Legendary cyberphunk Nick Szabo and Ryan Watkins, co-founder of Syncracy Capital, laid out opposing frameworks for understanding Ethereum’s rally and its valuation mechanics in a pair of X posts — and together they read like a point-counterpoint on what actually drives Layer-1 prices.

Ethereum Price Has Nothing to Do With Utility

Szabo’s core claim is stark: “a fundamental problem with ETH valuation is that ethereum’s primary uses cases are largely external to ETH’s market value.” In his view, Ethereum “can be very useful,” its applications “can garner great revenue,” and yet “ETH can still be low price — or vice versa — there is little link between them.”

He contrasts this with Bitcoin, whose “main use case is as a store of value, which is strongly linked to its price,” adding that “

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