Ethereum is no longer just another blockchain competing on speed or transaction fees. Instead, it increasingly functions as an Internet-scale public good—a shift that requires a fundamentally different way of thinking about value.
In a recent guest post on the official Ethereum
The framework places Ethereum in the same conceptual category as foundational technologies such as the Internet, GPS, and TCP/IP.
“Like the early days of the internet, its true value is largely invisible,” the Ethereum account wrote, emphasizing that infrastructure-level systems often have economic impact long before the market fully recognizes or prices them in.
Mougayar’s report also provides a layered comparison between the Internet and Ethereum.
While the internet operates primarily as a messaging protocol, Ethereum is increasingly becoming a value protocol—a neutral settlement layer on top of which large-scale economic systems can be built.
At the grassroots level, both operate as public goods, allowing global participation without exclusion. However, higher levels support personal items, institutional applications, and commercial activities.
This layered architecture helps explain why Ethereum’s systemic importance cannot be measured solely by transaction throughput or fee revenue.
To address this gap, the report also introduces a three-part framework for treating Ethereum as a public good: captured value, liquid value, and trust surplus.
The value captured reflects traditional financial metrics such as fees and token economics. Traffic value measures Ethereum’s broader economic contribution across decentralized applications, financial markets, and institutional use cases.
Trust surplus—the most novel component—represents the economic value generated by reducing friction in global transactions, Mugayar writes.
According to the Ethereum theme, trust surplus occurs by “reducing settlement friction, reducing verification costs, reducing counterparty risk, reducing fraud, and reducing reconciliation overhead.”
As the report describes, this “trust dividend” increases over time as more users and institutions rely on the network. Importantly, this refactoring changes the playing field for Ethereum.
Ethereum is not competing directly with other blockchains, but rather “with the status quo of global coordination.”
