I'm afraid some people might be right that there's a conspiracy going on (BlackRock might be trying to flood the network before ETF's approval with ORDI/NFTs raising the fees to absurd levels).
Even if this was true, how would BlackRock benefit from large fees, immediately after doing this? They are not miners, they are asset managers.
In fact I strongly think that most people in BlackRock do not even know how to make an Ordinal.
Although you said there is a risk of it becoming a "settlement network for banks", to be honest, is there any bank interested in using Bitcoin for that? Jamie Dimon just said he would like to close Bitcoin down if he could.
I've explained it:
Back in May I had written a FB post about how in the future you will have to pay $1000* for an on-chain transaction. BTC mainnet will basically become a settlement network for banks. The Average Joe will be forced to use CEX or Lightning (if he's lucky enough to have a channel already).
BlackRock can hire BTC/blockchain experts to flood the network with NFTs, it's not that hard... then they can sell BTC IOU on their own CEX platform with KYC requirements.
Regarding Jamie Dimon, don't believe him, he's playing reverse psychology to buy cheap BTC.
