上。

Championed by libertarians for its lack of centralised control, bitcoin lost three-quarters of its value in 2014 after the failure of a prominent exchange. Despite its fringe reputation bankers have in recent months expressed mounting interest in the underlying technology known as blockchain.

因为缺乏中央控制，比特币受到了自由主义者的拥护。2014年，由于一家知名的比特币交易所破产，其价值曾缩水四分之三。尽管比特币带有边缘声誉，但近几个月银行界人士对其基础技术——被称为块环链(blockchain)——表现出越来越大的兴趣。

MMM has elements typical of pyramid schemes, marked by rewards for recruitment and the promise of outsize profits. The flawed economics of such schemes all but doom them to collapse.

MMM具备了传销的典型特征，其标志是招募奖励和巨额盈利承诺。这类计划的经济原理存在缺陷，几乎注定会走向覆灭。

MMM claims on its website that it is legal because the scheme involves money transfers between private persons. The price of bitcoin has more than doubled in the past month, to value existing stock at more than $7bn.

MMM在网站上声称自身合法，因为该计划涉及的是私人之间的转账。过去一月，比特币的价格上涨了一倍多，使现有比特币存量的价值超过70亿美元。