You don't need to control the coin, just the conscious.
The threat of the state employing violence on an individual or a group of individuals is more than enough. The devs are people. They can be threatened. Who's to say they haven't already been threatened?
People forget, Bitcoin is also a social phenomena too.
Point well made and taken.
These are not static games though. Actions result in a cascade of reaction/action/reaction/action.
The world looks very different when Bitcoin is more valuable than gold.
Sure Saylor is superrich, but he remains flesh and bone. And there’s also a cohort of anarchist/anti-state/GFY people who have more wealth than they could have ever imagined with their own incentives to protect it.
This IMO is what the regime is trying to get ahead of. They know there will be a new financial elite, a diaspora of people who have an idea of their game and already oppose it who suddenly have the means to start doing something about it.
That’s the real threat.
They could manage a global reserve transition if they held most of it (see UK->US) - they can’t if their unpredictable enemies do.
Yes it’s absolutely a social phenomena, it’s why I keep talking about Identity. This game is going to require coordination which is like herding cats in a decentralised system; this is the incumbent regimes strongest card.
But they’re not going to shake out enough people in this space to just roll in and have their way unopposed.
These are merely the first shots fired in a long war.
