Back in the early days BTC was touted as a decentralized, anonymous way to transact money around the world. However, the machinations behind it were complicated to explain to the average person.
The long addresses and tracking, fees, and lack of simple interface kept if from becoming mainstream for a long time. Yet transactions occurred and money moved largely unnoticed. Eventually more coins came into existence including privacy coins that would help move money truly anonymously.
I think these were the true intentions and desired use case for crypto in the onset.
Fast forward to 2021, what we have appears to be a total 180 from the monkey wrench cryptocurrency was supposed to put into the global financial order.
Currently, major banks, the same ones branched from the central banks, hold billions in BTC through custody accounts with Coinbase, Gemini, and others. With those kinds of holdings, they control the largest sums of Bitcoin ratiowise.
Now there are accounts that pay interest or allow you to borrow money at interest. This is the same usury system we've been beholden to with central banks.
So I ask, what is actually the point of cryptocurrency if these same infrastructures and lopsided powers are in control again?
Was this entire time a large global beta for a new digital financial system?