05-13-2025 
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There is a particular loneliness in being right too early.
Since the early days of the Bitcoin experiment, I have held one consistent position: if we don’t use Bitcoin as cash—if we don’t treat it like a tool for business, trade, and truth—it will be captured, neutered, and sold back to us in pieces, not as a revolution, but as a speculative vehicle wrapped in the language of freedom.
And here we are.
The warnings came early and often. I said in 2015 that if we fail to transact, if we abandon Bitcoin’s usefulness, we will invite taxation and regulation. That happened. I noted that cheering on CME and CBOE futures was cheering on our own domestication by Wall Street. That happened too. I even called FTX a teetering Ponzi scheme while it was the biggest business in the blockchain space.
As the years passed, I warned that if we don’t build with Bitcoin, it will be bundled into ETFs, custodians, derivatives firms, and eventually governments. We ignored the sirens and instead focused on memes, podcasts, conferences, and mythologizing “number go up” as if that alone would get us to the promised land.
Even within BSV—the last rebel chain born from principle and truth—I warned that placing too much of the ecosystem’s weight on one man’s shoulders (even Satoshi’s) was a mistake. Instead of building businesses and markets, many chose speculation on narratives, on personalities, on outcomes they never worked to produce.
And now look how that played out.
I say none of this to gloat. I find no joy in accurate pessimism. But if we plan a way forward, we must first take an honest look back.
The great capture
Today, what most people call “Bitcoin” is a shell of the original system. BlackRock (NASDAQ: BLK) holds the keys to the treasury, with coins pooled into institutional vaults and traded as collateral for other instruments. Companies like Michael Saylor’s Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) or Jack Mallers’ new Twenty-One aim to control massive portions of the supply—used not to trade or settle or innovate, but to borrow, speculate, and yield-farm like the bankers they worship.
For a time, Bitcoin was the domain of cryptography wonks, then it shifted to anarchists and cypherpunks. Now it belongs to Larry Fink and other people who wear suits to work and bundle assets together for profit.
And worse still, these assets using BTC are increasingly serving as collateral for debt, not money. The same centralized model that broke traditional finance is now wrapping itself around Bitcoin’s narrative and selling it to fools like it isn’t a known, toxic entity. The U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve exists, but not to free anyone. Its purpose is to plug monetary holes with assets it doesn’t fully understand and can’t fully use. Ironically, even its BTC came from confiscating coins from Ross Ulbricht—the man who became a symbol of Bitcoin’s use as a means of exchange.
When sound money becomes soft
Money that depends on permission to be useful is not sound money; it’s political money. That’s where BTC lives now. The Core developers decide what is sacred and what is not. All governance happens behind closed doors, and when people disagree publicly, they are muted, banned, or brushed off.
This month, the debate over removing the OP_RETURN limits on Bitcoin Core showed just how far things have fallen. The change wasn’t debated in good faith. It was presented, rejected by the community, and quietly shifted into a new pull request with comments locked and dissent discouraged. This isn’t open source. This is priesthood, and another thing I’ve predicted for years.
And if protocol rules are subject to soft consensus, then BTC isn’t sound money. It is fiat with extra steps.
That’s why I continue to advocate for the BSV model, where consensus rules are loosened and made configurable, and infrastructure is driven by market forces and not developer decree. But even BSV faces the same problem: the world isn’t using it. And if we fail to solve that, we will get crushed under the weight of endless theories instead of thriving in the abundance of endless transactions.
Where the future is failing
When Donald Trump announced himself as the “Bitcoin President” in 2024, I said it was a dangerous sign that the technology had become a toy for billionaires and political fundraisers. Since then, we’ve seen the worst instincts play out. $TRUMP and $MELANIA tokens launched as memes. Meanwhile, the big promises about reform, clarity, and efficiency remain largely unmet.
Yes, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has exposed shocking waste. Yes, we’ve seen a few pardons. But the actual levers of power on immigration, trade, and peace remain stuck. And so does Bitcoin. The “realignment” of monetary systems that Bitcoin was supposed to catalyze is now little more than a branding exercise for Cantor Fitzgerald (NASDAQ: ZCFIIX) and Craft Ventures (NASDAQ: ZAMEPX) insiders.
We’ve missed the moment again.
And when I talk about data integrity—about the need to de-politicize records, timestamp emissions, and anchor science in facts instead of feelings—I get blank stares. The opportunity to use Bitcoin as the world’s truth machine passes us by, while everyone celebrates the next ETF approval or altcoin pump.
The real danger
It’s not just that Bitcoin is becoming irrelevant. It’s that the systems being built on top of Bitcoin, like ETFs, custodians, stablecoins, and corporate reserves are preserving the worst traits of the old system at the cost of the best traits of Bitcoin.
We’ve traded decentralization for dependency.
We’ve traded usefulness for yield.
And we’ve traded truth for trust.
That’s why I’m not worried about what Bitcoin will do next. I’m concerned about what we won’t do. If we continue to ignore payments, remittance, data integrity, and real-world business applications, then we are merely watching the tech be absorbed into the very system it was meant to replace.
And that system is under extreme strain. Interest rates, global conflict, and waning public trust—all signs point to a crisis of legitimacy. Bitcoin was supposed to be our lifeboat. Instead, it’s become a yacht club for the over-capitalized who just might drive us into World War 3.
The final warning
If you are in this space for more than speculation, now is the time to build. Now is the time to fight. If you aren’t a builder, there are a whole bunch of developers who could use a business partner, a CFO, or a project manager with some fundraising experience.
Because if Bitcoin dies as a useful tool, it won’t come back. Not in time to save us. And not in a form we can control.
This is the final window before soft money becomes dead money, and you and I get conscripted to be cannon fodder in the next bank war that Bitcoin could have prevented.
And it’s closing fast.
Watch | Tech of Tomorrow: Diving into the impact of tech in shaping the future
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