The most likely outcome is that many Bitcoin holders will "succeed" by accident (fiat gains over time) because Bitcoin is the containable focal asset that keeps attention away from more off-grid rails (e.g. Monero).

That isn't an endorsement of freedom; it's incentives doing crowd control.

I'll write more about this later, but:

- Privacy-by-default is a political non-starter (especially in a low Gross Consent Product cycle).

Bitcoin's base case: Managed cyclicality, net up over multi-year windows, less upside convexity than "maximalists" hope, more containment than cypherpunks want.

So Bitcoin is the sanctioned pressure valve.

That design likely lets many holders win in fiat terms while the system keeps Medium-of-Exchange at scale off the table and diverts attention from privacy rails. It's not emancipation; it's containment with upside.

A few signals that support this reading (non-exhaustive):

- Growth of ETF/ETN share of total BTC exposure;

- App-store/wallet policy pressure toward KYC defaults;

- Tax and reporting regimes that bless ETF/custody rails while frictioning self-custody;

- Selective exchange de-risking of privacy coins;

- Compliance narratives that frame privacy-by-default as aberrant but Bitcoin Store-of-Value as acceptable.

Many holders will win in fiat terms - by accident, not because the system ceded control.

I don't own any Monero, but I still appreciate the community. Definitely not a shitcoin.