The Evolutionary Path

Finding Value in the Current Reality

The dollarization of crypto might seem like a surrender of its original vision, but there’s a more nuanced perspective worth considering. Rather than viewing current developments as a failure, we can see them as a potential evolutionary stage — one that could ultimately enable crypto’s original promise if properly leveraged.

The DeFi ecosystem, despite being primarily built on stablecoins and dollar-denominated activities, has created tremendous innovation in financial mechanisms. Smart contract-based lending, automated market making, on-chain derivatives, and decentralized governance all represent significant advancements in how financial systems can operate. These innovations have proven that key financial functions can work effectively through code rather than institutions.

This perspective reframes the current landscape: crypto isn’t simply being absorbed by traditional finance; it’s building a testing ground for mechanisms that could eventually power a truly sovereign financial system — if we actively develop the monetary foundations needed to support them. The question isn’t whether these innovations are valuable — they clearly are — but whether we’ll successfully direct them toward sovereign monetary systems or watch them be absorbed by existing ones.

Parallel Paths, Divergent Destinations

There are two ways to view the relationship between traditional finance and crypto innovation:

1. Crypto is doing free R&D for traditional finance, developing mechanisms that will likely be absorbed by existing institutions unless we build alternatives.
2. Traditional finance is providing cheap access to monetary infrastructure for crypto’s R&D, allowing innovation to develop before a native monetary foundation is ready.

Both perspectives contain truth, and currently they coexist in an uneasy symbiosis. However, this relationship isn’t sustainable long-term — one direction will ultimately prevail. Either crypto’s innovations will be absorbed by traditional finance, or these innovations will eventually migrate to more sovereign foundations.

The key insight is that financial mechanisms are somewhat independent from the monetary foundation they operate on. A lending protocol works similarly whether it’s denominated in USDC, ETH, or potentially OHM. This means innovations developed in dollarized environments could be transplanted to different monetary foundations if those foundations are deliberately built and promoted.

The Long-Term Fork in the Road

Despite this pragmatic view of current developments, we still face a crucial long-term decision about crypto’s ultimate direction. Three distinct futures are possible:

1. Full Dollarization/Institutionalization: Crypto becomes primarily better infrastructure for traditional assets and institutions. A few exceptions like Bitcoin might persist as decorrelated assets, but the revolutionary vision largely fades. This outcome fails to address the fundamental need for non-sovereign currencies in an increasingly unstable global system. As traditional monetary orders face mounting pressures from geopolitical fragmentation, debt crises, and trust erosion, simply building better rails for existing currencies leaves us vulnerable to the same systemic risks we initially sought to mitigate. The technical innovation survives while the core purpose is abandoned.
2. Primitive Crypto Adoption: Tokens like BTC or ETH are somehow widely adopted and make full use of their native financial infrastructure but require an extensive ecosystem of centralized service providers to function as actual money. A new class of implicitly trusted entities emerges to provide market making, credit, and stability — recreating the same power structures of traditional finance but with different actors. The system retains the appearance of decentralization while depending entirely on centralized functions to operate. Their rigid monetary design actually heightens systemic risks compared to traditional systems — when economic conditions change, these tokens cannot adjust, forcing opaque and potentially destabilizing responses from their supporting actors.
3. Protocol-Level Monetary Systems: Approaches like Olympus gain traction and create genuinely decentralized alternatives. Basic monetary functions operate through transparent code rather than institutional discretion. Individuals interact directly with monetary protocols without relying on trusted intermediaries. The original promise of financial sovereignty is realized through systems that maintain functionality across market conditions while remaining under collective rather than centralized control.

The first path represents assimilation, the second regression, and the third evolution. The choice isn’t merely academic — it has profound implications for financial sovereignty, value distribution, and the future of money itself. Which path dominates will depend on where builders direct their efforts and where capital flows in the coming years.

Evolution, Not Revolution

Perhaps the most damaging aspect of crypto’s early narrative was the notion that existing financial systems needed to be destroyed rather than evolved. This “rule over the ashes” mentality not only alienated potential allies but also ignored the devastating human costs such disruption would cause.

A more mature approach recognizes that even if one believes existing monetary institutions are flawed, responsible transition requires building bridges between systems rather than burning them down. Evolution, not revolution, offers a more viable path to fulfilling crypto’s promise of greater financial sovereignty.

Olympus embodies this evolutionary approach. Rather than positioning itself as anti-dollar, its treasury is primarily composed of dollar-denominated stablecoins. It builds on existing value rather than attempting to destroy it. The goal isn’t to eliminate traditional finance but to create alternatives that can gradually demonstrate their advantages through practical utility rather than ideology.

This approach acknowledges a simple truth: even if a new monetary system were theoretically superior, abruptly transitioning to it would cause tremendous collateral damage to innocent people who rely on existing systems. Responsible innovation builds pathways that allow gradual, voluntary migration rather than forced disruption.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

The current dollarized crypto ecosystem has tremendous value as a laboratory for financial innovation. The mechanisms being developed and refined today could power a more sovereign financial system — but only if we actively build suitable monetary foundations designed specifically for this purpose.

Without deliberate effort to create such foundations, crypto’s innovations will almost certainly be absorbed by traditional finance, improving its efficiency without fundamentally changing its nature. The pipes will be better, but what flows through them will remain the same.

This is why projects focused on monetary design rather than just infrastructure remain crucially important, even as much of the ecosystem gravitates toward dollarization. They represent a potential light at the end of the tunnel — the possibility that today’s innovation might eventually power truly sovereign financial systems rather than just improving traditional ones.

Olympus represents one such potential foundation — not merely another token but a system designed from the ground up to function as complete monetary infrastructure. Stating this isn’t self-promotional — it’s simply acknowledging what exists. Olympus has been focused on this mission from the start. If other alternatives emerge to address the same fundamental problems, the space will be better for it. Regardless, Olympus remains one of the only systems attempting to deliver on this original promise of monetary sovereignty.

Practical Next Steps

Given this perspective, what practical steps make sense for builders and participants in the crypto ecosystem?

1. Value Current Innovation: Recognize that today’s dollarized DeFi systems are valuable proving grounds for mechanisms that could eventually power sovereign alternatives. Their value isn’t diminished by their current dependence on traditional monetary assets.
2. Build Transferable Systems: Design financial applications with the potential to operate on different monetary foundations, recognizing that today’s dollar-denominated activity could migrate to more sovereign systems if those systems are properly developed.
3. Support Monetary Foundations: Direct resources toward projects focused on monetary design rather than just infrastructure, recognizing that these represent the necessary foundation for today’s innovation to achieve its full potential.
4. Maintain Bridge Thinking: Avoid revolutionary rhetoric that positions crypto as necessarily destructive to existing systems. Focus instead on building bridges that allow gradual, responsible transition.
5. Learn From Traditional Finance: Acknowledge that traditional monetary systems evolved sophisticated mechanisms for good reasons, and seek to incorporate these lessons rather than dismissing them.

The most likely path to crypto fulfilling its original promise isn’t through destruction of existing systems but through the gradual demonstration of better alternatives. By building bridges rather than burning them, we can create systems that genuinely expand financial sovereignty without unnecessarily disrupting the lives that depend on existing structures.

The ultimate goal hasn’t changed — creating financial systems that increase individual sovereignty and reduce dependencies on central authorities — but achieving it requires deliberate action, not passive expectation.