[scyclow]

I agree about Bitcoin, but other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum or Solana have use as gas to power transactions on their respective networks. So it's interesting to see Vanguard nix those two as well and then say "We do have a lot of interest in blockchain, the technology behind cryptocurrencies. We believe its application to a number of other uses besides crypto will make capital markets more efficient, and we’ve been actively involved in research to use blockchain technology."

[patmorgan23]

Bitcoin has transaction fees too, that's all gas really is, doesn't really change the fundamentals of the system.

[DennisP]

It does, but Bitcoin's transaction fees are just paid to the miners. On Ethereum they are mostly destroyed. Combined with the lower issuance of proof-of-stake, this means that the supply of ETH sometimes actually shrinks.

That makes ETH is comparable to shares of a company, where fees are revenue, new issuance to stakers is cost, and any net profit is paid out to ETH holders in the form of stock buybacks. You can calculate a PE ratio.

[scyclow]

Yes, but BTC can only be used as gas to power the transfer of gas. Meanwhile, ETH can be used as gas to power the storage and indexing of information on world computer. If we're talking about creating underlying value, I feel like the former is tautological and latter has an application outside of itself.

[SilasX]

True, but you can do a much richer set of transactions with Ethereum/Solana, like moving stablecoins and making collateralized borrows, including against real world (tokenized) assets.