He calls it a ‘hustle,’ but this Russian’s cryptocurrency empowers a village

When Mikhail Shlyapnikov left the world of business and banking, he expected to spend the rest of his days peacefully farming in a rural village on the outskirts of Moscow. His banking roots, however, proved difficult to shed. Dismayed by how much federal assistance went to big farms, Mr. Shlyapnikov developed a new financing system designed to support small-scale, rural farmers. He developed a new currency, the kolion, to enable farmers to leverage their farms’ assets to invest in projects that may not bring immediate dividends. But a year after launch, Shlyapnikov and his kolion became the subject of a criminal case. A Russian court concluded that his actions undermined the government’s financial system, and the kolion was banned. The clash with the state did little to stop Shlyapnikov, who then turned to the blockchain market to find investors for his farm. Shlyapnikov plans on strengthening the kolion ecosystem by creating insurance and hedging mechanisms to…