But the way the idea was pitched... they were right to be negative. Brian Armstrong was talking about using BTC to compete with Visa and Mastercard. Bitcoin has

But the way the idea was pitched... they were right to be negative. Brian Armstrong was talking about using BTC to compete with Visa and Mastercard. Bitcoin hasn't done anything to impact CC fees. At this point, it's pretty clear Bitcoin isn't even used to trade for goods and services by the vast majority of people who own it. Coinbase pivoted to being an exchange for crypto speculators, which is why it's worth billions. Something like BitPay continue to focus on being a crypto payment processor, which is why it's an also-ran, despite being even older than Coinbase. If Brian had phrased the request as "Bitcoin will be digital gold" and people were dismissive, you'd be closer to say that people lacked vision. If the pitch were "Bitcoin will be an asset class that allows institutional investors to evade the regulations applied to traditional financial instruments in a time of unprecedented government money printing during a global pandemic that also drove huge numbers of retail investors into the space," you'd be right (and also from the future).