Last month a plague of kittens brought down one of the most fashionable cryptocurrencies on the internet. This might not have been news, except that the cryptocurrency, Ethereum, bills itself as “the world computer” – a distributed program that can replace large parts of both the legitimate banking system and the legal system itself, since contracts can be written into computer code. Unless, that is, Ethereum becomes the plaything of an imaginary kitten. Like all other cryptocurrencies that have appeared in the wake of bitcoin, and like bitcoin itself, Ethereum is useless as a medium of exchange because the price fluctuates violently and unpredictably.

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