Gold’s portability and Bitcoin’s readiness for future security threats were central to a comparison made by Ethereum advocates in a Decrypt article published on November 10, 2026. Their case for ETH raises questions about what makes an asset a store of value—but the report does not establish that Ethereum preserves purchasing power better than either rival.
A store of value is an asset intended to retain worth over time. The report describes gold’s longstanding role in that category and Bitcoin supporters’ portrayal of BTC as “digital gold.” The dispute concerns which properties might sustain that role: physical durability and portability, network security, distribution, or the ability to adapt to new threats.
Gold: a longstanding role, with physical constraints
Binji Pande, a founding member of Ethlabs, argued that gold’s physical nature limits its usefulness in a globalized world.
“Gold has held the SoV role for a long time, but given the world we live in now is much more globalized, we need increased portability, something gold simply cannot offer,” he told Decrypt. He also argued that storing gold eventually encounters physical limits.
That is a criticism of storage and transfer practicality, rather than evidence about gold’s purchasing-power performance. The article supplies no comparative custody costs, transfer measurements or investment-return data with which to test his claim that ETH is a better store of value.
Bitcoin: an argument about future security
Pande’s objection to Bitcoin focused on whether it was “future-proof” against emerging AI and quantum threats. Decrypt reported that Ethereum had been preparing for those risks: the Ethereum Foundation formed a dedicated post-quantum team in January 2026, and researchers had more recently debated potential AI-powered threats. The report characterized the Bitcoin community as appearing more fractured over how to address the quantum threat.
Ethlabs co-founder Julian Ma argued that Ethereum’s investment in security and formal verification strengthened its position as a programmable store-of-value asset.
These are forward-looking assessments by Ethereum advocates. The reported preparations and disagreements do not, by themselves, establish which asset will prove more secure or retain value better over time.
Why Ethereum advocates were making the comparison
The comparison followed Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s November 8, 2026 argument that ETH should be valued less as a fee-burning token and more as a store of value supported by decentralization, censorship resistance and security.
Ethereum began burning a portion of transaction fees in 2021. Its “ultrasound money” narrative linked greater network use to reduced coin supply and, in turn, a higher price. Buterin argued that fee burning had “never” provided as strong a foundation as it appeared to. Although millions of ETH were burned annually from 2021 to 2023, he said this was “never a true floor,” with much of the activity coming from internal crypto uses such as lending and NFT purchases.
Connor Howe, co-founder and CEO of infrastructure provider Enso, told Decrypt that activity moving to layer-2 networks had further weakened the fee-burning argument because users paid “almost nothing” to settle transactions. Optimizing for burning would also mean seeking higher gas prices, he said—something users did not want.
Pande instead emphasized Ethereum’s availability, distribution and role in tokenization, stablecoins and decentralized finance. He said the Ethereum Foundation owned less than 0.2% of ETH and that the token had traded for 11 years, arguing that newer assets would struggle to achieve fair distribution.
A thesis, not a demonstrated ranking
The source presents competing ideas about the foundations of lasting value. Pande challenges gold on physical portability and Bitcoin on adaptation to future threats; Buterin questions whether ETH’s fee burn can justify its valuation.
It does not provide a like-for-like supply comparison across the three assets, measured inflation-hedging results or purchasing-power performance over a stated period and currency. The supported conclusion is narrower than a ranking: Ethereum advocates were reframing their store-of-value case around network properties rather than fee-driven scarcity. Whether those properties translate into better long-term value retention than Bitcoin or gold remains unproven in the supplied report.
Original publication: November 10, 2026, at 01:14:10 UTC+08:00.
Source: Decrypt — Vitalik Buterin Moves On From ‘Ultrasound Money,’ Says ETH’s Value Is Stability