Not ironic, because nobody that has serious money in BTC cares about using it as a currency. It's a get-rich-quick scheme for regular people, and a way to launder money for everybody else. In both cases, you need a middleman.
In any case, there’s a big difference between “needing a middleman” to do something and leaving your funds with a middleman indefinitely. That’s like needing to use a taxi and paying with cash versus leaving your life savings with the taxi person so some day when you maybe want to use a taxi it’ll be easier.