It seems this way because news outlets are reporting the proclamations of bankers, as if having more authority than the opinions of a band of ragtag technologists and libertarian amateur economists. Bankers, for their part, are interested in blockchain technology and not Bitcoin itself, as they want the cheapness of decentralized ledgers while maintaining insulative control that allows them to create money at will.


Yes. The Blockchain (I note you accorded it proper noun status) -- the specific blockchain attached to Bitcoin -- is the valuable thing. Banks have a major challenge ahead of them trying to create a separate blockchain under their control, that is secure against 'incursions', when Bitcoin's Blockchain is already secured with the largest collection of computing power that humanity has ever amassed against a single problem.