Author: 0XNATALIE

At the end of August, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin transferred 800 ETH to a multi-signature wallet. On September 4th, the Ethereum Foundation sold 100 ETH. On September 23rd, the Ethereum ETF saw the largest outflow of funds since July. This series of events, coupled with the continuous decline in the price of Ethereum in the second half of the year, has led to widespread concerns and speculations about the future performance of Ethereum in the market. Recently, Bankless posted on Twitter: "ETH is money," and this simple viewpoint quickly sparked a debate in the community about the nature and future development of ETH, with many community members, developers, and project founders expressing their opinions. The discussion gradually expanded from the original intention of ETH's design to its multiple attributes at the economic level.

Collision of Diverse Community Perspectives

Apriori, the founder of the Intent Protocol Anoma, believes that this is a form of propaganda. Money is not something fixed, but a concept that gradually forms through social consensus and usage habits. Whether ETH is money depends on how people use it, rather than its inherent attributes. Therefore, he believes that all statements similar to "ETH is money" are essentially promotional in nature.

Cathie, the chief scientist of the Ethereum ecosystem AI project ORA, expands the role of ETH to a broader field. She believes that ETH is not just money, but a symbol of decentralization, security, community, and transparency. Money is just one of the many functions of ETH.

Alex Salnikov, the founder of the NFT platform Rarible, raised an interesting question: why did Layer 2 solutions like Base choose ETH instead of USDC? In his view, we are entering a new type of social system similar to an "internet nation," which requires a new currency with independent monetary policy, and ETH has the potential to play this role. It has decentralized characteristics and can evolve independently to adapt to the currency of this new type of nation.

Péter Szilágyi, a member of the Ethereum Foundation and the lead developer of Geth, retweeted and responded that ETH was not designed to be a currency from the beginning. The original intention of ETH was to provide foundational support for a decentralized world, as the "fuel" of the network, to power various decentralized applications, rather than as a currency for daily transactions. He believes that the value of ETH mainly lies in its support for decentralized networks, rather than its attributes as a currency.

This retweet further sparked a collision of different viewpoints:

Matt Huang, co-founder of Paradigm, indicated in his retweet that Ethereum is a complex and evolving ecosystem. Although the creators of ETH did not initially intend for it to become a currency, with the development of the community, the role and functions of ETH are also constantly changing, which may include becoming a currency.

David Hoffman, co-founder of Bankless, also joined the discussion, emphasizing that the future use of Ethereum is determined by the entire community, rather than being limited by the original developers (OG). Whether ETH can become a currency depends entirely on whether the community is willing to accept it as a currency. The position of the OG developers, who do not want ETH to become a currency, actually makes ETH more credible as a neutral currency. Because ETH was not designed as a currency with a specific purpose, but gradually acquired this function from the community, making it more neutral and fair compared to tokens that were designed as currencies from the beginning.

Sam, founder of the stablecoin protocol Frax, pointed out that although Ethereum was not initially designed to be a currency or a business model, it has now developed an economic mechanism (such as token burning). Ethereum has not fully realized its potential in economic model design, which is a failure of the core developers and leadership team of Ethereum. In response, KOL DCinvestor argued that the implementation of the burning mechanism is to reduce transaction fees, which is a correct decision. Although core developers can decide on the content of the code, miners, stakers, and the community must also reach a consensus, so core developers do not fully control the definition and usage of ETH. Blaming the core developers entirely is unfair.

At the same time, some in the community believe that Bankless's viewpoint is pumping ETH, implying that holding ETH is equivalent to holding wealth. This interpretation overlooks the true scope and potential of ETH as the core asset of a decentralized ecosystem.

Summary and Reflection

The discussion surrounding "whether ETH is money" demonstrates the multiple roles and possibilities that ETH, as the core asset of the crypto world, carries. Whether ETH is money depends on different perspectives. Whether from the original technical vision or based on the current community consensus, it has gradually evolved from a simple network token to an asset that carries more social, economic, and technological value.

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