I worry about us losing the cypherpunk ethos that Bitcoin and the technology it operates on were founded upon. We’ve transitioned from focusing on building a better, alternative system that is independent of the broken legacy system — to full integration with centralized, controlled traditional finance. The central powers and regulators have largely won — we now cheer for table scraps and minor regulatory concessions rather than working to disrupt the entire old broken system. We will be part of fractional reserve systems and the money printer machine — all the corrupt aspects of modern capital markets. We can hope that the superiority of Bitcoin disrupts money as the fiat bag holders try to run for the exit doors — but if it’s mostly held by a handful of big banks and public companies with increasingly absurd financial engineering - and no one uses it for trade, then it will be less likely to truly disrupt the fiat system. A lot of wealth is being built for good people - but in some ways, we are further behind than we were in 2014 or so when there was more focus on disrupting the old system. As we have become more integrated into central bank-driven traditional finance, it’s harder to pivot to the point when the world moves off these systems. We run the risk that the best-case scenario is simply that numbers go up for a generation while the evil system of fiat and central control continues. And make no mistake - it is evil. I don’t use the word lightly, but fiat fuels war, totalitarianism, and nearly every horrible thing we see on earth, from junk science (funded with phony first-grant grants) to failing academia, government contractors, and even obesity (government corn syrup subsidies & junk food incentives). We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use this amazing technology to actually disrupt and replace the old broken system, empower people, and improve our world. Alternatively, we may just get richer watching from our fortresses as the world continues to burn and descend into chaos. I don’t want rails, regulatory tidbit favors, and integration. I want disruption and replacement of the old with something new and better. A better world.