Breaking the Dollar Curse: How Swap Reshapes Modern Trading Logic

When you trade on a decentralized exchange (DEX), what you’re doing isn’t “buy” or “sell,” but a process called Swap. This seemingly simple change actually represents a fundamental shift in human trading methods—from relying on a single currency intermediary back to direct asset exchange, but at a speed and efficiency that surpasses the barter system of ancient times by a hundred billion times.

The Essence of Swap from a Monetary System Perspective

Human trading history can be divided into three eras. The first era is barter—apple farmers directly exchanging apples for bananas from banana farmers, which is inefficient and limited by mutual needs. The second era is the age of money—introducing shells as a medium of exchange, converting all assets into shell value, greatly improving trading efficiency. The problem then arose: who controls the quantity of shells? This led to quantitative easing, causing currency devaluation and assets to shrink continuously.

This logic persists to this day. We measure stocks, real estate, cars, and even labor in US dollars. The 2,400 assets on the New York Stock Exchange are all traded based on USD. But when all values are forced to be measured by a single currency standard, true freedom of choice disappears. We are confined within 2,400 trading pairs, unable to explore other asset combinations.

DEX’s Swap Mechanism: An Upgraded Version of Barter

Blockchain breaks this deadlock. Through liquidity pools (Liquidity Pool) and automated market makers (AMM), DEX allows any assets to be directly exchanged with each other. Apples can Swap for bananas, bananas for radishes, radishes for durians—without converting into a central currency or relying on intermediaries.

Mathematically, while 2,400 assets in traditional exchanges are limited to 2,400 trading pairs due to centralized design, in the DEX ecosystem, these 2,400 assets can be combined into 2,878,800 trading pairs. Each trading pair represents a new liquidity possibility, determined by market demand rather than institutional restrictions.

Platforms like Uniswap, Osmosis, Curve, and others exemplify this new potential through their Swap functions. Users are no longer dependent on a single settlement currency and can choose the most optimal asset configuration paths based on their needs.

Changing Terminology, Unlocking Thinking: Why Say Swap Instead of Buy/Sell

The words “buy” and “sell” seem neutral but actually carry embedded assumptions—that all trades are based on a certain fundamental currency. When you say “buy 1 BTC with $50,000,” you assume USD is stable and serves as the universal measure.

Experienced crypto investors might say “sell $50,000 to buy 1 BTC”—because in the decentralized world, there’s no reason to favor one side over the other. BTC and USD are fundamentally equal, both assets and potential mediums of exchange.

This is not a word game but a shift in mindset. The verb “Swap” removes directional bias, acknowledging the multi-asset nature of the ecosystem. Practice this change in daily life: instead of saying “use 100 yuan to buy breakfast,” say “use 100 yuan to Swap for a breakfast”; instead of “exchange physical effort for 1,000 yuan salary,” say “use effort to Swap for 1,000 yuan.” Such linguistic adjustments help break the dollar-centric mindset and open up the imagination for multi-directional asset flows.

Imagining a Future of Multi-Asset Liquidity

Blockchain hasn’t stolen value from the old system but has created new possibilities previously impossible. The US dollar remains strong, and traditional financial systems still exist, but now humans have more options. Compared to being forced to use a single currency, we now have more Swap channels.

This is the meaning of “diversity”—both in asset variety (Diversity) and multi-currency liquidity (Multicurrency). The Swap mechanism frees assets from a single standard, allowing everyone’s labor and assets to be freely exchanged into any other asset combination, far surpassing traditional markets in efficiency.

The emergence of blockchain and DEX is essentially a reflection on a thousand-year-old monopoly of a single currency and a redefinition of human trading freedom. As we become accustomed to the verb “Swap” and the concept of multi-asset flow, the old logic of “buy” and “sell” will naturally seem outdated and obsolete.