Big debate in the Ethereum community: Should we return to value or “conquer people with increases”?

On the same day that the prices of related currencies in the Bitcoin ecosystem such as $ORDI continued to break new highs, there were also some waves in the Ethereum community.

On December 5, Bankless founder Ryan Sean Adams (@RyanSAdams) published a long article on the social platform and pointed out: Some people say that the price of ETH is as high as 2,200 US dollars. It is really funny...ETH has not yet entered the bull market. At the same time, he pointed out that the fundamentals of Ethereum are strong , and the current Ethereum has not yet exerted its true value.

Subsequently, as if long-standing emotions were ignited, many community participants and blockchain developers commented one after another, including Uniswap founder Hayden Adams, real vision founder Raoul Pal, EthHub co-creator sassal.eth, and Iron Forge Cloud. Many members, including CEO Italo Casas and Jason Chen from the All Things Research Institute, started a big debate on the value of Ethereum, market sentiment and other topics.

At a time when the Bitcoin ecosystem is blooming across the board, in comparison, the question of why Ethereum has not been able to exert its true power has also been repeatedly pondered by many Ethereum ecological participants who are watching from the other side.

Developers criticize Ethereum for its high development costs and low innovation

BlockBeats observed that in this debate, many developers have a negative attitude towards Ethereum, and two viewpoints are particularly prominent: Ethereum development costs are high and it further hinders innovation.

Italo Casas, CEO of Iron Forge Cloud (@italoacasas) said: As the cost of Solana (SOL) and Ethereum (ETH) increases, developers need to spend more money to deploy and execute transactions. Dont you think this will affect innovation?

Community developer McGavin (@NFT_Shooter) pointed out: Ask retail users, they think ETH is terrible because it costs $20 to do anything. ETH should be a computer and people lose focus and try to turn it into gold.

Community developer Jonnie King (@JonnieKing) believes that Ethereum has three fatal points: Ethereum’s business model and technology are extremely flawed, L2 is very dependent on the increase in ETH prices, and Ethereum’s pledge is the worst among all chains: “I do believe in Ethereum It will improve over the next few years, but in its current state it has serious flaws, and competitors are addressing those flaws at the base layer. Thats why the market treats it the way it does.

Jason Chen from the Institute of Everything (@jason_chen 998 ) said: Many people say that Ethereum lacks innovation. This is not a problem of Ethereum, but a problem of the entire Web3.

Some users also pointed out that only by convincing people with an increase can people see the value clearly. The implication is that if Ethereum wants to realize its value return, the price of ETH must rise even higher.

The founder believes that Ethereum will eventually return in value

At the same time, including Uniswap founder Hayden Adams (@haydenzadams), former Goldman Sachs executive and founder of macro research institution real vision Raoul Pal (@RaoulGMI) and EthHub Lianchuang sassal.eth (@sassa l0 x) all believe that Ethereum will eventually realize its value return.

Ryan himself explains why in several ways. The reason he believes Ethereum’s fundamentals are strong is that, first, Ethereum now has annualized profits of $2.7 billion—the only profitable chain—and second, Ethereum “now owns the entire blockchain as a net new addition to the block space this cycle. Buyers (from L2), and finally Ethereum is deflationary in this cycle - in the last cycle it inflation was 3-4% per year, and in this cycle it will burn about 0.5% per year.

At the same time, Ryan believes that everyone here will be doing what if trades in this cycle when Ethereum has fundamentals, while Ethereum is now further solidified as a monetary instrument - a kind of digital gold: You can Assess its value at will - if it had a gold money amplifier, it would already be worth $22,000.

Ryan’s remaining points include that Ethereum bond holders now earn 5.3% per year, that Ethereum will likely receive a spot ETF, and that Ethereum is now a complete POS, able to generate block space without consuming energy – “For For traditional ESG investors, the Ethereum ETF will be the only item checked this cycle.

He said that ETH has not yet entered a bull market, and believes that the current market is still irrational.

EthHub Lianchuang sassal.eth（@sassa l0 x) believes that ETH will soar to more than $10,000, leaving investors on the sidelines trapped in the dilemma of fiat currencies and junk coins: We still need to clarify the value support of ETH to people.

In addition, he also said that although Ethereums L2/rollup-centered roadmap is not perfect, if the Ethereum ecosystem successfully realizes the grand vision of this roadmap, then users will enjoy cheap + fast transactions on L2, At the same time protected by Ethereum L1: It will be a glorious sight.

Uniswap founder hayden adams (@haydenzadams) believes that the value of ETH comes from developers building cool and useful things on top of it. It has a huge lead, so its very valuable. He also cited Uniswap as an example, saying Uniswap is a cool thing that people like to use, and is by far the largest value driver of Ethereum (about 25% of the block space + about 75% of the MEV).

Raoul Pal, former Goldman Sachs executive and founder of macro research agency Real Vision (@RaoulGMI) also posted: “Remember, at some point in this bull market, when ETH ETFs are listed and retail investors and institutions are afraid of missing out, ETH will burn a record supply, and a record amount of ETH will be Locked for staking.

This epic supply and demand shock is brewing.

Case 4 Bitcoin co-founder Dan McArdle (@robustus) pointed out that if people in ETH want to keep it simple, they should focus on yield things, especially for potential TradFi interest: Once institutional risk appetite for cryptocurrencies picks up, ETH will be a big beneficiary. Because institutions like ‘profit’.”

There are certain accidental factors in this Ethereum debate, but the community has already had many complaints about the failure of the price of Ethereum and ETH to show attractiveness and growth relative to its strength in this improving market situation. Some of these complaints are directed at Ethereum technology, and some are directed at the price of ETH. Compared with Bitcoin and BTC, Ethereum and ETH need to hand over more convincing test papers to convince the community that the wait is worth it.