It’s interesting to think about how oil shaped the modern world. It powered cities, moved armies, and turned barren deserts into kingdoms. Whoever controlled the oil controlled the future, but that story is changing. The next great resource isn’t dug from the ground. It’s secured in blocks, mined not by drills, but by validators. Traded not in barrels, but in units of ETH. ETH is the new oil — not for combustion engines, but for the engine of tokenized finance. Just like oil reshaped the 20th century, ETH is quietly laying the foundations for the 21st.
At first glance, ETH looks like just another cryptocurrency, but that’s like saying crude is just black sludge. Context changes everything. ETH fuels the Ethereum ecosystem. It’s consumed — literally burned, to the tune of 5,322,569 as of writing — to power every stablecoin transfer, every tokenized RWA, every game asset minted, every AI agent run, every digital identity issued.
In short, ETH is the raw fuel of a tokenized civilization. It’s also the collateral securing billions of onchain assets, from DeFi loans to tokenized real-world assets (RWAs). At a foundational level, through proof-of-stake (PoS), staked ETH provides decentralized security, credible neutrality, and eliminates counterparty risk. It’s increasingly becoming a strategic reserve asset for protocols, digital asset treasuries, and institutions. Not because it sits idle, but because it works while it waits. ETH can be staked, lent, collateralized, or plugged into financial contracts — programmable, dynamic, and alive.
There’s a catch: you can’t make more of it. Unlike traditional oil, as demand for oil rose over the last century we would extract more oil from the earth to meet the demand of the world.
In fact, an opposite dynamic occurs with ETH because of the burn mechanism. Around ~80% of ETH is burned in every transaction. The issuance is capped, and the more it’s used, the more it’s burned. During peak network activity, ETH supply doesn’t grow; it shrinks. The very act of using Ethereum destroys ETH.
Imagine if oil had capped issuance, so we couldn’t increase the supply to meet the demands of the world — and the more demand rose, the less supply. This is what makes ETH fundamentally different from traditional commodities. ETH is an extremely inelastic monetary commodity unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Oil responds to demand with more supply. ETH does not. That mismatch of rising demand versus inelastic supply is a setup for explosive price dynamics.
Oil shaped the industrial world. It turned empires rich, built global alliances, and sparked wars. The world didn’t just run on oil — it revolved around it. Today, something similar is unfolding in the digital world. But instead of refineries, we have validators. Instead of pipelines, blockchains. And instead of oil, we have ETH.
Where governments once raced to stockpile crude barrels buried beneath sand and sea, smart contracts are now quietly accumulating ETH — not to burn in engines, but to fuel an entirely new type of economy, a tokenized economy. Ethereum already secures more than ~$1.03 trillion in digital assets. Not just crypto tokens, but real-world assets, stablecoins, treasury bonds, IP rights, game economies, and more. It’s the foundation for a sprawling, borderless financial system — one that’s growing faster than even the early internet.
And the momentum is only accelerating. Financial institutions are realizing that, by leveraging Ethereum’s network effects, they can increase business opportunities and global reach while eliminating counterparty risks. They also recognize Ethereum’s ability to reduce inefficiencies, offer instant settlement, and program compliance into their own customized infrastructure built on an Ethereum Layer 2.
Recently, a new opportunity has emerged within the Ethereum ecosystem. AI agents are emerging that transact on their own, paying each other in ETH for data, compute, and services. Gaming is shedding its walled gardens, giving players real ownership over the assets they earn. Identity is moving onchain — portable, verifiable, and no longer dependent on centralized gatekeepers. And global trade is beginning to bypass legacy intermediaries, settling peer-to-peer in seconds across any jurisdiction.
Every one of these industries consumes ETH. Every transaction, every smart contract, every asset minted or moved burns tiny fractions of it. The more the network is used, the more ETH is destroyed, making it scarcer with each passing block. This isn’t theoretical. It’s happening. Right now.
Ask a traditional analyst how to value ETH, and you’ll see confusion flicker across their face. They might try a discounted cash flow. But ETH isn’t a tech stock. ETH isn’t equity. It doesn’t grant ownership in a company. Some reach for the Bitcoin analogy, digital gold. But even that falls short.
Because ETH isn’t inert. It moves. It earns. It works. It’s burned.
ETH is consumed like oil, collateralized like real estate, held like gold, traded like currency, and programmed like software. It’s deflationary by design. It earns yield through staking. It backs the settlement of trillions in value across finance, AI, gaming, and beyond. It’s the only asset on the planet that combines these traits into one unified economic engine.
You don’t just invest in ETH. You rely on it. You build with it. You settle through it. ETH doesn’t just sit in a vault; it powers the vault, secures its locks, and settles every transaction within it.
Oil was the resource of the physical world. ETH is becoming the resource of the digital one and we’re early. Today, a handful of institutions have begun to accumulate ETH as a strategic reserve. Not as a speculative bet, but as infrastructure. Protocols are allocating treasury to it. Validators are stockpiling it. Sovereign entities are circling. Not because they believe in magic internet money, but because they see the tokenization of the global economy.
A global economy built not on paper contracts, but smart contracts. Not on clearinghouses, but code. Not on IOUs, but irreversible, trustless settlement without counterparty risk. In that world, the asset securing it all — the one used to run it, fund it, stake it, and collateralize it — is ETH.
And just like oil in the early 1900s, those who recognize its importance early will be the ones who shape what comes next.
This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial, investment, or trading advice. Etherealize does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided. Investing in commodities carries risks, and readers should seek the advice of a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions. Etherealize may have financial interests in the commodities discussed in this article.
