The starting point of it all was, let’s not forget, the dream of peer-to-peer transactions without intermediaries such as banks, and without the associated problem of state surveillance. On reflection, there should never have been a period when crypto was dominated by exchanges, the centralising role of which was antithetical to the original concept of decentralised finance. The only reason the exchanges sprang up was the technical trickiness of actually exchanging crypto without an intermediary. Early adopters used a website called LocalBitcoins which functioned like Craigslist. Users would post ads to buy or sell bitcoins, which they would settle using...