AOL discontinued dial-up internet access yesterday, Sept. 30, 2025, ending the access service while AOL Mail and other products remain.
According to AOL, the AOL Dialer and AOL Shield are now retired, with instructions for users to transition off legacy connections now posted for support reference.
The shutdown affects a tiny fraction of U.S. households and arrives as crypto markets mature through new access channels that change how investors reach Bitcoin without changing what Bitcoin is.
The dial-up analogy surfaces whenever markets rotate or infrastructure sunsets, yet dial-up was an access modality to a network, not the network itself.
So, in short, no, Bitcoin is not going to be replaced like dial-up has been.
However, let’s dive into why and where the actual comparison between the internet and Bitcoin adoption remains valid.
Bitcoin is a monetary asset and a base settlement protocol.
If there is a parallel to AOL in crypto, it is the set of custodial front ends, exchange on-ramps, and second-layer user experiences that rotate as technology and regulation move.
The network that dial-up connected to, the Internet, persisted and scaled across broadband and mobile generations.
Per the International Telecommunication Union, about 5.5 billion people, roughly 68 percent of the world, were online in 2024, a reminder that networks expand while edge access changes.
The proper crypto mapping treats ETFs, stablecoins, and Layer-2s as access rails that can broaden participation, not as replacements for the base monetary layer.
Dial-up’s remaining footprint offers a perspective on sunset dynamics.
The 2023 American Community Survey counted about 163,401 U.S. households reporting dial-up alone, a heavily rural slice that persisted because of last-mile constraints and price sensitivity.
According to the US Census Bureau, those households sit beside far larger shares on mobile broadband and fixed broadband, underscoring that a network’s long tail of legacy access can coexist with new rails before finally being retired.
Crypto’s access mix looks similar in principle, with direct self-custody, exchange custody, programmatic exposure through ETFs, and emerging account-abstraction models all serving the same monetary protocol.
Capital access has shifted fastest.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States have created a broadband-like on-ramp for institutions and advisors, converting operational hurdles into ticker exposure in brokerage accounts.
Per Farside Investors’ live tracker, cumulative net inflows since January 2024 now stand north of $60 billion, with flows pulsing alongside macro and positioning rather than vanishing when volatility fades.
CoinShares’ recent weekly notes through September reported ongoing inflows into Bitcoin and Ethereum products, flipping risk on and off week to week while maintaining a durable base of assets under management.
The ETF channel does not replace Bitcoin; it replaces operational friction in the way dial-up once gave way to cable, fiber, and 4G, all serving the same Internet.
Macro provides the cycle’s backdrop. On Sept. 17, the Federal Reserve cut the target range by 25 basis points to 4.00 to 4.25 percent, with officials emphasizing a cautious path that leaves optionality if inflation stalls above target.
According to the Fed’s implementation note, the standing repo facility and administered rates were adjusted to match the new range, keeping money-market plumbing aligned with policy intent.
Inflows into listed products tend to build when real yields stabilize and credit spreads stay orderly, so allocation channels rather than base-layer throughput often set the incremental marginal buyer for Bitcoin in this phase of the cycle.
Adoption data keep the framing honest.
Global crypto ownership sits in the mid-hundreds of millions. According to Triple-A’s 2024 report, about 562 million people held crypto last year, with nearly 6.8 percent penetration, with wide regional dispersion and methodology caveats that differ from on-chain counts.
Crypto.com’s market sizing placed end-2024 ownership closer to 659 million, a reminder that top-down survey-based estimates vary and should be treated as ranges rather than point truths.
On-chain activity often diverges from price and AUM, with Glassnode documenting that active address counts remain below 2021 highs even as capital access has broadened through ETFs, a gap consistent with a savings-led cycle rather than a payments-led one.
Lightning Network public capacity has drifted down from late-2023 peaks above 5,400 BTC to roughly 4,000 to 4,200 BTC by August 2025, a move that fits an architecture and UX reshuffle as custodial accounts and alternative scaling choices absorb some flows; the live series remains the right reference for current readings.
The replacement question is better tested as a set of vectors rather than a slogan. One path is monetary substitution in payments, where stablecoins or future CBDCs dominate transactions while Bitcoin…