What’s the true value of crypto? It lays bare the lies of libertarians | Zoe Williams

The downfall of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange proves how much markets need rules

I've laboured hard not to engage with cryptocurrency, to turn the page on its scandals and file its many bin fires under fools and their money being easily parted". But this has been a mistake, because the story is just getting good.

The PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel said in 2020 that crypto was one of two poles of technological conflict, the other being artificial intelligence. AI could theoretically make it possible to centrally control an entire economy" while crypto holds out the prospect of a decentralised and individualised world". He concluded that AI is communist and crypto is libertarian; it was unnecessary to add which of those he thought was better.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist