Quote from: BitHodlers on Today at 02:23:16 AM

Quote from: BenCodie on Today at 01:32:16 AM

That is the big war. Bitcoin did a very rare thing by being heavily distributed before banks got a chance to take too much ownership of it. Now it will be interesting to see if they try to take as much ownership as they can of Bitcoin and absorb the market, or if they will always be chasing Bitcoin's innovative tail. It depends how much private wealth can be deployed and if people are willing to sell enough Bitcoin to make power centralization a concern. Right now, with coinbase, microstrategy, blackrock, fidelity and others with a combined ownership of 10-15%+ of the entire bitcoin supply, it is an interesting and pivotal peroid we are in regarding this war.

No, owning Bitcoin does not provide any power over it and because of that there is no war. Normal people have had a lot of time to acquire it at low prices, it is only natural that the time had to have eventually ran out.

Obviously you are not aware of banking-related officials who have repeatedly tried to tarnish Bitcoin's name between its inception and today. Obviously you are also unaware that ownership is power, and that the more Bitcoin you own, the more power you have over its market (especially in the context of large institutions who own 5%+ of the supply).

Yes, diminishing returns has made the reward less attractive for new investors though that does not mean the time has ran out, it just means that Bitcoin has matured into a market that is here to say. Not sure how that's relevant to what I initially said about private wealth deployment and ownership though.

Quote from: BitHodlers on Today at 02:23:16 AM

Quote from: BenCodie on Today at 01:32:16 AM

That is the big war. Bitcoin did a very rare thing by being heavily distributed before banks got a chance to take too much ownership of it. Now it will be interesting to see if they try to take as much ownership as they can of Bitcoin and absorb the market, or if they will always be chasing Bitcoin's innovative tail. It depends how much private wealth can be deployed and if people are willing to sell enough Bitcoin to make power centralization a concern. Right now, with coinbase, microstrategy, blackrock, fidelity and others with a combined ownership of 10-15%+ of the entire bitcoin supply, it is an interesting and pivotal peroid we are in regarding this war.

To make your post even worse, all the entities that you listed hold Bitcoin for a large number of people. There isn't really a single entity that owns a lot of Bitcoin for itself.

Many custodial platforms that were considered safe also held a lot of Bitcoin for a large number of people. Mt Gox, FTX, and countless others have proven the danger and shown the effects of a custodial service vulnerable to its own power...Just to speak about Coinbase and Blackrock (who combined own more than 7.5% of the supply):
- Coinbase have recently lost over $300m from social engineering scams and have had to offer a $20m bounty to catch the culprits, despite that $300m being permanently lost.
- Blackrock have a clause in their ETF filing saying they would "pick" in the event of a hard fork, meaning if they ever chose a hard fork of Bitcoin over Bitcoin, they could dump all of their holdings and reflect the new fork on behalf of ETF holders.

These are dangers of centralized ownership of the supply.

What you are not properly taking into account is that while these institutions hold Bitcoin for other people, it is still a single entity holding all of the Bitcoin, thus they are a point of failure whether it be by their intention to be bad actors (wouldn't put it past BlackRock, how do you think they became the largest MNC in the world? By being honest and by the book?) or because of a circumstance out of their control, such as a hack or social engineering like we're seeing with Coinbase...or, like a technical event like a hard fork and Blackrock choosing the fork over the original Bitcoin.

Quote from: BitHodlers on Today at 02:23:16 AM

Quote from: BenCodie on Today at 01:32:16 AM

That is the big war. Bitcoin did a very rare thing by being heavily distributed before banks got a chance to take too much ownership of it. Now it will be interesting to see if they try to take as much ownership as they can of Bitcoin and absorb the market, or if they will always be chasing Bitcoin's innovative tail. It depends how much private wealth can be deployed and if people are willing to sell enough Bitcoin to make power centralization a concern. Right now, with coinbase, microstrategy, blackrock, fidelity and others with a combined ownership of 10-15%+ of the entire bitcoin supply, it is an interesting and pivotal peroid we are in regarding this war.

I do not see any realistic chance of banks disappearing with the current state of things, regardless of whether they ignore cryptocurrencies or not. To make things worse, they are continuing to entrench themselves in the society. While it is still being sold as a private service, it is actually already an utility. There are a lot of things that you are unable to do in many countries, such as pay rent, without a bank account or access to a bank.

The utility of banks are on a downward trend. They are trying to keep up, and decentralized protocols are taking more an more market share every year. They are not becoming more entrenched, in fact I'd bet that since 2008 they'd have lost market share from retail investors. I'd bet that the amount lost could be compared/correlated to Bitcoin's market cap, and god knows how many banking fees have been saved through using Bitcoin/crypto over the banks in the last 15 years.