Ethereum's Value Proposition Rooted in Usage, Not Just Price

Cryptocurrency is often viewed through the narrow lens of price, with the dominant narrative surrounding Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the broader crypto market fixated on price movements. This focus on price, however, is a superficial way of thinking and can be dangerous in the crypto space. In traditional markets, value is grounded in usage, with companies generating revenue through products and retaining users to strengthen network effects. In contrast, crypto often inverts this principle, with price coming first and everything else becoming secondary or optional.

This philosophy is deeply ingrained in what might be called Saylorism, the ideology promoted by Michael Saylor, the loudest evangelist for Bitcoin-as-collateral. Under this worldview, the core utility of Bitcoin isn’t transacting, building, or innovating — it’s simply holding. You buy Bitcoin, never sell, borrow against it, repeat. The usage is the hoarding. Bitcoin is not a currency or platform under Saylorism — it’s a speculative vault for value, designed to appreciate forever and justify more borrowing. In essence, every company becomes a leveraged Bitcoin fund, building its capital structure around a single bet: that the number always goes up. This is a radical departure from the logic that underpins healthy businesses, where value is internalized, circular, and ultimately recursive.

Compare that to Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, which has taken a different path. While Ethereum is also subject to the gravitational pull of price speculation, its value proposition is fundamentally rooted in usage. ETH is not just a store of value; it is the fuel of an economy. It powers decentralized applications, settles billions in stablecoin transactions, tokenizes real-world assets, mints NFTs, facilitates decentralized finance, and supports governance. ETH has demand because the network has demand. The more people use Ethereum, the more ETH is needed. And the more ETH is burned through transaction fees, the more supply becomes constrained. Price here reflects activity, not just belief.

This distinction is profound. Ethereum’s growth is tied to its functionality, to what it enables for users and developers. It resembles a traditional business more than a vault. It’s like Amazon in the early 2000s: difficult to value by conventional metrics but serving a growing ecosystem. The difference between these two models–Bitcoin as gold and Ethereum as infrastructure–has sparked endless debate over whether they’re even in competition. Some argue they’re entirely different species: Bitcoin is a monetary metal; Ethereum is a decentralized world computer, perhaps likened to digital oil.

It’s fair to ask: what’s ultimately more valuable, the gold you keep or the dollar you spend? Bitcoin’s value depends on people holding it. Ethereum’s value depends on people using it. Both are succeeding, but the paths are not the same. If cryptocurrency is to evolve beyond its speculative adolescence, it must shift away from price obsession and toward utility obsession. This means asking harder questions: What is this protocol used for? Who depends on it? What problem does it solve? Valuation must come from participation, not just price action. A blockchain that delivers real-world utility for finance, identity, coordination, or computation deserves appreciation. But it must earn it through adoption, not ideology.

What if, instead of competing, Bitcoin and Ethereum found common ground and worked together? That’s where the opportunity emerges: Ethereum serves as the most robust gateway for Bitcoin holders looking to access the broader world of decentralized finance. No network rivals Ethereum in terms of DeFi’s depth and maturity. By converting BTC into Ethereum-compatible assets, holders can engage in a dynamic ecosystem of lending, staking, and yield generation, turning dormant Bitcoin into active, value-producing capital. Platforms like Aave, Lido, Ethena, ether.fi, and Maker enable BTC to participate in ways that static holding simply can’t.

The outcome? Mutual benefit: Ethereum attracts more liquidity, while Bitcoin gains much-needed utility. It’s a powerful synergy that amplifies the strengths of both networks. Cryptocurrency is not just a dumb financial asset. It’s programmable money, digital property, frictionless transactions, decentralized coordination, and trustless finance. It’s a reimagining of the internet’s economic layer. But its long-term success depends on moving past the dopamine of daily price charts. Because in the end, the most valuable technologies aren’t the ones with the flashiest tickers; they’re the ones that get used. And usage, not hoarding, is what builds lasting value.