I don’t think most people see the real conflict right now.
Crypto and Web3 are making noise (lol, noice). TradFi has been watching for years, but now they’re finally talking. My guess is they want retail to start piling in.
Is that good? I dont know.. maybe?
There’s the old Chinese story I keep thinking about:
A farmer’s horse runs away.
Neighbors say, “That’s terrible.”
He says, “Maybe.”
The horse comes back with wild horses.
“Great news.”
“Maybe.”
His son breaks his leg trying to tame one.
“Awful.”
“Maybe.”
Then the army shows up to take young men to war and his son is passed over.
The point is, we don’t know what anything means when it happens. Could be good. Could be bad. Time reveals the truth.
Right now, everyone’s hyped. BlackRock, Fidelity, Visa, JPMorgan, and Robinhood are all in. Feels like we made it..
But I’m not buying it, yet.
Custody is centralizing.
Privacy is fading.
Self-sovereignty is getting traded for convenience.
The same intrusive surveillance rails are being rebuilt onchain.
Is this the kind of adoption we wanted? Is this what the tech was meant for?
It’s concerning.
Robinhood’s team, including Vlad, is now trying to position itself as a Web3 leader. It’s worth remembering they were at the center of the GameStop freeze. You may remember, they took away the buy button for GME & AMC?
They halted trading while working closely with market makers like Citadel, whose incentives were clearly not aligned with retail. That was 2021, not ancient history.
Does that sound like the future we want?
Are we building something better, or just handing old power a better set of tools?
We don’t have to call it bullish or bearish.
Just think we need to pay more attention.
Maybe it’s good. Maybe not.
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