So cryptocurrencies are no longer making anyone rapid fortunes, are no longer protecting against inflation, and governments are working out how to find them. What exactly is the attraction? They are clearly little more than a pyramid scheme: machines for redistributing wealth from players who are late into the gold rush to those who were early. And like all other pyramid schemes, they have a brief and finite life. Many of these new get-rich-quick schemes – like NFTs – have already come and gone. Cryptocurrencies face not so much a rapid crash as a slide into nothingness.