This is - as usual with The Economist - an excellent article. It does their usual thing of drawing you in with the lurid details of malfeasance ... only to reinforce that market forces are good things, and should be allowed to develop and choose winners and losers on merit, rather than through stifling regulation. This is the real winner quote: After luring you in with the headlines and some look at the colossal hubris of the FTX crowd, The Economist goes on to say, "but not all crypto is moronic and poorly structured, and may still prove valuable in the long run". Man, I love The Economist. I don't always agree with them, but they do know how to tell a story and the writing - the pure structure and story development - is like ASMR satisfying to those of us who make our living from writing... Moreover, sceptics should acknowledge that nobody can predict which innovations will bear fruit and which will not. People should be free to devote time and money to fusion power, airships, the metaverse and a host of other technologies that may never come good. Crypto is no different. As the virtual economy develops, useful decentralised applications may yet appear—who knows? The underlying technology continues to improve. An upgrade to Ethereum’s blockchain in September radically reduced its energy consumption, paving the way for it to handle high transaction volumes efficiently.