Well, it seems pretty clear they have been opening up this pathway, and that Vitalik and friends have been glad to cosy up to the plutocrat glee club with their ESG - oriented marketing campaign since the Murge. But like I point out, Tether and friends already have hitched some of their network to it. Most people don't even realise that USDT runs mainly on their platform.

In fact, this is probably now the main valuation base for ETH, as a transport for USDT and friends.

They may be our enemies but the small always have to beg to the larger for protection by making arrangements to act on their behalf. Bitcoin doesn't need this but the mother a$$hole of ponzi schemes needs it to consolidate its market position. And this makes for a delicious dilemma for the fiat system which has seen its "assets" pirated by well funded entrepreneurs seeing an obvious way to get into the eurodollar market at the same time as riding the rise of Bitcoin.

I don't think it's an attack on Bitcoin. Tether, alone, now vouchesafes BTC/USD pair on the market. Really, this is a "sly round-about way" to embed bitcoin into the global market, by guaranteeing rails that are largely used to monetise Bitcoin. They didn't need as stringent requirements as a full banking licence or FED membership to gain access to this capability nor will it be easy to take it away from them.