But they offered few concrete details. At the time, blockchain had few viable uses beyond virtual currency, which early adopters, many of whom were libertarians, saw as a tool to circumvent taxes and other forms of government oversight. The 2017 boom was driven by a flood of initial coin offerings, or ICOs, in which investors pumped money into often speculative projects in exchange for tokens. In Puerto Rico, some people quickly sized up the crypto settlers, fat on get-rich-quick schemes, as exploiting the beleaguered island to write their own rules.
