My interpretation is that bitcoin is not "for the man", and therefor "the man" will not like or want it. But "the man" would trade in gilded gizzards if that would make them money.
What am I missing?
But more to the point, what would stop JPMorgan from getting in on the game if there was money to be made?
Long-term, it is in TradFi's best interested to oppose the emergence of DeFi. I predict they will use common and tired arguments to push for strong government regulations similar to those on TradFi, to encumber it and add to their own value-prop.
Also, some smart contracts can and will implode on occasion and that is fine. DeFi returns power (and responsibility) to the users, but as they are not used to having this level of responsibility there are bound to be losses here and there due to technical incompetence.
Permissionless public-ledger cryptocurrencies cut out the priviledged middlemen.
You gotta pay to get your transaction executed, the miners take that.
Right now transactions are heavily subsidized by the mining reward, at some point there will no longer be a mining reward so the whole thing will be only supported by transaction fees, and they are likely to be spectacular, even today with the low transaction volumes, actual transactions can sit in the mempool for quite some time before getting executed unless you pony up fees.
Heck it it were Goldman or JP Morgan running it, you have the CEOs dragged in front of congress being asked why they are robbing poor old grandma while she’s just trying to say trade cryptos
If there's really value in bitcoin and it becomes a thing, JPM will figure out how to help. Why? Because they are good at what they do, they have tons of clients and relationships. They add real tangible value to their clients. If middleman means "tangible value" then yeah, they're a middleman. JPM figured it out with currency markets, stock markets, bond markets, commodity markets, credit markets, equity derivatives - they figured it out with big institutional clients, with retail clients - they figured it out in simple products (buy EURUSD) and complex products (buy a 5 year forward knock out call option on EURUSD, contingent on SPX, quanto into Yen). I'm sure they'll figure it out for digital assets - if it truly becomes a market worth entering.
In the meantime, crypto has yet to add any real world value. What sane person takes a vacation to Tokyo and does anything other than use their Chase-issued Visa card (now available on your iPhone!) to buy stuff? Are you going to go there and pay with your bitcoin? Ridiculous. And guess what, the credit card route works instantly and it costs nearly nothing.
Where are the real use cases for crypto? Digital gold? Maybe. Weird trading card things, ok maybe. But real ones? Maybe they will come, but also maybe not... When internet/BBS came out to real people in the mid 1980s, even then (even then!), it was obvious that this was huge and had real value. People communicated, played games, etc. In the 1950s, business used computer to automate processes. We didn't need to wait until 1995 to figure out the internet (or computers) would eventually be huge. But with crypto, 10 years later, and nobody who actually understands traditional finance can articulate where crypto is better/faster/easier/cheaper, or any other use case. Maybe it will come, but I haven't heard it!