In April, a little-known Indian start-up called OneCoin was in the middle of selling its own digital currency when the Indian authorities raided the meeting, jailing 18 OneCoin staff and ultimately seizing more than $7 million in investor funds.
The British newspaper the Mirror described OneCoin, which pitched itself as the next Bitcoin, as a “get-rich-quick” scheme, calling it the virtual currency virtually worth nothing.
But then a few black sheep will always try to profit from the hype in the early phases of developing a new technology or product. Occasional bad practices or commercial failures are unlikely to deter innovation and the...