CHOPPING off their heads does not work – cockroaches can live without one for as long as a week. Whacking them is no guarantee either as their flexible exoskeletons can bend to accommodate as much as 900 times their body weight. Nor is flushing them down the toilet a solution, since some breeds can hold their breath for more than half an hour. To most, roaches are an unwelcome pest. Their presence is made all the worse because they are indestructible.

An unwelcome pest is how many financiers and regulators would describe the crypto industry. Criminals use cryptocurrencies to launder money. Terrorists use them to make payments. Hackers demand ransoms in bitcoin. Many crypto coins are created simply so their makers can make off with the money.

The industry also appears to be indestructible. Crypto prices were crushed by higher interest rates in 2022. The industry’s head has been chopped off: Zhao Changpeng and Sam Bankman-Fried, the founders of the world’s biggest and second-biggest crypto exchanges, now both await sentencing for financial crimes (breaking anti-money-laundering laws and fraud, respectively). Regulators are cracking down. Yet not only has crypto survived, it is once again soaring: Bitcoin climbed to a two-year high of almost US$45,000 on Dec 11, up from just US$16,600 at the start of the year.