Vitalik Buterin wants ETH to be a store of value, not a fee-burning token

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The Ethereum co-founder says the network should stop treating fee burns as the core of ETH's value story

Sun 8 Nov 2026 · 07:49 EST · 4 min read

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Vitalik Buterin has a new pitch for ETH, and it is less about burning and more about keeping.

In a post on X on November 8, 2026, the Ethereum co-founder argued that the network should focus on establishing ETH as a store of value rather than leaning on its identity as a “fee-burning token.” For a community that spent years treating the burn as a core part of ETH’s appeal, that is a notable shift in emphasis.

The burn itself is not going anywhere. Buterin endorsed keeping the EIP-1559 mechanism in place. What he wants to retire is the idea that the burn is what gives ETH its value.

What Buterin actually said

First, some quick background on the mechanics. EIP-1559, introduced in 2021, destroys a portion of the fees users pay to transact on Ethereum, which takes that ETH out of circulation permanently.

Buterin’s central argument is that holders should not panic if long-term fee burns stay below 10% of the break-even level. That level, he suggested, is sustainable within Ethereum’s broader economic picture. In other words, the burn does not need to cancel out new issuance for ETH to work as an asset.

He also took aim at the historical record. According to Buterin, the heavy fee burns seen from 2021 to 2023 came largely from activity inside the crypto ecosystem itself. That means they should not be read as a true valuation floor for ETH.

The 700,000 ETH problem

The most striking part of Buterin’s case is a back-of-the-envelope estimate. To support ETH’s current market cap of roughly $270 billion through an in-protocol funding model, he estimated the network would need around 700,000 ETH annually.

Buterin warned that chasing fee burns aggressively in this way could push Ethereum toward centralization. A protocol-level funding scheme of that scale, he argued, would threaten the project’s principles of decentralization and governance.

Recent figures also show how far the burn is from doing heavy lifting right now. Fee burns have accounted for only about 2.07% of new ETH issuance, which means the total ETH supply has been growing on net.

Why store of value, and why now

Buterin’s case for the store-of-value framing rests on what Ethereum already does well. He tied it to the network’s core strength in decentralization, arguing that this offers a kind of pragmatic stability that holders value.

He also pointed to the coming era of AI-driven disruption. In a world where technology may upend a lot of existing systems, an asset anchored in a decentralized network could be appealing precisely because it does not depend on any single company or institution.

This is not the first time Buterin has weighed in on what supports ETH’s value. In 2025, he discussed backing ETH’s value through scaling solutions and incentives tied to Layer 2 networks, the faster, cheaper chains that settle back to Ethereum. The latest commentary builds on that thinking but notably dials down the role of fee burns.

As more activity moves to Layer 2s, fewer fees land on the main chain, and the burn naturally gets smaller.

What this means for ETH holders

For investors, the most immediate takeaway is a change in which numbers matter. If ETH’s value story moves away from fee burns, daily burn dashboards and short-term transaction spikes could lose some of their weight in how people assess the asset.

There is a tension worth watching, though. A store of value with net supply growth has to convince people it is worth holding for reasons other than scarcity. Bitcoin leans heavily on its fixed supply. ETH, under Buterin’s framing, would be leaning on decentralization and credible neutrality instead.

Buterin’s 700,000 ETH estimate also sets up a clear line in the sand for future debates. Any proposal that tries to fund the protocol through aggressive fee capture will now have to answer his centralization concern directly.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.