Ethereum creator says ETH should be valued as an SoV
Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin says the network should promote ETH as a store of value, rather than as an asset that derives value from burning fees.
He argued in a thread that idea of “ETH as fee-burning token never was as strong as it seemed” and that optimizing for that would negatively impact Ethereum’s “decentralization and capture resistance.”
Instead, he argues that Ethereum’s value should come from stability provided by its focus on “decentralization and CROPS” — referring to censorship and capture resistance, open source, privacy and security — which he believes will be more highly valued in an “era of AI disruption.”
The 2021 EIP-1559 upgrade flipped Ethereum into deflationary mode for a time when fee revenue was sky high, leading to supporters, including the Bankless podcasters, touting Ethereum as “ultrasound money.”
But due to design choices, fees have kept falling along with revenue, making that narrative unsustainable. From January to October this year median transaction fees fell from 35 cents to 3.5 cents, as the number of daily transactions increased by more than half.
Some Bitcoiners, who hold BTC’s store of value status sacred, were scathing about Buterin’s thread. Held Media founder Dan Held derided Buterin’s comments as “ETH trying to pivot to Bitcoin’s SoV narrative after all of its previous narratives collapsed. Again.” He argued it was “wild that you think a protocol with a constantly changing monetary policy (just like fiat) can be a ‘sound money.’” However, proponents note that Ethereum has not changed its monetary policy since The Merge in 2022, and each change has reduced, rather than increased, issuance.
Ethereum maxis welcomed the protocol’s creator setting a clear narrative direction. MetaLeX attorney Gabriel Shapiro called it a “nature is healing moment” from Buterin, and said “I think on fundamentals ETH can be a much better SoV than both ZEC and BTC.”
Even Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko said Buterin was “absolutely right that can’t focus on fees as the product” although he then took a subtle dig at Ethereum’s “product.”
Source: Toly
Democrat sweep spells uncertain future for crypto regulations
Despite spending $176 million across 100 seats — including $64 million trying and failing to keep Sherrod Brown out of the Senate — the influence of crypto super PACS on the election appeared to be minimal. Or was it?
Even though the Democrats now control both the Senate and the House of Representatives a Fairshake spokeman told Crypto In America the super PAC had spent $154.5 million across 93 races and backed the winning candidate in all but seven races. That’s a 92% success rate.
Stand With Crypto notes that majorities of legislators in both houses are now pro-crypto, with 50 of 100 senators designated “pro-crypto” and only 33 “anti-crypto,” while 241 congress people support the industry, and only 106 actively hate it.
However the anti-crypto army will hold positions of power, with Brown likely to join the Senate Agriculture Committee and Elizabeth Warren tipped to chair the Senate Banking Committee.
“The next Congress will bring a fundamentally different environment for crypto in Washington, and the industry should expect significantly more scrutiny,” said Kyle Bligen, executive director at the Decentralization Research Center.
Democrats are already reportedly considering expanding proposals from Representative Maxine Waters into a broader market structure bill. There is still an outside chance the CLARITY Act could be resurrected, but only if it has much stronger ethics provisions aimed at President Donald Trump’s alleged corruption.
“A sitting president’s family launching memecoins and a stablecoin is a real governance problem,” Fidelity Digital founder Hadley Stern told Magazine. “If I’d done that at Fidelity, I’d have been walked out the same afternoon.”
The TRUMP memecoin lost a third of its value this week, and was the biggest loser in the top 100 cryptocurrencies.
The election result saw AI related stocks crash and Bitcoin fell below $76,000 where it remains.
Fake job interview led to Binance’s $6.34 billion hack
Binance reports that North Korean hackers first breached its systems back in June, when an employee downloaded a tampered Homebrew installation while attempting to install an AI coding tool. While the exchange quickly detected the incident, the hackers had already obtained information about employees working on Binance’s wallet infrastructure.
In September, attackers posing as recruiters targeted another software engineer and tricked the employee into downloading a malicious file disguised as a coding assignment.
On Oct. 20, the attackers used the compromised computer and an internal AI tool to gain access to two additional engineers’ systems to deploy malware. They then gained access to the exchange’s internal wallet-signing service, enabling them to steal billions.
“This wasn’t one mistake or one breach — it was a months-long campaign,” Binance co-CEO Richard Teng said in a Tuesday post on X.
Ethereum dev targets 2028 for quantum resistance, a year early
Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake is targeting December 2028 to complete Ethereum’s post-quantum and post-AI transition, a year earlier than the foundation’s previously announced quantum-resistance deadline.
Speaking at Devcon 8 in Mumbai on Tuesday, Drake outlined the accelerated timeline. “Our hope is that by December 2028 we’ll be able to wrap up the full post-quantum and post-AI transition,” Drake said, adding that developers have 24 months to deliver three additional network upgrades.
The Ethereum Foundation’s September roadmap established December 2029 as its deadline for achieving quantum resistance.
However the roadmap is currently at a standstill with core developers delaying the Glamsterdam upgrade indefinitely until security concerns tied to eight smart contract invariants are resolved.
THORChain restarts despite FBI warning
THORChain has ignored the FBI’s explicit warning not to process funds from the Binance hack, with the permissionless protocol restoring trading on most networks on November 4.
The RUNE token gained 15% in 24 hours on the news that Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Tron and Zcash had been re-enabled. Avalanche, Base and XRP were already operating.
Chainalysis reported that THORChain had already processed more than $46 million from the hack in the first 72 hours, and gained $200,000 in fees according to the Wall Street Journal. Trading was halted automatically due to an unrelated Ethereum block reorganization.
Co-founder JPThor said the fact that the FBI warning had no effect on the DEX proved that THORChain was decentralized.
“The fact that the FBI did in fact call out the protocol —— and nobody could do anything —— means in fact the protocol is decentralised. Nobody in their right mind in a western country would flagrantly ignore a direction like that.”
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is down 4.5% to trade at $74,302, Ethereum (ETH) is down 6.3% to trade at $2,117 and XRP (XRP) is down 5% to $1.11. The total market cap is at $2.49 trillion according to CoinMarketCap.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin winners of the week are Pieverse (PIEVERSE) with a 39.2% gain, Injective (INJ) on 11.1%, and Tether Gold (XAUt) on 4.2%.
The top three altcoin losers of the week are OFFICIAL TRUMP which was down 32.8%, Worldcoin (WLD) down 20.8% and Ethena (ENA) down 19%.
Top Prediction of the Week
Binance hack may be ‘temporary setback’ for crypto, Grayscale’s Pandl says
Binance’s $6.3 billion hack could temporarily hurt confidence in crypto markets but would ultimately lead to stronger security practices across exchanges, according to Grayscale.
“It also underscores the importance of institutional custody, such as offered by US-based crypto [exchange-traded products],” said Grayscale’s head of research, Zach Pandl, in a Tuesday report.
“These vehicles hold their assets at state-chartered banks and qualified custodians, typically offering offline storage, multi-signature wallets, SOC attestations and insurance policies,” he added.
Top FUD of the Week
Binance France emails announce closure of its users’ accounts on Dec. 31
Binance France is closing up shop in the country. All accounts will be closed on Dec. 31, and any assets left on the exchange will be charged monthly fees starting on Nov. 29, according to emails sent to users by Binance.
On that date, accounts still maintaining a balance will pay a monthly maintenance fee of 0.025% of the balance, or a minimum of 10 USDC, a stablecoin tracking the US dollar.
Cointelegraph reported in late June that Binance had notified European Union users access to key services would be restricted after the exchange failed to secure Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory authorization from a member state before a July 1 deadline.
Suspicious prediction market activity seen before election poll release: NYT
Suspicious prediction market bets were placed shortly before two recent New York Times/Siena political polls were released to the public, according to a report.
Vanderbilt University researchers said a Polymarket user bet almost $200,000 on Oct. 31 that Nebraska Senator Pete Ricketts would be re-elected. An hour later, a Times/Siena poll was released showing Ricketts in the lead.
A Friday New York Times report said while it was not clear if the user had access to inside information, they won more than $77,000. The user also placed similar large bets on other markets, including Kalshi, the report said.
Gnosis Pay breach exposes personal and card details
Crypto-linked Visa debit card provider Gnosis Pay disclosed a security breach on Friday that exposed customers’ payment card details, home addresses and cryptocurrency wallet addresses.
Gnosis Pay said it detected unauthorized access to its legacy consumer card system on Nov. 3 and began containing the breach within two hours. The company said customer funds and its separate enterprise platform, which powers white-label card programs, were unaffected.
Top Magazine Features of the Week
The CLARITY Act faces a new test as Democrats control Congress, raising questions over consumer protections, ethics and what the crypto industry may have to concede.
Bitcoin’s eCash fork gives eligible holders an equivalent balance of ECX, but questions remain over where they can trade the tokens and what they can do with them.
From setting up an SMSF or a company, to just leaving the country entirely, here are some strategies Australian Bitcoiners can employ to deal with 2027’s massive CGT hike.
Decentralized AI networks want to turn everyday phones into an alternative to centralized computing infrastructure — but skeptics have their doubts.
