I honestly think it's a smart stepping stone. Getting to the center of an adoption curve takes time. Offering an existing financial model the mainstream are comfortable with and having these banks onboard newbies to familiarize them with digital currency is good. It's then MUCH easier to have that population converted to self custody. Onboarding a new concept from scratch is really difficult and expensive en masse. I remember when people were freaking out about getting into a stranger's car for Uber and they were in billion in debt for years waiting for the culture conversion to click.

I agree Hal might have been too old school, but I wouldn't put it past Michael to use this as the trojan horse for market conditioning.