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So much for ‘crypto’ becoming an payment system independent of the “fiat currency”-based fractional reserve financial system all the crypto-goldbugs rail against on a regular basis.

This just shows that ‘crypto’ has failed at its stated aim of becoming a payment system and has instead devolved into being an asset class for speculation — a volatile one at that because it’s totally devoid of fundamentals.

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Certainly as a payments system, Bitcoin looks to be failing/has-failed/will-fail. But there is another possible future other than being a fake-internet-money "asset class for speculation... devoid of fundamentals": a long-term return to something akin to gold-backed aka bitcoin-backed fiat currency.

Personally, I don't think deeper integration with traditional fiat currency/banking systems is a sign of failure; rather, it's the first step towards this possible future (which of course, is highly unlikely still, but 20 years ago it was 0% likely, 10 years ago it was 0.00000000001 likely, and now, who knows maybe 0.0001 likely?).

Of course, this too, is all speculation. It's hard to predict the future.

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