Buterin says ETH’s value should rest on resilience, not fee burns

In a post on X dated November 8, 2026, Buterin questioned whether fee burning can provide a dependable basis for ETH’s valuation. He said the argument was weaker than it appeared because fee income can fall when cryptocurrency prices and speculative activity decline. During 2021–2023, NFT trading and decentralized finance drove heavy fee burning, but he argued that much of this demand relied on wealth circulating within crypto markets. Tokenized real-world assets add activity linked to conventional finance, he said, though he did not expect mature products to produce NFT-era fee levels.

Buterin also warned that making fee generation Ethereum’s main goal could conflict with accessibility and decentralization. A revenue-focused approach, he argued, might require corporate-style development spending and more interventionist governance. In a hypothetical model, he estimated that protocol research and development could require about 700,000 ETH a year. Higher gas prices could also make privacy-focused and secure transactions less accessible.

Ethereum’s fee dynamics have shifted as more activity moves to layer-2 networks. The March 2024 Dencun upgrade reduced layer-2 transaction costs, lowering the fees those systems generate on the mainnet. During periods when newly issued ETH exceeds the amount burned under EIP-1559, supply grows.

Buterin said Ethereum’s long-term investment case should instead emphasize decentralization and what he calls CROPS: censorship and capture resistance, open-source development, privacy and security. He cited conservative protocol development, post-quantum security, Kohaku wallet privacy tools, multisignature wallets, private account abstraction and Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists as part of that direction. He said tokenized assets, collateral arrangements and decentralized trading can still expand what ETH holders can do.

He did not call for ending the burn mechanism. “EIP-1559 (including its burn) is fine and good, we should keep them,” he said. Buterin argued ETH could retain its store-of-value appeal even if burns remain below 10% of the amount needed to offset issuance indefinitely. The article said ETH was trading near $2,240 at the time, while issuance exceeded burns during periods of low network activity.