I admire your pessimistic view when normies don't get to decide the way the network goes. Bitcoin is controlled by the people willing to do the work to run nodes. Do normies run nodes? No, they don't.
Blackrock and fidelity along with the US Federal Government and China could announce a fork and all normies would go "okay" while all the people who keep Bitcoin actually functioning will go "lmao, no." and the only network that will work will be the original one.
They'll both work. One will be backed by the nerds, the other by the biggest financial institutions on the planet with the complicit support of the major governments.
Nice of you to assume that's an automatic win for the nerds. I don't think that's as clear-cut as you're making it out to be.
And mind you, I'm on the side of the nerds here.
But Bitcoin mining is highly centralized and easy to identify (massive energy consumption), most users will be custodial via banks and etfs (if they're not already) and as for the nodes.. yeah, I'm sure the people and institutions who run the global financial system can spin up a few hundred thousand, no problem.
I guess my point is, let's not be complacent here.
ETFs and what not are great for NGU, but to the best of my knowledge, Satoshi didn't exactly envision Blackrock owning most Bitcoin.
By the way, I am not pessimistic. That I find Mr Swann optimistic does not mean I take the opposite view. I am agnostic, interested, and vaguely concerned, that's all.
