A year ago, Joe Lubin seemed like one of the most prescient people on the planet. Cryptocurrencies like ether were in the midst of a hockey-stick ascent, and Lubin, a cofounder of the Ethereum blockchain and one of its most articulate pitchmen, was scheduled to speak at events from Davos to SXSW. At his firm’s “Ethereal Summits,” it was standing room only, with crowds hanging onto his every utterance, no matter how bizarre. At one event in San Francisco in October 2017, he scolded attendees for hitting their television sets and for being rude to Siri, Apple’s digital assistant. “We designed Ethereum to enable ... (full story)