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Vlad Costea, host of the Bitcoin Takeover podcast, has warned of a potential scenario in which institutions like Blackrock might orchestrate a takeover by forking bitcoin and using its current ticker, BTC, to create legitimacy around it.
Is a Blackrock-Led Takeover of Bitcoin Possible? Vlad Costea Believes So
Not all bitcoiners are satisfied with the institutional version of bitcoin, despite the mainstream visibility and increased adoption that the cryptocurrency has achieved as large organizations integrate it. Vlad Costea, host of the Bitcoin Takeover podcast, believes that behemoths like Blackrock could be preparing a takeover of bitcoin.
Costea recently warned about this hypothetical scenario on social media, assessing that it might start with the capture of the current bitcoin ticker (namely BTC, or XBT). He explained that any piece of consensus software does not enforce the current ticker, and that Blackrock could use it in a fork to convince investors of the currency’s legitimacy.
He stressed:
This can play a major role in convincing investors that they must buy BTC (historically, the original Bitcoin) and stay away from knockoffs.
To support his claims, Costea reminisces about what happened in 2016 with the Ethereum split, where the newer currency adopted the known ETH ticker, while the older chain got the ETC ticker, even when it opted not to roll back the blockchain.
He further stressed that Blackrock could support this new fork by paying users to adopt its new chain, sponsoring fake activity, and finally declaring that it is the “real bitcoin.”
Costea highlighted that this might happen as bitcoin gets institutionalized and loses its grassroots appeal. “If Bitcoin loses its fundamental value as a permissionless and unstoppable payment system in order to become much more of a stonk, this kind of brand/ticker hijacking becomes possible,” he concluded.
Costea has been a critic of the “suitcoiner” movement, calling out Strategy’s Michael Saylor for his controversial positions on self-custody when he referred to part of the crypto community as “paranoid crypto anarchists.”
Read more: A Hero Falls: Bitcoin Community Blasts Michael Saylor’s ‘Paranoid Crypto-Anarchists’ and Self-Custody Remarks