To see this untamed energy, look at crypto in 2013. Cryptsy was one of the early digital companies. It was a crypto exchange that attracted users from around the world. So this was like the crypto Wild West before anyone gave a (expletive) about the law or a fence. How it was run was irrelevant to them; they just wanted a venue where they could trade rare coins. Crypto turned into a digital bazaar for dogecoin, litecoin and at least a dozen other coins you are much less likely to have heard of and which skitter back and forth across its list like a madcap board game of shuffleboard. more info

Cryptsy grew quite quickly. The other persons would pile in, drawn by the immense number of trade pairs. You could trade or hoard altcoins that nobody else cared about and find the next big thing. For a time, all was well.

But beneath those flashing price tickers, things were getting worse. I could never tell if the trade was being run on hope, duct tape and a prayer. Nor was it even the most interesting thing about it. There were some preliminary reports in Bitcoin forums about withdrawal problems, but soon there were dozens. Want to get your coins out? You might also bet on a snail race.

Even more concerning are the rumors of coins being lost. People waited. Support tickets mounted like puzzles to be cracked. And then the big reveal: Millions of dollars — whoosh, disappeared and poofed. And the infamous Cryptsy hack was revealed. The theories were familiar: Was there theft, incompetence or creative accounting?

And they did — and the man behind the curtain, Paul Vernon, had to pay. Words, but not much else. Coughing up coins, it turns out, is easier said than done. Regulators, users and lawyers descended. By 2016 the show was long gone. Cryptsy vanished, leaving a cyber ghost town full of upset people.

The fall of Cryptsy is a classic story of the highs and lows of unchecked crypto innovation. Good intentions are not enough if there are no rules and no reminder each day that security is what should be paramount. A handful of prescient investors made a killing, while others lost their shirts and their sleep.

Trust, as anyone who has ever lost money can tell you, is not a renewable resource. And it really wasn’t worth all this for a swift trade and a chest of coins. The Cryptsy saga became a cautionary tale for people in chatrooms and on subreddits. If you’re starting to slide down the crypto rabbit hole, mind the step and look both ways before you cross the street. And you never, ever want to have all your eggs in one flashy basket, particularly if it’s digital.