10 Years After Lehman: Bitcoin and Wall Street Are Closer Than Ever

Sirer is referring to the Times of London headline bitcoin's creator pointedly inserted into the first bitcoin block ever mined, on Jan. 3, 2009: "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks."

As awareness of bitcoin spread, different people saw different things in it, but for many, it represented an alternative to fiat currency issued by central banks and the fractional reserve banking system.

Laszlo Hanyecz, known as "Bitcoin Pizza Guy" for becoming the first person to use the cryptocurrency to purchase real-world goods, told CoinDesk that he believed bitcoin could replace "The established system of banks and the endless line of middlemen all taking a cut."

Over the past decade, the worlds of bitcoin - and its cryptocurrency and blockchain offshoots - and traditional finance have begun to interact in ways almost no one would have predicted early on.

Ten years after bitcoin was born into the flames of the financial crisis, have the cryptocurrency community and Wall Street made nice?

The view that bitcoin and traditional finance are anything but oil and water - unthinkable when bitcoin was young and the crisis' wounds were raw - is now practically mainstream.

Far from eliminating middlemen, Vays said, the bitcoin ecosystem will have its own banks - in fact, it already does, in the form of Coinbase and other big exchanges.

Bitcoin demonstrated that "Money and state can be separate," he said, but added, "I don't think bitcoin is incompatible with banks."

Many in the cryptocurrency community appear to be welcoming the entrance of financial incumbents - for instance, bitcoin investors are holding their breath for SEC decisions regarding proposed bitcoin exchange-traded funds.

"In bitcoin markets, anything goes, so I think bitcoiners would be wise to consider that before wishing for more institutional involvement."