Before calling crypto “too complex,” it’s worth taking a breath and looking at how the U.S. dollar system actually works behind the scenes.
What you’re seeing in that diagram isn’t some academic exaggeration. It’s a fairly accurate snapshot of the modern USD machinery — layered, fragmented, and stitched together over decades.
At the center sits the Federal Reserve, but contrary to popular belief, it does not directly control most dollar flows. Instead, it anchors a massive web of banks, regulators, clearing houses, settlement systems, offshore markets, and shadow plumbing that operate semi-independently.
Start with regulation alone. You don’t get “one regulator.” You get a maze of domestic agencies, international bodies, supranationals, and overlapping mandates. Each one sees only part of the system, which is why crises often show up after something breaks, not before.
Then there’s the offshore dollar system — the Eurodollar market. Trillions of dollars exist outside the U.S., created by foreign banks, settled through correspondent banking, and only indirectly influenced by the Fed. These dollars power global trade, leverage, and liquidity, yet sit largely outside direct U.S. control.
Now add banks and dealers. Primary dealers, commercial banks, custodians, and clearing institutions all intermediate the same dollar multiple times. Every transfer, repo, FX swap, or settlement hops across several balance sheets before it’s “final.” Speed comes from trust — and trust comes from layers of intermediaries.
Payments and settlement make it even messier. Different rails for wires, ACH, card networks, securities settlement, derivatives clearing, and collateral movement. Each rail has its own rules, timing, and failure points. Finality is often delayed, conditional, or reversible.
What looks like a single currency is actually a stack of IOUs, promises, and reconciliations — many of them opaque even to the institutions inside the system.
This is why the irony matters.
Crypto looks complicated because everything is visible. Wallets, chains, bridges, validators — it’s messy, but the mess is explicit. The dollar system feels simple because most of the complexity is hidden behind interfaces, banks, and legal abstractions.
Crypto didn’t invent financial complexity.
It just stopped pretending it doesn’t exist.
So next time someone says crypto is “too hard to understand,” remember: you’re comparing a transparent, still-evolving system to one of the most intricate financial machines ever built — refined over a century, and still fragile.
Sometimes, simple is just complexity you’re not allowed to see.
