At Pragma Mumbai, Vitalik says ETH is a store of value, not a fee-collecting corporation

ETHGlobal Mumbai ran from Nov 5 to Nov 7, 2026 at the Jio World Convention Centre in Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai ↗1. The official event page lists 800+ attendees, 11+ protocols, 29+ workshops and $175,000 in prizes ↗1. On Nov 6, at the same venue, ETHGlobal held Pragma Mumbai, a one-day summit for founders and builders, with Vitalik Buterin listed among the speakers ↗2.

In the Pragma Mumbai conversation now on StreamETH, Kartik Talwar asked Vitalik what ETH the asset is for 1. Vitalik said "this week I'm basically decided like ETH is a store of value," and that "the financial reason to hold ETH is that ETH is money" 1. He argued that "if you optimize for having a market cap based on collecting fees, then essentially you're being a corporation," which he said is not compatible with the type of project Ethereum is 1.

The hackathon recordings are on StreamETH's ETHGlobal Mumbai coverage page, including the opening ceremonies and a fireside chat with Balaji Srinivasan, a beginner's workshop with Pascal Rüger, and workshops on the Uniswap stack, 1inch Aqua, and Anon-RPC 34567. Yash Goyal's ENSv2 workshop, also recorded at the hackathon, is on the same page and already has a transcript 2.

StreamETH added the Ethereum Stablecoin Summit talks to this coverage page on Nov 9 ↗4. Those sessions were recorded on Oct 19 at Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas, during Money 20/20 week, at a half-day ETHGlobal event whose programme included Kartik Talwar, Sam Kazemian, Sandeep Nailwal, Kevin Li, Eleni Steinman, Navin Vethanayagam, Debbie Soon and Nitya Subramanian ↗3891011. In the Las Vegas fireside, Sandeep Nailwal said "around $50 billion to $80 billion of stable coins change hands every month on Polygon" 8. He described Polygon Labs building licenses and banking connections, under what he called an open money stack, so businesses can move money across borders with compliance handled in the background 8.

The coverage page now holds 24 talks from the Mumbai hackathon, Pragma Mumbai, and those Las Vegas summit recordings ↗4.