It seems like the powerful have realized they can own nearly all of it and issue different forms of fiat from it, eg become de facto central banks— hard money for them, inflationary trash dollar yield and stonks for everyone else… this might be their play.

It doesn’t help that regular people refuse to buy and hold bitcoin because of “diminishing returns” and unit bias. All these securities activity could really lock in an era of fiat. It’s up to the people to buy and self custody and use as MoE to break the cycle.