I highly agree with this: "the victims are the consumers, whose purchasing power is being systematically eroded." However I don't think this is a shared sentiment for many people in Japan. First, because there is still a strong industry, and second because of the shrinkflation which has been very effective at hiding the debasement of the currency and the inflation. So I wouldn't call it Zimbabwe yet, or consider it the drama of the year yet. Bottom line I think our biggest problem is what you highlight at the end: "The attack by the American authorities on Bitcoin and its self-custody philosophy is also telling". Coming back to Japan after a trip, I heard the announcement to say that we should declare gold above a given amount (which was small)... The new law for "crypto" exchanges following the US, the capital control for people with multiple currencies, the KYC required to use ATMs to withdraw cash from bitcoins, etc... Bigger than the Japanese Yen rate our biggest challenge I think will be to keep our freedom to transact. Based on that, I started to use Vexl, it's a great app!