If Shakespeare were a modern techbro, he’d look at a proposed New Hampshire law, House Bill 639, and write something along the lines of “Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of Bitcoin.”

The bill, proposed by six state representatives and one senator, all Republicans, would prevent virtually any local or state regulation over the computerized creation of cryptocurrencies, whether on your basement PC or in a commercial warehouse stuffed with specialized units. This is needed, the bill says, because the current situation “undermines investor and consumer confidence and stifles beneficial innovation.”

If passed, the bill will prevent setting noise, pollution or zoning limits on “mining” — computers doing millions of meaningless computations in hopes of lucking out and winning a bitcoin — unless the limits are also set on other industrial applications. Importantly, it would also prevent the Public Utilities Commission from charging crypto farms a different rate for electricity than is charged to other industrial applications.

It includes some interesting legal moves, such as allowing trusts based on crypto’s underlying blockchain technology and creating an new docket in superior court to “hear and determine blockchain technology disputes.” On the tech side, it comes down on the “proof-of-stake” question for validating Bitcoin.

All in all, it’s a very innovative proposal. It’s also terrible.

I say it’s terrible because cryptocurrency has proven to be terrible. We absolutely do not want to give it free rein.

Like many, I was initially entranced by Bitcoin and blockchain. They are an incredibly clever and innovative designs that think way outside the box, and geeks couldn’t help but doff our caps in admiration. I wrote my share of naive stories that bordered on fanboy-dom.

A decade later, things have changed. Cryptocurrencies have proven to be useful for almost nobody with the exception of scammers, blackmailers, rug-pull manipulators and sellers of the world’s slimiest goods, from sex slaves to bombs. A few huge fortunes sit atop them right now, include some accumulated with blinding speed by the current administration, but there were huge Dutch tulip fortunes, too.

Despite efforts from the Winklevoss Twins and El Salvador’s autocrat, experience has shown that cryptocurrency can do nothing that can be done just as well or better by “fiat currency” — what you and I call “money.”

Crypto’s only strength is that it avoids financial regulation that has been built up over centuries in response to the sort of social disasters that crypto encourages. Hence its popularity with criminals.

On top of that, crypto-mining might be the most wasteful technology ever developed in terms of the energy used to create something which in many ways doesn’t exist. Done at large scale — and only at large scale does it make financial sense for investors — mining can stress the electric grid and cause higher electric bills for everybody. If some venture capitalist decides to plunk a crypto-mining facility in your utility’s service area, you will pay for it in your power bill.

Blockchain, which is basically a distributed ledger, is less awful but has been a disappointment. It seems like it should be a revolutionary change in many business practices, but after all this time, it has only nibbled around the edges of a few industries. Generally, the advantages aren’t worth the effort.

That’s why “cry havoc” is an appropriate response from our time-traveling Shakespeare. It means the unleashing of chaos, which I’m afraid is one of the likely results of letting crypto loose, as this bill would do.

Regulation is annoying, for sure. But sometimes it is very, very necessary.