A "rebellion" of an Ethereum evangelist.

Written by: Joe Zhou, Foresight News

Seven years ago, many people bought ETH because they believed it could topple the dollar. However, seven years later, Ethereum has become the strongest infrastructure for the dollar.

Those who were once the most devout believers in ETH have also 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 we had to select someone over the past few years who best represents the "ETH belief," David Hoffman would certainly be one of them.

He discussed Ethereum almost every day on his podcast, spreading the technology, ideas, and business narratives of Ethereum. 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 akin to the dollar or gold. And 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 Dragon Slaying

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

They believed that Ethereum could build a financial system that was owned and enjoyed by the people, no longer dependent on banks, states, or the dollar. DeFi, NFTs, DAOs… At that time, the crypto industry was not merely a profit-making industry; it resembled an internet political and economic experiment.

The initial appeal of the crypto industry was not just wealth freedom. It was: humanity's first attempt to establish a financial system independent of sovereign states, a more free and equitable global financial network.

In the past, only the wealthy in developed countries could freely transact across borders, own credit cards, and allocate global assets. What crypto originally wanted to change was precisely this inequality of financial power.

The role of ETH was not merely that of a token. It served as: collateral for the entire system, settlement asset for the entire system, and value anchor for the entire system.

Thus, David Hoffman proposed the phrase that later influenced the entire industry: ETH is Money.

This is not a simple slogan. Its true meaning is: ETH is not just gas. ETH should have "monetary characteristics" like gold, the dollar, and U.S. Treasury bonds.

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

In a way, many people like David Hoffman bought ETH back then because they thought it could "overturn the dollar."

But seven years later, people discovered: Ethereum did not overthrow the dollar. It became the strongest infrastructure for the global expansion of the dollar.

Alienation of the Idealist

The environment is constantly changing.

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

The initial dreams of idealists like David Hoffman were: de-dollarization, de-banking, de-nationalization (as expressed by the name Bankless). But the dollar began to embrace crypto, banks started to embrace crypto, and states began to embrace crypto.

In this changing landscape, David Hoffman found that Ethereum was no longer pursuing things like the dream of ETH becoming a "global currency."

ETH not only failed to become a "global currency," but in the end, it helped the world’s most powerful country implant its currency 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 this was dollar-pegged stablecoins.

This is the most ironic aspect of the whole story. What crypto ultimately ran successfully was not "de-dollarization" but "on-chain dollarization."

In recent years, the real large-scale applications that the crypto industry has achieved are not: DAOs, SocialFi, on-chain social, Web3 Consumer Apps, but stablecoins USDT and USDC, which ultimately became the true "money" of the entire crypto world.

Trading, payments, cross-border transfers, OTC, RWA, DeFi… All the scenarios that truly generated large-scale demand eventually turned back to dollar-pegged stablecoins. And Ethereum became the underlying infrastructure for all of this.

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

Ethereum has helped the dollar become stronger. But ETH itself is losing the opportunity to become 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 to actively support stablecoins. Because today's stablecoins essentially help the dollar complete: internetization, globalization, and on-chain integration.

In the past, the global expansion of the dollar relied on SWIFT, banks, U.S. Treasury bonds, and the oil system. And today: it relies on USDT, USDC, and Ethereum.

What crypto has ultimately truly accomplished is not "de-dollarization." But: on-chain dollarization. Ethereum did not kill the dollar. It gave the dollar eternal life.

In the eyes of some crypto idealists: Ethereum no longer seeks to be the dragon slayer. It has grown up, becoming the accomplice of the dragon.

Route Dispute

David Hoffman later began to realize: ETH and BTC have been on two completely different paths from the very beginning.

The logic of Bitcoin is actually quite simple: do nothing. Be merely "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 increasingly resembles gold.

On the other hand, Ethereum chose a different path. It continuously adds functionalities: smart contracts, DeFi, NFTs, Rollups, L2, Restaking. Ethereum wants to become: the world computer, the global financial layer, the application platform, the internet settlement network.

But the problem is: the more functions there are, the harder coordination becomes. And what a currency most needs is precisely simplicity, stability, and certainty. This is also why: Bitcoin is increasingly like gold. Ethereum is becoming more like internet infrastructure.

Ultimately, Ethereum has become a type of public infrastructure. It resembles 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 serves as the foundation for DeFi. It provides financial rails for RWA… Ethereum acts like a public protocol, supporting everything yet owning nothing.

It hardly charges more than "cost."

Thus, a contradiction begins to emerge: the more thriving the Ethereum ecosystem, the less valuable ETH may become.

Because: Rollups take profits, applications take users, stablecoins capture monetary attributes, and Ethereum itself retains only the minimum 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 has transferred value to the entire ecosystem. But the problem lies here: a system that continuously "gives" finds it challenging to simultaneously become a currency that "everyone must hold."

This is also the reason why David Hoffman ultimately sold his ETH. Not because he no longer has faith in 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 that these successes will inevitably reflect back on ETH itself. Nor does he believe

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