Driving the news: Like tulips and dotcom shares before them, crypto-currencies—the only blockchain technology currently operating at large scale — have gripped the wise and reckless alike. Investors won’t lose all the $250 billion in bitcoin that they currently hold when the fever inevitably breaks, but many will forgo paper profits, plus much of their original investment.

Meanwhile, fraud, theft and other mischief threatens the first bitcoin futures trading, which began last night, per the Wall Street Journal. The futures price for January bitcoin surged to $18,850 at one point early today and twice triggered a halt to trading.