~snip~
To think about what would happen if they did not exist I think it is not worth spending much time because they will continue to exist, but I think that from now on it will be with much stricter regulations, and we will see what implications this has for the Bitcoin that I fear will be in line with what the EU has in mind: more KYC everywhere, even trying to force hardware wallets to implement it,
I have nothing against it, and I even agree that it should be much more strictly regulated who can run a CEX and what obligations they should have towards their clients. This would first of all mean that their funds (cryptocurrencies&fiat) should be 100% insured and that the company has the obligation to indemnify everyone in case of hacking or any other event for which it is responsible.
Ordinary people should not be any victims of irresponsible actions of greedy and irresponsible individuals, and even if someone manages to implement some super strict measures for individual users, it means absolutely nothing in the sense that some new Mt.Gox, Quadriga, or FTX will not happen again.
There is a way that could be stopped, and that way is regulation. As long as SEC requires all these companies to show their reserves, meaning all of the money should be watched, and blockchain allows this to be even more public, just put all of the wallets and addresses out in the open, or if not open at least give the names to SEC, which means that they will be able to actually see it and calculate if all is okay.
With all these people also be tracked, CEO for starters, but everyone else. All these exchanges and other places did what they have done thanks to being semi-anonymous either themselves, or all of the data of their company.