CBDC
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Cryptocurrency isn't going to see mass adoption without custodial services. Grandpa isn't going to learn how to use a Ledger. The beauty of crypto is that it gives us degens the option for self-custody.
I think you and I have fundamentally different ideas of what centralizes a blockchain. People choosing to take advantage of custodial services doesn't mean the blockchain is centralized. Block production and validation is still decentralized.
The point of decentralization is to prevent government institutions from controlling the currency. They can't simply print more (and devalue it in the process). That's why everybody's so up in arms about CBDCs - they're still controlled by the government. A CBDC would allow the government to devalue, seize, watch, or freeze your coins as they see fit. They could rewrite the ledger if they wanted. *That's* why we value decentralization - not because MSTR has a bunch of it or because Grandpa's going to use Fidelity to handle his crypto.

Cryptocurrency isn't going to see mass adoption without custodial services. Grandpa isn't going to learn how to use a Ledger. The beauty of crypto is that it gives us degens the option for self-custody.
I think you and I have fundamentally different ideas of what centralizes a blockchain. People choosing to take advantage of custodial services doesn't mean the blockchain is centralized. Block production and validation is still decentralized.
The point of decentralization is to prevent government institutions from controlling the currency. They can't simply print more (and devalue it in the process). That's why everybody's so up in arms about CBDCs - they're still controlled by the government. A CBDC would allow the government to devalue, seize, watch, or freeze your coins as they see fit. They could rewrite the ledger if they wanted. *That's* why we value decentralization - not because MSTR has a bunch of it or because Grandpa's going to use Fidelity to handle his crypto.

The most important takeaway here is that
Bitcoin does not aim to replace USD.

USD aims to replace bitcoin, becoming the dominate crypto currency globally.

Global adoption of crypto is going to be the most boring thing ever, instead of CBDC's, we'll have programmable state currencies on blockchains running in the background.

My feeling is that what you're experiencing currently is just a short-ish term issue. While the EU is behind e.g. China with digital payments, we are surely going towards that direction. No matter if it is the CBDC digital euro, Wero, or something else, cash will be replaced even with person to person payments. I'm just hoping that there will be a solution that will be used in all of the EU and that is made in the EU.
Here in the Nordics more and more businesses are refusing cash payments altogether.