In this article5 sections
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin used a series of posts on X on November 8, 2026, to argue that ETH should be treated as a store of value rather than as a token whose worth is measured by the transaction fees the network destroys, U.Today reported. Crypto Briefing and Blockonomi covered the same posts, which landed while ether traded near $2,240.
Buterin did not propose scrapping the fee burn. According to Crypto Briefing, he endorsed keeping EIP-1559, the mechanism introduced in 2021 that destroys part of each transaction fee, permanently removing that ETH from circulation. What he wants to retire is the assumption that the burn is what gives ETH its value.
Also readVitalik Buterin Details 'Paranoid Mode' AI Agent on Ethereum
Key facts
- Buterin published the argument on X on November 8, 2026, saying ETH as a store of value makes more sense to focus on than ETH as a fee-burning token.
- He said holders should not be concerned even if fee burns remain below 10% of the break-even level indefinitely.
- He estimated that supporting a market capitalization of roughly $270 billion through an in-protocol funding model would require about 700,000 ETH a year.
- Crypto Briefing reported that fee burns have covered only about 2.07% of new ETH issuance, so total ETH supply has been growing on net.
- Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko backed the position, writing on X that focusing on fees as the product is “absolutely meaningless.”
Why the burn is a weak valuation floor
Buterin questioned the net-present-value logic that treats burned fees as cash flow accruing to holders, since the calculation depends on demand holding up. Blockonomi reported that he attributed the unusually heavy burns of 2021 to 2023 largely to activity inside crypto itself, including speculative trading and digital collectibles. He reasoned that if ETH lost most of its value, much of the spending power behind those fees would fall with it, so the apparent floor would weaken exactly when holders wanted protection.
He also said mature businesses are unlikely to repeat speculative peaks like the roughly $180 million burned in a single day, even if tokenized real-world assets bring demand from outside crypto.
Also readVitalik Buterin: Power Is 45.9% of Bitcoin Mining Costs
Why fee capture would cost decentralization
Optimizing the protocol for fee revenue would, in Buterin’s account, turn Ethereum into something closer to a large company. Blockonomi reported that he estimated a revenue-driven strategy would need the 700,000 ETH a year for protocol-funded research and development, along with more interventionist governance over spending and priorities. Higher gas costs would also shut out the users who most need private, censorship-resistant transactions, he warned.
Instead he tied ETH’s store-of-value case to what he calls CROPS: censorship and capture resistance, open source, privacy and security. Blockonomi noted that the Ethereum Foundation set those four as central priorities in its March 2026 mandate. On valuation, Crypto Briefing reported Buterin framed the shift around what Ethereum already does well, arguing that decentralization offers a pragmatic stability holders value, and that an asset rooted in a decentralized network could appeal in an era of AI-driven disruption because it depends on no single company or institution.
Despite some garbled early coverage, the economics are pitched forward rather than backward. U.Today quoted Yakovenko agreeing with the thrust: networks should build a product that brings value to users rather than manage the price of block space.
Why it matters
The change affects how holders read Ethereum’s numbers. If the burn stops being the headline metric, daily burn dashboards and short transaction spikes lose weight in judging the asset, while supply growth becomes a question the network has to answer with decentralization and neutrality rather than scarcity. Bitcoin leans on its fixed supply; ether, under this framing, would not. The 700,000 ETH estimate also sets a marker for future governance fights: any proposal to fund the protocol through aggressive fee capture now has to answer the centralization objection first.
What to watch
U.Today reported that Glamsterdam, the upgrade planned around higher throughput, was halted on testnet after a bug surfaced in fee recalculation, so builders are working on EIP-8037 for tariff calibration and EIP-7928 for parallel block production with a goal of lifting gas limits to 200 million units. Progress on those proposals, and any plan to fund development through the protocol, will test whether Buterin’s store-of-value pitch holds up in practice. This article is not financial advice, and crypto markets are volatile and uncertain.
Sources: U.Today, Crypto Briefing, Blockonomi
