I just started reading And Then You Win by George Kikvadze. It's a memoir about the founding of Bitfury.
Bill Tai wrote the forward, and this is how he summed up the "progress" that has occurred in the bitcoin ecosystem:
As of the time of this writing, Bitcoin ETFs are so mainstream that anyone with a brokerage account can now buy Bitcoin—the ease of purchase and sale of ETFs through well established stock brokerage channels is so low friction that even I no longer hold any Bitcoin directly (sacrilegious to many of the OG’s in the segment!) as I can have exposure without having to go outside of my normal stock brokerage channels or deal with passwords.
This guy, who I never heard of before, is a very wealthy VC. He discovered bitcoin early on. Guys I have heard of before, like Adam Back, Willy Woo, British Hodl, Saylor, et al, express similar sentiments.
It is infuriating, and probably mostly because bitcoin was created to destroy the system they now embrace. It makes me root for a coinbase hack.
Oh well. Bitcoin will survive.