Crypto

Is the US dollar the world’s most successful cryptocurrency?

Published

2 months ago

January 22, 2026

Is the US dollar the world’s most successful cryptocurrency?

The U.S. dollar, to be clear, is not a cryptocurrency. But for many people, it is doing the job that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin were originally intended to fill. To understand what is going on, and why the implications are so important for the global economy, it is worth going back to some of the original visions of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin got its start, back in 2008, during the dark days of the global financial crisis. At that time, the U.S. government, among many others, was bailing out banks and financial companies and “printing money” to strengthen the economy. While central banks like the Federal Reserve were not, literally, printing money and throwing it out of helicopters to people, they were doing some quite extraordinary things in the name of “quantitative easing.”

The idea behind quantitative easing (or “helicopter money”) was that central banks could inject confidence into the economy by, in effect, promising to buy just about any kind of financial asset if you had trouble selling it. And at that moment, the catalog of unsaleable assets ran to hundreds of billions of dollars.

With the benefit of hindsight, this looks like a good decision when the alternative was a repeat of the Great Depression. At the time, it looked both unfair and risky to many bystanders. Unfair because taxpayer money was being used to buy assets from people who probably deserved to go bankrupt in normal circumstances. And risky because printing so much money, in normal times, is recipe for higher inflation.

Bitcoin was deliberately designed, from the ground up, to make both of these options impossible. The strict release schedule for Bitcoin and the absolute limit of 21 million Bitcoins being issued meant that there was no way to “bail out” bad lenders or debase the value of the currency by issuing too much. The Bitcoin white paper specifically talks about resistance to corruption, and the Bitcoin network itself contains a reference to bank bailouts in the genesis block.

In the end, there was no hyperinflation in the major economies that practiced some form of quantitative easing, such as the U.S., U.K., and EU. However, hundreds of millions of people do live in countries with high inflation rates, and in the case of a few countries, are facing actual hyperinflation. For those people, Bitcoin should be especially appealing.

So it is all the more surprising to find that, 15 years since the end of the Great Recession, it is the U.S. dollar, not Bitcoin, that is the preferred choice of millions of people in emerging markets.

The appeal, for many of these people, is that to them, the U.S. dollar looks like an ideal stable, corruption-free digital asset. It’s extremely well known. It’s backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, and people have been using the dollar as a “safe haven” in periods of risk for decades.

American power, the huge range of American brands, and the vast reach of American culture have made the U.S. dollar the best-known currency in the entire world. When someone says, “the buck stops here” or refers to the “greenback,” we all know what they’re talking about. And, if you live far from the U.S. and don’t pay much attention to U.S. politics, then compared to your own currency, the U.S. dollar may well look very safe indeed.

Most of this situation has, in fact, been generally the case for decades. There are billions of U.S. dollars circulating around the world in cash, but for most people, that’s not a very safe or secure option. What has changed recently, however, is the ability of just about anyone anywhere to get access and hold dollars digitally.

Cryptocurrencies made it possible for anyone to have digital assets in a private, personal wallet, but few people had the technical knowledge or access to make this possible early on. More recently, cheap smartphones, better wallet software and, most importantly, stablecoins have recently made it possible for anyone, anywhere, to have what is, for all practical purposes, a U.S. dollar-denominated bank account. They see it as a safer alternative to their own currency, something easier to understand than crypto, and very preferable to carrying around U.S. dollars in cash.

And for many of those people, they don’t even realize they are using cryptocurrency infrastructure. Opera Mini Pay is one of the world’s most popular digital wallets and is a good example of what’s ahead. People all around the world can buy, sell and transact in U.S. dollars. And even though Opera Mini Pay runs on top of the Ethereum Layer 2 network CELO, all the fees and other services can be paid in U.S. dollars. No need to know anything at all about crypto.

The result is that even as crypto has laid down the path, when it comes to currencies, the overwhelming brand of the almighty U.S. dollar has ended up filling the gap Bitcoin brought to everyone’s attention.

Paul Brody is the Global Blockchain Leader for EY (Ernst & Young). He is also the chairman of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and the author of the book Ethereum for Business.

Note: These are the personal views of the author and do not represent the views of EY.

Related Topics:Bitcoin cryptocurrency currency dollars essays United Airlines

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Crypto

Crypto Investment Scams Were the Most Costly Type of Fraud in the U.S. in 2025

Published

5 hours ago

April 7, 2026

Press Room

Crypto Investment Scams Were the Most Costly Type of Fraud in the U.S. in 2025

Americans lost $7.2 billion to crypto investment scams in 2025, according to a new report from the FBI, making it the top source of financial losses from fraud reported to the agency last year. Many people don’t call the FBI after getting scammed, which means the real total is likely far larger.

The news comes from the FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) annual report, released Monday, which tracks not just crypto investment fraud, but online scams targeting the elderly, and ranswomware attacks, among others. The agency received 1,008,597 total complaints in 2025, up from 859,532 complaints in 2024. The total amount lost was over $20 billion last year.

Investment fraud was the most common type of scam reported, accounting for 49% of all cyber-related complaints in 2025, with a majority of those related to crypto investment scams.

Crypto investment scammers make an effort to appear like legitimate operations, promising huge returns to unsuspecting marks. Victims are first contacted through a number of ways, including text messages, social media, Google ads, and dating apps. Scammers will sometimes set up websites made to look like investment platforms where victims can send crypto and watch as their profits tick up steadily.

What the victim doesn’t understand is that the number they’re seeing rise each day is fake. The crypto has been sent to the scammers and the number they’re seeing in their supposed account is not real. The website is a mirage that isn’t actually holding their crypto, whether it’s bitcoin, ether, or any number of shitcoins. But as that number rises, the scammers encourage the victims to “invest” even more.

What happens when you try to extract any of that money? That’s where the victim might start to get suspicious. Because there’s always an excuse. And more often than not, the scammers will tell a victim that there are fees for withdrawing money.

The FBI has released its IC3 report annually for 25 years and 2025 is the first year that features a section on artificial intelligence. The FBI received 22,364 complaints about AI-assisted crimes, totaling $893 million in lost money. But that’s likely a vast undercount of the problem, given the fact that many people don’t send a report to the FBI when they get scammed, and others likely have no idea they’re talking with people who uses AI tools for impersonation.

Scammers will often use AI audio, video deepfakes, or fake documents created with generative AI imaging tools to convince victims they’re legitimate. Elon Musk is one of the most popular figures that crypto scammers will impersonate, as Gizmodo has reported in recent years. Scammers will often try to convince potential victims that they’re talking to the real Tesla CEO and convince people to invest in his businesses with cryptocurrencies.

Gizmodo filed a Freedom of Information Act request with FTC in 2024 that revealed some of the stories from people who were scammed by Elon Musk impersonators or people who said they were associated with the billionaire. One of the complaints was from a victim in their 50s from Michigan who said they lost $700,000.

The story is exceptional for the amount of money lost, but the techniques are common enough that they’re worth quoting at length:

In the end of June, 2023 I responded to Elon Musk’s day trading commercial on Instagram. I got a phone call from a person and started online trading with XT-BestSolutions. I’m dealing with one person [redacted] over the Viber phone services. He said he’s based in Barcelona, Spain. He guided me through the trading process daily on the XT-BestSolutions trading platform.
He also guided me through the process of transferring my money from my US Huntington bank account through Crypto wallets to XT-BestSolutions trading platform. All transaction were made through different Sources to change US dollars to cryptocurrency.
Starting on June 30, 2023 to current date, I transferred $700,000 to my XT-BestSolutions account. Through the process of online trading, XT-BestSolutions company credited me $200,000. Even though I still have more than $700,000 in my XT-BestSolutions trading platform account, I cannot withdraw any money back until I add $200,000 more to my XT-BestSolutions account to cover this additional credit, and after this (accordingly to what he saying) I will be able to withdraw all $900,000.
Its become more suspicious to me because I am not able to get information about the company, such as an address, email address or any other contact information except the phone number and one person I communicating with. [redacted]
My accountant has advised me to contact the FBI before I make anymore money transactions.

Other crypto scams include celebrities like Johnny Depp or Donald Trump, but romance scams are another popular category of investment fraud. Sometimes referred to as pig butchering, scammers will often pose as attractive people who lure unsuspecting marks with promises of love but wind up giving “investment” advice.

Victims are encouraged to contact the FBI, but the public should be aware that there are also plenty of scammers posing as FBI agents, specifically employees of the IC3.

Crypto

Solana Foundation Launches STRIDE Security Program for DeFi Protocols Following Drift Incident

Published

17 hours ago

April 6, 2026

Press Room

Solana Foundation Launches STRIDE Security Program for DeFi Protocols Following Drift Incident

Key Takeaways:

The Solana Foundation and Asymmetric Research launched STRIDE on April 6, 2026, a tiered DeFi security program covering all protocols.
Protocols exceeding $10M TVL qualify for foundation-funded 24/7 monitoring, while those above $100M TVL receive formal verification.
The new Solana Incident Response Network (SIRN) unites five founding firms, including OtterSec and Neodyme, for real-time crisis coordination.

Solana Foundation Debuts STRIDE to Protect DeFi Protocols With Tiered Security

The program, which stands for Solana Trust, Resilience and Infrastructure for DeFi Enterprises, moves away from the traditional model of one-off audits and replaces it with continuous, foundation-funded protection scaled to each protocol’s size and risk profile.

STRIDE is structured around eight security pillars covering operational security, access controls, multisig configurations, and governance vulnerabilities. Asymmetric Research conducts hands-on assessments of participating protocols and publishes findings in a public repository, giving users and investors direct visibility into each protocol’s security standing.

All Solana DeFi protocols are eligible to apply. Every participating project receives an independent evaluation and a published report regardless of size.

Image source: X on April 6, 2026.

The announcement explains that protocols that pass the STRIDE evaluation and hold more than $10 million in total value locked (TVL) qualify for foundation-funded 24/7 operational security support and real-time threat monitoring. The monitoring is calibrated to risk, meaning higher-value protocols receive more intensive coverage aimed at catching suspicious activity before it escalates.

For the largest protocols, those managing more than $100 million in TVL, the Solana Foundation funds formal verification. This method uses mathematical proofs to check every possible execution path in a smart contract, eliminating entire classes of vulnerabilities that standard audits can miss.

STRIDE version 0.1 is live now and is expected to evolve as real-world assessments provide feedback.

Alongside STRIDE, the foundation launched the Solana Incident Response Network, known as SIRN, a coalition of security firms dedicated to real-time crisis response across the ecosystem. Founding members include Asymmetric Research, OtterSec, Neodyme, Squads, and Zeroshadow. SIRN is open to all Solana protocols, with response prioritized by TVL and potential impact.

The program builds on existing no-cost tools the Solana Foundation has already deployed, including Hypernative for ecosystem-wide threat detection, Range Security for real-time risk alerting, Riverguard by Neodyme for attack simulation, Sec3 X-Ray for static analysis, and Auditware Radar for template-based issue detection.

Drift Protocol Hack 2026: What Happened, Who Lost Money, and What’s Next

A Solana-based perpetual futures exchange lost $286 million in 12 minutes on April 1, 2026, after attackers spent three weeks…

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Drift Protocol Hack 2026: What Happened, Who Lost Money, and What’s Next

A Solana-based perpetual futures exchange lost $286 million in 12 minutes on April 1, 2026, after attackers spent three weeks…

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Drift Protocol Hack 2026: What Happened, Who Lost Money, and What’s Next

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A Solana-based perpetual futures exchange lost $286 million in 12 minutes on April 1, 2026, after attackers spent three weeks…

Projects like Squads Multisig, Kamino, and Jupiter Lend have already set high internal security standards, with ten or more audits across some protocols. STRIDE is designed to extend comparable protections to teams that lack the resources to fund that level of coverage independently.

The Solana Foundation also participates in the Crypto Defenders Alliance for cross-industry fraud prevention, and STRIDE adds a Solana-specific layer on top of those broader efforts. The initiative follows the recent $286 million Drift Protocol hack, which was the largest DeFi breach so far in 2026.

Drift Protocol is the largest perpetuals exchange on Solana and it saw its TVL slide from $550 million to the current $234 million. The project’s token, DRIFT, as of 6:30 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, is down more than 37% over the last seven days. DRIFT is 98.5% below the crypto asset’s all-time high of $2.60 logged in November 2024.

Crypto

Cryptocurrency analytics company Santiment announces that Bitcoin network profitability is at its peak! Here are the details

Published

1 day ago

April 6, 2026

Press Room

Cryptocurrency analytics company Santiment announces that Bitcoin network profitability is at its peak! Here are the details

Cryptocurrency analytics company Santiment shared some noteworthy data regarding profitability on the Bitcoin network.

According to the company’s latest report, the ratio of profitable to losing Bitcoin trades rose to 2.95 to 1 last weekend.

This metric is calculated based on the difference between the price of a Bitcoin at the time of transfer and the price at which it was purchased. This ratio reveals the extent to which investors are profitable under current market conditions, while also offering important clues about market sentiment.

According to Santiment data, this ratio historically approaching the 3.0 level is generally considered a signal indicating a short-term price peak. Analysts point out that during such periods when a large portion of investors are in profit, selling pressure may increase, which could have a downward impact on the price.

Market experts emphasize that this data alone should not be seen as a definitive bearish signal, and that evaluating it in conjunction with other technical and on-chain indicators will yield healthier results. However, it is stated that the current ratio level indicates that investors should exercise caution.

While Bitcoin’s price has shown strong performance recently, investors’ tendency to take profits could be decisive in determining the market’s direction. According to experts, changes in on-chain data and transaction volume in the coming days will provide a clearer picture of price movements.

*This is not investment advice.