The Alienation History of a Crypto "Idealist"

Seven years ago, many people bought ETH because they believed it could overthrow the US dollar.
As a result, seven years later, Ethereum has become the most powerful infrastructure for the US dollar.

Even the most steadfast believers in ETH have begun to waver.

Recently, David Hoffman, co-founder of Bankless, announced he was liquidating his ETH holdings.
This move quickly ignited controversy throughout the Ethereum community.

He is clearly not the first to leave, nor will he be the last.
But if, over the past few years, someone were to best represent "ETH faith," David Hoffman would certainly be one of them.

He almost daily discusses Ethereum on his podcast, spreading Ethereum’s technology, ideas, and business narratives.
He is one of the most well-known Ethereum evangelists in the U.S. crypto industry and a staunch supporter of "ETH is Money."

David Hoffman once believed: ETH would become a global currency like the US dollar and gold.
Now, he no longer believes that story.

In a sense, this is not just a collapse of one person’s faith.
It’s more like a collective disillusionment of Ethereum’s idealism in this cycle.

The Dream of Slaying the Dragon

Once upon a time, many in the Ethereum community, including David Hoffman, believed: Ethereum would change the world.

They believed: Ethereum could build a financial system owned and enjoyed by the people.
No longer relying on banks, governments, or the dollar.
DeFi, NFTs, DAOs… At that time, the crypto industry was not just a money-making industry but also an internet political and economic experiment.

What initially attracted people to crypto was not just wealth freedom.
It was: humans’ first attempt to establish a financial system independent of sovereignty, a more free and equal global financial network.

In the past, only the wealthy in developed countries could freely cross borders, own credit cards, and allocate global assets.
Crypto initially aimed to change this financial inequality.

ETH’s role in this was not just as a token.
It was: the collateral, settlement asset, and value anchor of the entire system.

Thus, David Hoffman proposed the phrase that later influenced the entire industry: "ETH is Money."
This is not just a slogan. Its true meaning is: ETH is not just Gas.
ETH should have "monetary" qualities like gold, the dollar, and US bonds.

During the era from 2019 to 2022, this belief was extremely strong.
Many bought ETH not because they thought it would rise, but because they believed: Ethereum would become the new global financial system, and ETH would be the "global currency" within that system.

In a sense, many people like David Hoffman bought ETH thinking it could "overthrow the dollar."

But seven years later, people realize: Ethereum did not overthrow the dollar.
It became the most powerful infrastructure for the dollar’s global expansion.

The Alienation of Idealists

The environment is constantly changing.

Four years ago, almost all countries opposed crypto, but four years later, almost all countries began actively embracing crypto and stablecoins.

The original dream of idealists like David Hoffman was: de-dollarization, de-banking, de-nationalization (as the name Bankless suggests).
But now, the dollar is embracing crypto, banks are embracing crypto, and countries are embracing crypto.

In this changing landscape, David Hoffman found that Ethereum no longer pursues certain ideals, such as ETH becoming a "global currency."
Instead, it helped the world’s most powerful countries embed their currencies into the internet.
In 2019, the stablecoin market on Ethereum was only about $3 billion.
By 2026, that number had reached $163 billion—an increase of 54 times.
And the vast majority of that is USD stablecoins.

This is the most ironic part of the story.
Crypto’s ultimate trajectory was not "de-dollarization," but "on-chain dollarization."

In recent years, the large-scale applications that truly took off in crypto were not DAOs, SocialFi, on-chain social, or Web3 consumer apps.
It was stablecoins USDT and USDC, which ultimately became the real "money" of the entire crypto world.

Trading, payments, cross-border transfers, OTC, RWA, DeFi… all scenes with large-scale demand ultimately circle back to USD stablecoins.
And Ethereum has become the underlying infrastructure for all of this.

Stablecoins are money.
The dollar is money.
Gold is money.
Only ETH is not.

Ethereum has helped make the dollar stronger.
But ETH itself is losing the opportunity to become a global currency.

Today, the world’s largest stablecoin financial system is built on Ethereum.
The largest on-chain dollar liquidity is on Ethereum.
The U.S. government has even begun actively supporting stablecoins.
Because today’s stablecoins are essentially helping the dollar achieve: internetization, globalization, and on-chain integration.

In the past, the dollar’s global expansion relied on SWIFT, banks, US bonds, and the oil system.
Today: USDT, USDC, and Ethereum.

Crypto’s ultimate trajectory is not "de-dollarization."
It’s "on-chain dollarization."
Ethereum did not kill the dollar.
It has granted the dollar eternal life.

In the eyes of some crypto idealists: Ethereum no longer seeks to be the dragon-slaying hero.
It has grown up and become an accomplice to the dragon.

The Route Dispute

David Hoffman later realized: ETH and BTC have been on two completely different paths from the start.

Bitcoin’s logic is simple: do nothing.
Just be "digital gold."
It consciously abandons: smart contracts, complex features, high-frequency applications.
What it gains is extreme simplicity, stability, scarcity, and consensus.

Thus, BTC increasingly resembles gold.

Ethereum, on the other hand, chose a different path.
It continuously adds features: smart contracts, DeFi, NFTs, Rollups, L2, Restaking.
Ethereum aims to be: the world’s computer, the global financial layer, an application platform, and an internet settlement network.

But the problem is: the more features, the harder the coordination.
And what money needs most is simplicity, stability, and certainty.
That’s why: Bitcoin increasingly resembles gold.
Ethereum increasingly resembles internet infrastructure.

Ethereum ultimately became a form of public infrastructure.
It’s like Linux. Like TCP/IP. Like HTTP.
Supports everything but owns nothing.

Ethereum provides security for L2s.
Settlement layers for stablecoins.
Underlying layers for DeFi.
Financial rails for RWA...
Ethereum is like a public protocol, supporting everything but owning nothing.

It almost always only charges "cost price."

So, a contradiction begins to emerge:
The more prosperous the Ethereum ecosystem, the less valuable ETH may be.

Because: Rollups take profits, applications take users, stablecoins take the monetary attribute, and Ethereum itself only retains minimal value capture.

In the eyes of David Hoffman and others, Ethereum remains noble, even more noble than before.
But precisely because of this, it increasingly resembles not a "world currency."

In a sense, Ethereum might be the most successful "public infrastructure" in the entire crypto world.

It transfers value to the entire ecosystem.
But the problem is: a system that keeps "giving" finds it hard to be a "currency everyone must hold."

This is also why David Hoffman ultimately sold his ETH.
Not because he no longer believes in Ethereum.
Quite the opposite—he still believes in the future of Ethereum’s network, on-chain finance, and the entire application ecosystem.

He just no longer believes: these successes will ultimately feedback into ETH itself.
And he no longer believes that Ethereum has a higher version of the future.

The End

This is the most ironic and saddest part of the story.

A group of the most idealistic people in crypto once wanted to build a new financial world outside the dollar system.
Nine years later, they created the most powerful dollar infrastructure in human history.

ETH failed to become a "world currency."
But Ethereum made the dollar, for the first time, truly become: a globally internet-native currency.

The dragon-slaying youth did not turn into a "malicious dragon."
They simply found that they had sent the dragon further away—by their own hand.

Ten years ago, the crypto world wanted to create a new currency independent of the dollar.
Ten years later, it helped the dollar complete its first true internet colonization.

Ethereum did not become the new dollar.
It became the new continent for the dollar.
And those who once desperately wanted to escape fiat currencies like the dollar ended up becoming the most steadfast builders of dollar expansion.