Vitalik Buterin Moves On From ‘Ultrasound Money,’ Says ETH’s Value Is Stability

In brief Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin argued ETH should be valued as a store of value rather than a fee-burning token, saying the burn was “never a true floor.” Ethlabs’ Binji Pande told Decrypt that ETH is a more “future-proof store of value” than Bitcoin, citing quantum and AI threats. It marks a notable shift in messaging from the Ethereum community, after ETH was branded as "ultrasound money" in 2021. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin wants people to stop valuing ETH as a fee-burning token and start treating it as a store of value, arguing that the burn was "never" as strong as it seemed. Binji Pande, founding member of Ethlabs, told Decrypt that he agrees, claiming that it is a more "future-proof store of value" than Bitcoin.It's a notable shift in messaging from the Ethereum community, after ETH was branded as "ultrasound money" when the network started burning a portion of every transaction fee in 2021. The argument was that as more people used Ethereum, fewer coins would exist in circulation, and fewer coins meant a higher price. Now, however, Buterin claims that isn't as important as people may think."We should not feel sad if fee burn is < 10% of breakeven indefinitely; the value of ETH comes from elsewhere," Buterin tweeted on Sunday. That value, he argued, is stability, which comes from Ethereum being decentralized, resistant to censorship, and having strong security. Expanding on why I believe "ETH as store of value (SoV)" makes much more sense to focus on than "ETH as fee-burning token". Three primary reasons: 1. ETH as fee-burning token never was as strong as it seemed2. Optimizing for ETH as fee-burning token would demand Ethereum and… — vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) November 8, 2026Those in favour of the fee-burning structure argued that fees gave ETH a price floor, much like a company's stock may be backed by revenue and profits. From 2021 to 2023, Ethereum burned millions of ETH every year, but Buterin said this was "never a true floor." Most of these burns, he said, came from internal crypto uses like lending and silly NFT purchases.Connor Howe, co-founder and CEO of infrastructure provider Enso, told Decrypt that Ethereum's layer-2 expansion made the fee-burning argument worse. Connor said that a significant portion of activity has moved onto layer-2s, and users pay "almost nothing" to settle transactions. To optimize a fee-burning token, he added, you'd also want to optimise for higher gas prices—which no one wants."If we decide we actually want to optimize ETH for burning fees to justify a present-day ~$270B market cap, then Ethereum would essentially be functioning as a world-scale major corporation," Buterin said. In doing that, Ethereum would lose one of its major selling points: decentralization."I agree with Vitalik, and I also believe that ETH is best positioned as a future-proof store of value," Ethlabs' Pande told Decrypt. He highlighted that the network is censorship-resistant, that it has "great distribution," is widely available, and that it is "at the center of future growing sectors such as tokenization, Stablecoins, and DeFi."Store of valueA store of value is an asset that holds its worth over time, meaning investors can put their money into it without fearing it will disappear. Historically, gold has been seen as the ultimate store of value, and Bitcoin supporters have pitched it as a "digital gold."Pande, however, argues that both fall short compared to Ethereum."Gold has held the SoV role for a long time, but given the world we live in now is much more globalized, we need increased portability, something gold simply cannot offer," Pande told Decrypt. "Storing gold is simply not useful either past a certain point; you reach physical limits."When it comes to Bitcoin as a store of value, Pande expressed concern that it isn't "future-proof" as AI and quantum threats loom.Ethereum has been preparing for those threats for a while. In January, the Ethereum Foundation formed a dedicated post-quantum team and, more recently, researchers have debated the potential AI-powered threats. By contrast, the Bitcoin community appears more fractured on how to tackle the quantum threat."Security is ingrained more deeply into Ethereum’s culture than anywhere else," Julian Ma, co-founder of Ethlabs, told Decrypt. "AI being used for cyberattacks and potentially breaking cryptography strengthens ETH's position as a programmable store-of-value asset because the years of preparation and large investments into security and formal verification of the Ethereum protocol and its applications are about to pay off."Pande added that newer assets can’t compete with ETH as a store of value, because there’s no way to verify they’re fairly distributed. The Ethereum Foundation owns less than 0.2% of ETH, he said, and the token has traded for 11 years.“Trying to distribute or mine a new asset as a SoV in the lord’s 2026 is like trying to hide a sack of meat in a sea of piranhas,” he said. “It can and WILL get centralized.”Not everyone thinks Ethereum’s leadership got here quickly enough, though. Howe said the Ethereum Foundation “needs to start to actually listen and look at the applications building on top of their network.”“I think he is right,” Howe said of Buterin's recent tweet, “and I think it took too long to say it.”Daily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more. Join 72,000+ readersCreate an account to save your articles.