Last year, a California man pleaded guilty to a mining fraud of at least $722 million through the BitClub Network. In February, a New York man pleaded guilty to running a Ponzi-like hedge crypto fund that stole about $90 million from more than 100 investors.
For instance, whereas a government can easily freeze or even seize a bank account located in its jurisdiction, it’s very difficult for it to do the same with funds held in cryptocurrency — even if the holder is a citizen or legal resident.

The good news is that the glare of public opinion will eventually dissipate, and that as the spotlight diminishes, real developers will find themselves in a healthier environment within which to do the work needed to unlock this technology’s potential. We saw a similar period of constructive building during the 2014-2016 hiatus.
Although short term relationships are erratic and sparse, this is the period band that contains most of the negative—although usually fleeting—relationships (shown by leftward facing arrows). The relationships link online activity increases to price falls (the converse is not observed). It is not surprising that occasionally discussion is associated with price falls, as negative events (e.g. blockchain bugs, and exchange hacks) are newsworthy in the community.