Morning Minute: Vitalik Recasts ETH as a Store of Value - Decrypt

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GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors continue slide; BTC flat at $74.2k
• BTC ETF outflows continue, now $2B+ over past 7 sessions
• Coinbase receives final OCC approval for national trust bank charter
• Avalanche will support NYSE tokenized securities platform
• BlackRock says demand for in-kind BTC redemption for IBIT at record highs

🏛️ Vitalik Recasts ETH as a Store of Value

Vitalik Buterin spent Sunday on X telling Ethereum holders to stop valuing ETH as a fee-burning token and start valuing it as a store of value. “We should not feel sad if fee burn is less than 10% of breakeven indefinitely,” he wrote. “The value of ETH comes from elsewhere.”

That elsewhere is stability, which he ties to decentralization, censorship resistance and security. It replaces the ultrasound money pitch, the idea that network usage burns supply faster than staking creates it. The burn has not kept up in years. Through the first nine months of 2026 it offset about 2% of issuance while supply grew 0.64%, mostly because Ethereum’s own rollup roadmap moved activity and fees off the mainnet.

Buterin’s argument is that this is fine, and that chasing the burn would be worse. Maximizing fee revenue means wanting congestion and expensive blockspace. He warned it would turn Ethereum into “a world-scale major corporation” at the cost of what makes it worth using. The burn, he added, was “never a true floor” and came mostly from internal crypto churn like lending and “silly NFT purchases.”

Supporters are already building out the new frame. Ethlabs co-founder Binji Pande calls ETH a future-proof store of value and argues it beats Bitcoin on quantum and AI risk, citing eleven years of trading history and an Ethereum Foundation that holds under 0.2% of supply. Julian Ma of Ethlabs makes the related case that Ethereum’s security culture positions it as a programmable store of value as AI pressures cryptography.

Here’s the problem with the store-of-value pitch, though. Store of value is Bitcoin’s category, and Bitcoin holds it with a hard cap, more Lindy, deeper ETF plumbing and a corporate treasury bid ETH is only starting to build. And now Zcash is creeping in as the privacy store of value play. ETH hasn’t historically been considered a store of value play. It remains to be seen if Vitalik can successfully cast this pitch…

Predict·Crypto

ETH price on November 10, 4:59PM UTC

Above 1,90099%YesNo
Above 2,00095%YesNo
Above 2,10015%YesNo
Above 2,2001%YesNo
Above 2,3001%YesNo
+1 more outcomes
NEW$2.74 volume
Nov 10Closes: Nov 10, 2026, 16:59 UTC
Closes: Nov 10, 2026, 16:59 UTC

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are red down 1-2%; BTC even at $74.2k; ETH -1% at $2,100; SOL -1% at $84.7; HYPE +1% at $73.60; ZEC -4% at $1,150
• Stable (+8%), JUP (+7%), and PYTH (+3%) led top alt movers
• Oil -2% at $85; Gold -1% at $4,085
• Stock futures are mixed ahead of CPI; DOW +0.4%, Nasdaq -0.3%
• Coinbase received final OCC approval for a national trust charter, moving its institutional custody business under federal oversight and joining Circle and Ripple, which won approvals in July and October
• Trump said he knows “nothing” about World Liberty Financial when asked in a post-midterm interview why his family’s crypto stake differs from arrangements he has called corrupt, adding that conflicts have affected presidents “going back to George Washington”
• Elliptic found North Korea’s TraderTraitor group laundering Binance hack proceeds through freshly minted meme coins, creating tokens for about $90 apiece and washing roughly $430,000 through six of them on NEAR between November 5 and 7
• Formation Securities notified the SEC it intends to run a tokenized securities venue on Solana under the agency’s Innovation Exemption, launching in early 2027
• Ava Labs said Avalanche will serve as the core ledger for the clearing firm behind NYSE’s forthcoming tokenized securities platform, handling round-the-clock clearing and settlement across equities listed on several chains
• Fourteen public companies have sold roughly 108,247 BTC worth $8.08 billion so far in 2026 according to Lookonchain, with MARA at 40,581 coins and Riot at 20,264 accounting for 56% of the total
• BlackRock said demand from large holders converting self-custodied Bitcoin into IBIT shares is “the highest we’ve seen at any point,” citing security concerns, with roughly $3.6 billion of such swaps since the SEC permitted in-kind transactions
• Former Ethereum Foundation protocol support lead Kayleen Fulton sued the foundation, Vitalik Buterin and four other defendants in Colorado federal court, alleging she was fired in retaliation for helping organize a 53-signature staff letter opposing a provision in the foundation’s new mandate

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

• The Bitcoin ETFs saw $201M in net outflows on Monday; the ETH ETFs saw $185M in outflows
• Strategy bought 1,036 BTC for $81.9 million at an average of $79,012 and repurchased $188.3 million of its STRC preferred, both funded by a $283.8 million sale of MSTR common stock
• BitMine added 9,587 ETH worth about $20 million, lifting its treasury to 6,070,092 ETH or 4.97% of supply, with chairman Tom Lee calling Vitalik Buterin’s store-of-value comments “a seismic shift” that validates the strategy

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were mostly green; DOGE +1%, SHIB +1%, PEPE +5%, PENGU +1%, TRUMP -1%, SPX +4%, BONK +3%
• Robinhood chain leaders were mixed; Pons +1 to $103M; Cashcat -13% at $65M; Orbio +20% at $30M; AI -7% at $29M; HOOKR +15%, Ubik +20% and Boner +40% led top movers
• Solana top movers included Stank +35% and SI +30%; Stonk -7% at $49M, Ansem -7% at $49M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• Hyperliquid led onchain protocols in revenue with $2.53M, followed by Pump.fun at $1.19M and Venice at $489k
• Binance stopped processing transactions involving MEXC and its affiliates after FinCEN designated the exchange a primary money laundering concern, rejecting outgoing transfers and holding incoming deposits for compliance review

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mostly flat; Punks even at 30.4 ETH, BAYC +1% at 5.8 ETH, Pudgy even at 2.2 ETH
• Lil Pudgy (+12%) led top movers

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