If compromising the permissionlessness of Bitcoin is the only way for Bitcoin to come to a certain market, then perhaps it would be better for companies like Coinbase not to exist, and people who want to use Bitcoin should have to take the steps involved in self-custody.

To me, it's a shame to see. Now that Gmail and Coinbase have captured so much of their markets, they (or anyone who can coerce them) are now free to start censoring what goes in or out, turning a federated, permissionless system into effectively a dictatorship.

https://cryptobriefing.com/bitstamp-begins-track-off-exchang...

I really hope that's not what ends up happening. It's a bummer that financial services in the global west engage in such legally-mandated gatekeeping, locking billions out of the most lucrative payments markets. The internet and cryptocurrencies present a new opportunity there, and re-using the same decades old regulation to segregate the technology into the haves and have-nots is, to me, a tragedy.