What is Money or Follow the Money? (Patreon)

The Q i am dealing with in my little head these days is

1) is revenue as essential

2) or the other way around revenue as irrelevant:

I will do part 2) First - Revenue Does Not Matter

The real value of low-risk DeFi is not in generating fees, but in creating monetary demand for ETH itself.

MakerDAO, Aave, and Uniswap collectively lock up enormous amounts of ETH, turning it into a reserve asset inside Ethereum’s financial system. This creates persistent demand for ETH as a form of collateral and commodity money, regardless of whether protocol-level revenue is high or low or whether people use the chain. Low-risk DeFi strengthens ETH’s role as a base money—similar to how gold or the dollar derive value—not because they generate revenue, but because they are trusted stores of value. It could be akin to Treasuries and ETFs locking up Bitcoin.

1) Why Revenue Does Matter

Low-risk DeFi cannot become Ethereum’s “Google” like SOL because it simply does not generate the kind of revenue that could justify Ethereum’s valuation.

Even though DeFi TVL ($95.2B) and stablecoin supply ($161.3B) are both at all-time highs, Ethereum’s revenue base continues to weaken — only ~$36M projected for September. If Ethereum is fundamentally valued on its ability to generate fees and cash flows, then low-risk DeFi falls short. It may provide utility, but it doesn’t create sustained blockspace demand. Without a strong revenue engine, Ethereum’s $0.5 trillion valuation becomes difficult to rationalize, especially if ETH is not widely adopted as the primary monetary asset.

In this framing, Ethereum’s valuation is supported by ETH’s role as money, not by fee revenue.

I will let you all decide on what you think but as far as I am concerned I always follow the money.

I will leave this final slide from Toly that I found interesting