The "Rebellion" of an Ethereum Evangelist.
Written by: Joe Zhou, Foresight News
Seven years ago, many people bought ETH because they believed it could overthrow the US dollar. Seven years later, Ethereum has become the most powerful infrastructure for the US dollar.
Those once most firm believers in ETH have also begun to waver.
Recently, David Hoffman, co-founder of Bankless, announced that he had sold all his ETH. This move quickly ignited controversy across the Ethereum community.
He is clearly not the first to leave, nor will he be the last. But if we had to pick someone who best represented "ETH belief" over the past few years, David Hoffman would definitely be one of them.
He discussed Ethereum on his podcast almost every day, spreading its technology, ideas, and business narratives. He is one of the most well-known Ethereum evangelists in the US crypto industry and a staunch supporter of "ETH is Money."
David Hoffman once believed: ETH would become a global currency like the US dollar or gold. Now, he no longer believes this story.
In a sense, this is not just the collapse of one person's belief. It is more like a collective disillusionment of Ethereum idealism in this cycle.
The Dream of Slaying the Dragon
Once upon a time, David Hoffman and many in the Ethereum community believed: Ethereum would change the world.
They believed: Ethereum could build a financial system owned and enjoyed by the people. No longer dependent on banks, no longer dependent on countries, no longer dependent on the US dollar. DeFi, NFT, DAO... Back then, the crypto industry was not just a money-making industry; it was more like an internet political and economic experiment.
What initially attracted people to the crypto industry was not just financial freedom. It was: the first time humans tried to build a financial system independent of sovereign states, a more free and equal global financial network.
In the past, only the wealthy in developed countries could freely trade cross-border, own credit cards, and allocate global assets. What Crypto initially wanted to change was precisely this inequality of financial power.
The role of ETH was not just a Token. It was: the collateral of the entire system, the settlement asset of the entire system, and the value anchor of the entire system.
Thus, David Hoffman put forward the phrase that later influenced the entire industry: "ETH is Money."
This was not a simple slogan. Its true meaning was: ETH is not just Gas. ETH should have "monetary properties" like gold, the US dollar, or US Treasuries.
From 2019 to 2022, this belief was extremely strong. Many people bought ETH not because it would rise in price, but because they believed: Ethereum would become the new global financial system, and ETH would be the "global currency" in this system.
Even in a sense, many people like David Hoffman bought ETH back then because they thought it could "overthrow the US dollar."
But seven years later, people found: Ethereum did not overthrow the US dollar. It became the most powerful infrastructure for the global expansion of the US dollar.
The Alienation of Idealists
The environment is constantly changing.
Four years ago, almost all countries opposed Crypto, but four years later, almost all countries have begun to actively embrace Crypto and stablecoins.
The original dream of idealists like David Hoffman was: de-dollarization, de-banking, de-nationalization (as the name Bankless implies). But the US dollar began to embrace Crypto, banks began to embrace Crypto, and countries also began to embrace Crypto.
In this change, David Hoffman found that Ethereum no longer pursues certain things, such as the dream of ETH becoming a "global currency."
Instead of becoming a "global currency," ETH ended up helping the world's most powerful country implant its currency into the internet. In 2019, the size of stablecoins on Ethereum was only about $3 billion. By 2026, this number had reached $163 billion, an increase of 54 times. And most of them are US dollar stablecoins.
This is the most ironic part of the whole story. What Crypto finally achieved was not "de-dollarization," but "on-chain dollarization."
In the past few years, the large-scale application that the crypto industry really succeeded in was not: DAO, SocialFi, on-chain social, Web3 Consumer App, but stablecoins USDT and USDC, which finally became the real "Money" of the entire Crypto world.
Trading, payment, cross-border transfer, OTC, RWA, DeFi... All scenarios with real large-scale demand eventually circled back to US dollar stablecoins. And Ethereum became the underlying infrastructure for all of this.
Stablecoins are money. The US dollar is money. Gold is money. Only ETH is not.
Ethereum helps the US dollar become 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 world's largest on-chain US dollar liquidity is on Ethereum. The US government even began to actively support stablecoins. Because now stablecoins are essentially helping the US dollar achieve: internetization, globalization, and on-chainization.
In the past, the global expansion of the US dollar relied on SWIFT, banks, US Treasuries, and the oil system. Today: it relies on USDT, USDC, and Ethereum.
What Crypto finally achieved was not "de-dollarization." It was: on-chain dollarization. Ethereum did not kill the US dollar. It gave the US dollar immortality.
In the eyes of some crypto idealists: Ethereum no longer pursues being the dragon-slaying boy. It grew up and became an accomplice of the dragon.
The Route Dispute
David Hoffman later realized: ETH and BTC have been on completely different paths from the beginning.
The logic of Bitcoin is actually very simple: do nothing but be "digital gold." It actively gives up: smart contracts, complex functions, high-frequency applications. In return, it gains extreme simplicity, stability, scarcity, and consensus.
Thus, BTC is becoming more and more like gold.
Ethereum, however, chose a different path. It continuously adds features: smart contracts, DeFi, NFT, Rollup, L2, Restaking. Ethereum wants to be: the world computer, the global financial layer, an application platform, and an internet settlement network.
But the problem is: the more functions there are, the higher the coordination difficulty. And what money needs most is precisely simplicity, stability, and certainty. That's why: Bitcoin is becoming more like gold. Ethereum is becoming more like internet infrastructure.
Ethereum eventually became a public infrastructure. It is like Linux, like TCP/IP, like HTTP. It supports everything but owns nothing.
Ethereum provides security for L2. It provides a settlement layer for stablecoins. It provides the foundation for DeFi. It provides a financial track for RWA... Ethereum is like a public protocol; it supports everything but owns nothing.
It almost only charges a "cost price."
Thus, a contradiction emerged: the more prosperous the Ethereum ecosystem is, the not necessarily more valuable ETH becomes.
Because: Rollups take the profits, applications take the users, stablecoins take the monetary attributes, and Ethereum itself only retains the minimum value capture.
In the eyes of David Hoffman and others, Ethereum is still noble, even more so than before. But precisely because of this, it is becoming less and less like a "world currency."
In a sense, Ethereum may be the most successful "public infrastructure" in the entire Crypto world.
It cedes value to the entire ecosystem. But the problem is here: a system that continuously "gives" can hardly be a currency that "everyone must hold" at the same time.
This is the reason why David Hoffman finally sold his ETH. Not because he no longer看好 Ethereum. On the contrary, he still believes in the future of the Ethereum network, on-chain finance, and the entire application ecosystem.
He just no longer believes: these successes will eventually feed back to ETH itself. Nor does he believe that Ethereum has a higher-version future.
The Ending
This is the most ironic and saddest part of the whole story.
The most idealistic group in the crypto industry once wanted to build a new financial world independent of the US dollar system. Nine years later, however, they created the most powerful US dollar infrastructure in human history.
ETH failed to become a "world currency." But Ethereum made the US dollar truly become: the global internet-native currency for the first time.
The dragon-slaying boy did not become the "evil dragon." It's just that in the end, he found that he had personally sent the evil dragon to a farther place.
Ten years ago, the Crypto world wanted to create a new currency independent of the US dollar. Ten years later, it helped the US dollar complete its first real internet colonization.
Ethereum did not become the new US dollar. It became the new continent for the US dollar. And those who once most wanted to escape fiat currencies like the US dollar ended up being the most steadfast builders of US dollar expansion.