Wow. You just blew my mind with this theory.
Honestly, I started to feel like Bitcoin lost it's touch as soon as these high fees started. A lot of die-hard crypto lovers still have heart eyes for Bitcoin but I just am favoring altcoins much more.
Say the theory is true, and there was some major intervention to gain control over BTC. Do you think this will spill into altcoins as well? Or are we well protected enough to avoid this from happening? I always feel like big money somehow manages to get their hands on whatever they want because... well. They are big money
I have to agree with you here. Yes, I think Big Money (financial institutions/banks/wall street) has already entered the field and I'm certain they're exploring all options in relation to how they can gain control and influence over the market. They're developing their own alt-coins no doubt but I imagine they're devising schemes to eliminate the competition as well.
We already have the bankster coin Ripple (neither decentralized nor a blockchain) others have pointed to ETH being a coin of the system (seed money from Peter Thiel) and banking institutions developing their own crypto exchanges.
So what does this mean for the future of cryptocurrency?
I envision a mass adoption of cryptocurrency, however not in the way most people see it today. I think that like you said, these institutions are developing their own coins. Once they are ready, I feel as if they will advertise it as "the safe coin" the coin to be accepted and adopted and we will shift into a world of mass adopted digital centralized currency.