Futureverse was then flying high. It had successfully, from the Cayman Islands, executed a complex merger deal with a claimed value of $530 million; raised US$54m from crypto venture capitalists friendly with the Trump presidency; issued a press release about a philanthropic partnership with Keanu Reeves; been anointed a tech unicorn by government agencies; and plots were afoot to secure rights for it to create – at long last – the metaverse from classic dystopian sci-fi novel Ready Player One.

But it would take only a couple of years before Futureverse seemed less a rocketship going to the moon than a roller-coaster going off the rails. Today all that remains is a smouldering crater.

The claimed billion-dollar business was bought by…