we shall see, not selling anything, only buying.
Well, at least, on a personal level, you have not been shaken that far into SCARED status.
On the other hand, the way you express your worry, you might need to reallocate a bit into one of those other projects if you think that they are so wonderful in terms of potentially flippening bitcoin or whatever it is that you think might be so great about WBTC that is supposedly providing a greater threat (greater competition) in order that BIG blocker nonsense like jbreher pales in comparison (from your kumbaya-singing wannabe perspective).
Fractional reserve banking is mathematically impossible with Bitcoin. Because fractional reserve banking is not what most people think it is—it is worse—it creates money out of thin air, whereas it is impossible to loan new bitcoins into existence out of nowhere.)
You know better than that nullius
(or at least your way of framing the matter does not really represent the difference between what is possible and what custodians are likely to do, even complicit with governments, banks or whatever).
As the vast majority of us likely appreciate, when a third party holds bitcoin, they can act like (on their internal books) they have more bitcoin than they have. There are all kinds of examples of third parties engaging in such behaviors, and surely we know about the ones who have gotten caught (and we likely do not know about the ones who have not gotten caught).
So they can do the deed.. they can fractional reserve... Can they get away with it, might be another question.
Sure, when push comes to shove, if the bitcoins that are held by the third party are claimed by those who believe that they own such bitcoins and the third party does not have possession of such bitcoin that they claim to have, then such third party could be fucked if they still have to give the bitcoin's to the proclaimed owner. On the other hand, we do not know if the law is going to be on the side of the rightful owner because many states (and other governments) grant such ownership rights to third parties (banks) to be able to engage in such fractional reserves.. and bitcoin exchanges are frequently less than regulated in terms of the rules of bitcoin...
So who's side is the law going to be on? Poor lil johnnie? Or fat cat bank (exchange)? -
So, sure the people who entrusted their bitcoin to such third parties could be the ones who end up getting fucked, rather than the exchange (fat cat banker).
And, sure part of the power of bitcoin is to be able to demand immediate custody of bitcoin, and it is quite possible and practical, in bitcoin, to be able to obtain quick and easy delivery of such custodial bitcoin. The third party custodian cannot convincingly proclaim that the transaction of the bitcoin is in process for several days and the security guards and large ass trucks trucks are getting in position to deliver, blah blah blah, logistics, blah blah blah..
Within seconds the proclaimed owner can receive custody, so long as the custodian is going to agree to send such bitcoins... and such proclaimed owner is going to be a dumby if he creates relationships with third-party custodians who are not actually holding a sufficient quantity of coins to cover those requests for immediate delivery of such coins.
Anyhow, I agree with you, nullius, that attempting to engage in fractional reserve banking could be much more problematic for the third-party custodians who engage in such fractional reserve because delivery and verified authenticity is much easier than other asset classes, and perhaps actual BTC owners are going to realize that they cannot trust certain third parties to hold their coins, so BTC HODLers will choose to either hold the coins themselves or find a third-party custodian that they can trust (and or verify that they are holding such coins and that the owner can get custody upon demand).
Admittedly, I may be mixing issues and making too many assumptions there. “Off-chain” could mean on a centralized exchange.
I am thinking that Michael Saylor purchased the Bitcoins on exchanges, too, which does seem a bit strange, but as long as it worked for him, then so be it. Saylor and company got their coins, and they seem to be happy with the quantity of coins that they got for the price that they paid for them, as far as I could tell from the Pomp interview with Saylor, too.
In today's podcast (which would be yesterday, now) Guy Swann, from the bitcoin audible podcast, said that he would be interviewing Saylor "tomorrow," which would actually mean that such podcast should be released later today.
Swann's interview with Saylor is likely that Saylor will say quite a few similar things that he already had said on the Pompliano podcast from a couple of days ago... perhaps a few new developments or things that Saylor might be willing to disclose at this time. Perhaps?
I plan to listen to such podcast once it releases because Guy Swann is a pretty smart and interesting guy too (Not that Pompliano is not smart and interesting).