Bitcoin community's joy leaves Ethereum OGs feeling EMO
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Bitcoin community's joy leaves Ethereum OGs feeling EMO
Ethereum's Great Debate: Return to Value or "Convince by Price Surge"?
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Sharon
On the same day that prices of Bitcoin ecosystem-related tokens like $ORDI continued to hit new highs, ripples also emerged within the Ethereum community.
On December 5, Ryan Sean Adams (@RyanSAdams), founder of Bankless, published a lengthy post on social media stating: "Some people say ETH is priced as high as $2,200—that's hilarious... ETH hasn't even entered a bull market yet." At the same time, he emphasized that Ethereum’s fundamentals are strong and that its true value has yet to be fully realized.
Subsequently, as if igniting long-accumulated emotions, numerous community participants and blockchain developers joined the discussion thread, including Uniswap founder hayden adams, Real Vision founder Raoul Pal, EthHub co-founder sassal.eth, Iron Forge Cloud CEO Italo Casas, Jason Chen from Wanwu Research Institute, and many others, sparking an intense debate over Ethereum's value and market sentiment.
While the Bitcoin ecosystem thrives across the board, many observers within the Ethereum ecosystem have repeatedly questioned why Ethereum has not yet unleashed its full potential in comparison.
Developers Criticize High Development Costs and Low Innovation on Ethereum
BlockBeats observed that during this debate, many developers expressed skepticism toward Ethereum, with two concerns standing out prominently: high development costs and stifled innovation.
Italo Casas (@italoacasas), CEO of Iron Forge Cloud, stated: "As Solana (SOL) and Ethereum (ETH) transaction costs rise, developers must spend more money deploying and executing transactions. Don’t you think this impacts innovation?”
Community developer McGavin (@NFT_Shooter) pointed out: "Ask retail users—they think ETH is terrible because everything costs $20. ETH was supposed to be a computer, but people lost focus and tried turning it into gold."
Community developer Jonnie King (@JonnieKing) identified three critical flaws in Ethereum: fundamental defects in both business model and technology, Layer 2s' heavy reliance on rising ETH prices, and Ethereum's staking mechanism being the worst among all chains: "I do believe Ethereum will improve in the coming years, but in its current state, it has serious flaws—while competitors are solving these foundational issues at the base layer. This is why the market treats it this way."
Jason Chen from Wanwu Research Institute (@jason_chen998) said: "Many say Ethereum lacks innovation—but this isn't just an Ethereum problem; it's a Web3-wide issue."
Some users also argued that only price appreciation can truly reveal value, implying that for Ethereum to achieve value recognition, ETH must rise significantly in price.
Founders Believe Ethereum Will Eventually Achieve Value Realization
Meanwhile, figures such as Uniswap founder hayden adams (@haydenzadams), former Goldman Sachs executive and macro research firm Real Vision founder Raoul Pal (@RaoulGMI), and EthHub co-founder sassal.eth (@sassal0x) all believe that Ethereum will ultimately realize its intrinsic value.
Ryan himself elaborated on several reasons. He believes Ethereum's fundamentals are strong for three main reasons: first, Ethereum currently generates $2.7 billion in annualized profit—the only profitable blockchain network; second, Ethereum is now the net new buyer of block space across the entire blockchain ecosystem in this cycle (driven by L2s); and third, Ethereum is deflationary in this cycle—whereas in the previous cycle it inflated annually by 3–4%, it now burns around 0.5% per year.
At the same time, Ryan argues that when Ethereum has solid fundamentals, everyone in this space engages in “hypothetical” trading during this cycle, while Ethereum further consolidates its role as a monetary instrument—a digital gold: "You can value it however you want—if it had gold’s monetary multiplier, its value would already be $22,000."
Other points raised by Ryan include Ethereum bondholders now earning 5.3% annually, the likelihood of Ethereum obtaining a spot ETF, and Ethereum being fully PoS, producing blockspace without energy consumption—"For traditional ESG investors, an Ethereum ETF will be the only checkbox item in this cycle."
He stated that ETH has not yet entered a bull market and believes the current market remains "irrational."
EthHub co-founder sassal.eth (@sassal0x) believes ETH will surge past $10,000, forcing观望 investors into a dilemma between fiat and low-quality altcoins: "We still need to clearly explain the value backing of ETH."
Additionally, he noted that while Ethereum’s L2/rollup-centric roadmap isn't perfect, if successfully executed, users could enjoy cheap and fast transactions on L2s while benefiting from the security of Ethereum’s L1: "That would be a glorious outcome."
Uniswap founder hayden adams (@haydenzadams) believes ETH's value stems from developers building cool and useful applications on top of it. It holds a massive first-mover advantage, making it extremely valuable. Using Uniswap as an example, he said: "Uniswap is a cool product that people love using, and has been Ethereum’s biggest value driver so far—accounting for about 25% of blockspace and roughly 75% of MEV."
Former Goldman Sachs executive and Real Vision founder Raoul Pal (@RaoulGMI) also posted: "Remember, at some point during this bull market, when the ETH ETF launches and both retail and institutional investors fear missing out, ETH will burn record amounts of supply, and record quantities of ETH will be locked up in staking."
"This epic supply-demand shock is brewing."
Dan McArdle (@robustus), co-founder of Case4Bitcoin, pointed out that those bullish on ETH should focus on “yield,” especially considering potential interest from traditional finance (TradFi): "Once institutional risk appetite for crypto rebounds, ETH will benefit greatly, as institutions love yield."
This Ethereum debate was somewhat coincidental, but longstanding frustrations exist within the community regarding Ethereum and ETH failing to demonstrate commensurate appeal and price momentum despite favorable market conditions. These criticisms target both Ethereum’s technology and ETH’s price performance. Compared to Bitcoin and BTC, Ethereum and ETH must deliver a more convincing track record to prove that continued faith in the platform is justified.
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