Joseph Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum, has argued that ETH could evolve into more than a digital store of value as inflation, artificial intelligence adoption and financial instability reshape the global economy. He contrasted Ethereum with gold and Bitcoin, describing ETH as programmable, widely used across Ethereum’s financial network, and resistant to censorship.
Lubin said ETH is not debt-based or credit-based money, and noted that Layer 1 transactions are censorship-resistant, including transactions involving decentralized finance programs. He emphasized Ethereum’s role as collateral, its dominance in stablecoin activity, and its ability to handle transfers ranging from one dollar to billions. He also described ETH as disinflationary, with supply becoming deflationary during periods of high network activity. Privacy tools mentioned included VPNs, mix networks, shielded pools, Railgun, stealth addresses, Kohaku, and zero-knowledge proofs.
His remarks follow Vitalik Buterin’s argument that Ethereum should focus on ETH as a store of value rather than relying primarily on fee burns. Buterin said fee burning should not be the main measure of ETH’s value, though EIP-1559 should be retained. He linked Ethereum’s decentralization and CROPS principles — censorship and capture resistance, open-source development, privacy and security — to long-term resilience.
Lubin also predicted ETH could become resistant to quantum-computing threats by late 2027 or sometime in 2028, a timeline earlier than the Ethereum Foundation’s target of full Layer 1 quantum resistance by December 2029. The outlook reflects a broader vision connecting Ethereum with artificial intelligence, tokenized assets and programmable financial agreements, though future adoption remains dependent on application demand, security development and institutional participation.
