Amid the summer torpor of 2022, a group of tech companies made a surprise announcement to the New York Stock Exchange, promising to build a billion-dollar business providing data centre capacity to the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries. Social Leverage Acquisition Corp I (SLAC) was a so-called special acquisition vehicle (SPAC) established the year before with a mandate to buy an upcoming technology business. Investors led by Social Leverage, an Arizona-based venture capital firm, had pledged $345 million (€337million) to the project following SLAC’s initial public offering.  On August 1, 2022, they unveiled their target: W3bcloud, a then three-year-old joint venture…

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