Originally published November 10, 2026, at 21:24:51 UTC+08:00.
Vitalik Buterin argued that ETH holders should not depend on transaction-fee burns to make the token a store of value. Writing on X on the Sunday before publication, he said, “We should not feel sad if fee burn is less than 10% of breakeven indefinitely. The value of ETH comes from elsewhere.” He pointed instead to Ethereum’s decentralization, censorship resistance and security.
The distinction matters for ETH’s supply. The ultrasound money argument holds that network activity can burn ETH faster than staking creates it. According to Tyler Warner’s original report, burns offset about 2% of issuance during the first nine months of 2026, while ETH supply grew 0.64%. The report attributed much of that gap to Ethereum’s rollup roadmap moving activity and fees off the mainnet.
Buterin argued that maximizing fee revenue would favor congestion and expensive blockspace, potentially undermining what makes Ethereum useful. He also said the burn was “never a true floor” for ETH’s value. His proposed store-of-value framing is an argument about the network’s qualities—not a change to ETH’s supply rules or a guarantee of demand. Warner noted that it remains uncertain whether the framing will gain acceptance.