$2,100: Ethereum Price Forecast as ETH Slides and Community Debates Vitalik Buterin's SoV Pitch

$2,110: Ethereum's price today

• Following Vitalik Buterin's call to replace the fee-burning narrative with a store-of-value thesis, Ethereum trades lower.
• 9,587 ETH in purchases lifted Bitmine's holdings to 6.07 million ETH, or 4.97% of Ethereum's total supply.
• A break below support around $2,100 could send ETH down to $1,970.

Ethereum (ETH) has fallen 4.6% on Monday. The decline comes as the crypto community debates co-founder Vitalik Buterin's view that the leading altcoin should derive its long-term value from its store-of-value (SoV) characteristics, not transaction fee burning.

Writing in an X post on Sunday, Buterin said decentralisation, security and censorship resistance should take precedence over optimising ETH for higher fee burns, particularly as AI development gathers pace.

EIP-1559: Buterin challenges Ethereum's fee-burning thesis

Since EIP-1559 was implemented in August 2021, fee burning has played a central role in ETH's investment case. Under the system introduced by the upgrade, the network burns the base transaction fee, taking those tokens out of circulation permanently.

When network activity is elevated, ETH burned can outstrip new token issuance. This makes the asset partially deflationary.

According to Buterin, the economic argument for valuing ETH chiefly on fee burning "never was as strong as it seemed." He pointed out that crypto-native activities generated much of Ethereum's historical fee revenue. A fall in ETH's price could therefore also reduce the economic value underpinning those fees.

Pursuing maximum fee revenue could also mean higher transaction charges, increased protocol spending and more interventionist governance, he warned. Such changes could weaken Ethereum's decentralisation.

With AI accelerating, Buterin instead proposed grounding ETH's store-of-value case in Ethereum's core attributes. He groups these under CROPS: censorship and capture resistance, open source, privacy and security.

Highlighting continued work on post-quantum security, privacy, multisig wallets and censorship-resistant transactions, he wrote: "The first and most important SoV-ish metric? To survive,"

Keeping EIP-1559 and its burning mechanism remains appropriate, Buterin clarified. However, investors should not be disappointed if the volume of fee burning stays insufficient to offset new ETH issuance.

Support for Buterin's stance came from several prominent industry figures. Among them was Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, who said fees should not be Ethereum's main product focus.

For Moonrock Capital founder Simon Dedic, ETH's store-of-value proposition could also represent Ethereum's strongest bull case, arguing that institutional capital could find it a simpler investment narrative.

Critics, however, argue that reducing the emphasis on fee burning could allow Ethereum to expand as a platform while delivering little additional value to ETH as an asset.

5% supply target: Bitmine's ETH holdings edge closer

Continued ETH accumulation by Bitmine Immersion Technologies has moved its treasury nearer to its target: ownership of 5% of the leading altcoin's supply.

Through an announcement on Monday, Bitmine reported buying a further 9,587 ETH during the past week. Its aggregate holdings now stand at 6.07 million ETH, representing roughly 4.97% of Ethereum's 122.2 million ETH circulating supply.

A further disclosure showed that the company maintained 5.227 million ETH staked through its Made in America Validator Network (MAVAN).

Responding to Buterin's SoV case, BitMine Chairman Thomas Lee described ETH as pristine, trusted collateral rather than a cash-flow token such as HYPE or LIT.

$1,970 downside risk: Ethereum technical outlook

Coinglass data put Ethereum liquidations over the past 24 hours at $507.9 million. Long positions accounted for the largest share, at $457.8 million.

Trading below the 20-day, 50-day and 100-day Exponential Moving Averages (EMAs) leaves ETH's daily chart with a bearish near-term bias. Those averages are grouped between roughly $2,291 and $2,371. Further supporting the downside outlook, the 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) sits near 33, while the Stochastic Oscillator (Stoch) is around 13. Both point to persistent oversold conditions. These could temper the selling, but have not yet produced a convincing recovery.

The horizontal level around $2,101 provides immediate downside support. Below it, the next floors stand at $1,971 and $1,827.

Any advance would first encounter resistance at $2,204, then $2,250 and the 20-day EMA. Further up, the 100-day EMA combines with barriers at $2,355 and $2,371 to create a concentrated supply zone. A recovery would be required to relieve the prevailing bearish pressure.

(The technical analysis of this story was written with the help of an AI tool. Know more.)