Indeed, institutional investors did change a lot. And indeed, we may have no proper crypto winter. I hope so. But I am not easy to be convinced we're good. Not yet. (I was accused many times, especially IRL, of being overly pessimistic.)
There is no doubt about that, the part of BTC that would otherwise be on the market is now locked in some custodial cold wallets, and only 900 new BTCs per day are not a quantity that can affect liquidity. I am personally satisfied with how BTC is behaving in view of the war, inflation and all the pessimistic news that bury us every day.
I think that's more than the fact the coins are locked in this wallet instead of that (decreasing the chance to be used as fractional reserve, for example). It's also that the companies acquiring Bitcoin tend to create a domino effect, getting other companies do the same (for reasons ranging from more trust to making sure they don't fall behind the competition).
I understand your point of view, but I still don't like that Bitcoin in this case is some kind of reserve asset for some token or stablecoin, as if it gives it some legitimacy and significance that it is better than other similar projects. Given how much the average investor understands this whole story, some are likely to conclude that Bitcoin as Bitcoin provides some sort of guarantee that it is something worth investing in. Besides, I don’t trust characters who are tossing around with tens of millions of dollars just to be in the media.
I think that you have overthought this a little. If one business has a reserve of US Dollars is it endorsed by USA, or even legit? No. Same goes with bitcoin. I
know that some may not understand this; but those are also prone to send their money to any "Elon Musk" on twitter promising to double them. I surely hope that in 2022 the average crypto investor is smarter than 2017 FOMO-driven
Better than similar projects? That's something only time can tell. Bitcoin can rise and fall, hence it can be debatable if it's a good reserve for another cryptocurrency, especially as the other crypto nominal value is not pegged to Bitcoin. But the huge reserve and advertising seems to work, even Bitstamp is listing UST.
While I agree about the fact that owners' extravagance / throwing out money can easily mean "be wary", I find a stable coin's main use to transfer value between different platforms. The huge reserve looks to me more reassuring than USDT's not-100%-what-it-consist-in reserve and it's still the most successful stable coin. Can UST get some of USDT market? Maybe. I kinda hope so. And in 5 years we will see if UST is successful or at least still relevant. Then also holding UST (for whatever reasons) can probably be seen safer than holding USDT.