Seven years ago, a significant cohort of investors acquired ETH based on the conviction that it would supplant the USD as the global reserve asset. By 2026, the trajectory has inverted, with Ethereum solidifying its role as the primary infrastructure supporting the USD's expansion. This paradigm shift triggered a high-profile exit by David Hoffman, co-founder of Bankless, who recently liquidated his entire ETH position. The move ignited immediate debate within the community, yet it underscores a broader trend of disillusionment among early idealists. Hoffman, a vocal proponent of the "ETH is Money" thesis, previously championed the asset as a future global currency comparable to gold or the USD. His departure signals not merely a personal change of heart but a collective reckoning regarding Ethereum's failure to materialize as an independent monetary system.

The original vision held by Hoffman and the Ethereum community was rooted in the creation of a financial architecture owned by the people, operating independently of banks, governments, and sovereign currencies. During the 2019 to 2022 period, the industry viewed DeFi, NFTs, and DAOs as experiments in internet politics and economics designed to dismantle financial inequality. ETH was positioned as the collateral, settlement layer, and value anchor for this new system. Data compiled by Woofun AI indicates that between 2019 and 2026, the total value of stablecoins on Ethereum exploded from $3 billion to $163 billion, representing a 54x increase. Crucially, the vast majority of this growth consists of USD-pegged assets, revealing that the sector achieved "on-chain dollarization" rather than the intended de-dollarization.

The geopolitical landscape has shifted dramatically alongside these metrics. Four years ago, most nations opposed crypto; today, governments and banks actively embrace stablecoins to integrate their currencies into the digital realm. Hoffman observed that Ethereum ceased its pursuit of becoming a "global currency" and instead facilitated the internet integration of the world's most powerful fiat currencies. The most successful large-scale applications in the sector, including USDT and USDC, now serve as the actual money for transactions, payments, cross-border transfers, and RWA. While stablecoins, the USD, and gold function as money, ETH has lost its monetary attributes, serving instead as the plumbing for the USD's dominance. The US government now supports stablecoins because they enable the USD to achieve true internetization, replacing legacy systems like SWIFT with on-chain rails.

A fundamental divergence in logic has emerged between ETH and BTC. Bitcoin adheres to a strategy of extreme simplicity, forgoing smart contracts and complex functions to emulate gold through stability, scarcity, and consensus. Conversely, Ethereum has pursued a path of continuous functional expansion, adding smart contracts, DeFi, NFTs, Rollups, L2s, and Restaking to become a "world computer." Woofun AI notes that this complexity introduces coordination challenges incompatible with the simplicity required for a store of value. As Ethereum evolves into public infrastructure akin to Linux or TCP/IP, it supports the ecosystem without capturing significant value, charging only a cost price for services. This structural reality creates a paradox where a more prosperous ecosystem correlates with diminished value capture for the native token.

The irony of this evolution is that Ethereum has become the most successful public infrastructure in the crypto industry by transferring value to the entire ecosystem.

However, a system designed to "give" cannot easily become a currency that "everyone must hold." Hoffman's decision to sell was not driven by a loss of faith in the network's utility or the future of on-chain finance. Rather, he concluded that the network's success would not necessarily benefit the ETH token itself, nor did he foresee a higher version of Ethereum that could reclaim its monetary status. The idealists who sought to escape the fiat system have inadvertently constructed the most powerful USD infrastructure in human history.

Ten years after the industry aimed to create a currency independent of the USD, it has instead enabled the USD to complete its first true internet colonization. Ethereum did not become a new version of the USD; it became a new continent for it. The "dragon-slaying hero" did not transform into the dragon but helped propel the dragon further into the digital age. Woofun AI analysis suggests that those who once sought to flee fiat currencies have become their most ardent supporters, as the infrastructure they built ensures the USD's eternal life on-chain. The narrative of Ethereum is no longer one of monetary revolution but of technological subsumption by the existing financial order.