Ethereum’s “ultrasound money” label gave its community a memorable story: network activity would burn transaction fees, reduce ETH’s supply and, supporters argued, support its price. In a November 8, 2026 post, co-founder Vitalik Buterin challenged the importance of that narrative, arguing that Ethereum’s value rests more on its underlying properties than on the tokens it burns.
As Decrypt reported, Buterin wants the emphasis to shift toward ETH as a store of value. His argument centers on decentralization, censorship resistance and security—not a claim that ETH’s market price is stable.
Original report published November 10, 2026, at 01:14:10 UTC+8.
Why the fee-burning story is under scrutiny
The “ultrasound money” branding followed Ethereum’s introduction of a mechanism that burns a portion of transaction fees in 2021. Its appeal was straightforward: more usage could mean more ETH destroyed, making the remaining supply scarcer.
Buterin now argues that the mechanism “never” provided as strong a foundation for valuation as it appeared to.
“We should not feel sad if fee burn is < 10% of breakeven indefinitely; the value of ETH comes from elsewhere,” he wrote.
According to Decrypt, Ethereum burned millions of ETH annually from 2021 to 2023. Buterin said that activity was “never a true floor” for ETH’s value, noting that much of the burn came from crypto-native uses such as lending and what he described as “silly NFT purchases.”
Connor Howe, co-founder and CEO of infrastructure provider Enso, told Decrypt that the expansion of layer-2 networks further weakened the fee-burning argument. A significant share of activity has moved to those networks, he said, where users pay “almost nothing” to settle transactions. Maximizing fee burns would also create pressure to raise gas costs—an outcome he said users do not want.
Buterin warned that optimizing fee revenue to justify ETH’s then-roughly $270 billion market capitalization would make Ethereum function like a “world-scale major corporation,” compromising its decentralization.
A different narrative, with claims still to examine
The alternative is to frame ETH as an asset capable of preserving value over time. That is a proposed role, not a guarantee that it will do so.
Binji Pande, a founding member of Ethlabs, supported Buterin’s position. Speaking to Decrypt, he cited Ethereum’s censorship resistance, distribution, availability and involvement in tokenization, stablecoins and decentralized finance.
Pande also argued that ETH is a more “future-proof store of value” than Bitcoin. He criticized gold’s portability and physical storage limits, and raised concerns about Bitcoin’s preparedness for AI and quantum-computing threats. Those comparisons represent his assessment, rather than established proof of Ethereum’s superiority.
Decrypt reported that the Ethereum Foundation formed a dedicated post-quantum team in January 2026 and that researchers had subsequently debated potential AI-powered threats. The report described Bitcoin’s community as more divided over how to address quantum risks.
Ethlabs co-founder Julian Ma likewise argued that Ethereum’s investments in security and formal verification strengthen its position. Pande pointed to the token’s 11-year trading history and said the Ethereum Foundation held less than 0.2% of ETH, contrasting that distribution with the centralization risks he sees in newly launched assets.
Agreement does not erase criticism
Howe welcomed Buterin’s change in emphasis but said Ethereum’s leadership had been slow to reach it. He also urged the Ethereum Foundation to listen more closely to applications building on the network.
“I think he is right,” Howe told Decrypt, “and I think it took too long to say it.”
The debate shifts the emphasis from a supply-reduction slogan toward the qualities supporters believe make Ethereum worth holding. It does not establish a community-wide consensus—or demonstrate that ETH will reliably preserve purchasing power.