Fair Price for a Commodity Token
What Is a Fair Price for a Utility Token?
Of course I’d love to see the price at $170 instead of $17.
But that reaction misses the point.
This is a commodity, not a speculative instrument — and commodities are priced by adoption. Adoption, in turn, only comes from utility. Everything else is noise.
So the real question isn’t what price do I want, but rather: what is a fair price for the service being delivered?
A Different Way to Think About Price
I don’t think of this token as a “crypto asset.” I think of it as a chain service fee — similar to how we think about internet service.
Today, a single token is enough to cover my lifetime of data transactions on the network. Instead of paying a monthly subscription forever, I pay once and receive permanent access.
At $17, that’s equivalent to paying a single, one-time fee for lifetime usage of an infrastructure that supports applications, data storage, and digital interaction.
That sounds almost too good to be true.
And that’s precisely why price discovery hasn’t finished yet.
Price Discovery Isn’t About Charts
Price discovery doesn’t start with traders — it starts with users.
So ask a simpler, more grounded question:
How much would you pay for lifetime access to your favorite applications — plus all the ones that don’t exist yet?
Would I pay $170 for that?
Yes, without hesitation.
Even with today’s relatively limited ecosystem of applications, that would still feel like a bargain. Most people pay more than that every year on subscriptions they barely use.
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What about $1,700?
Not yet.
And that’s not a criticism of the technology — it’s an honest assessment of the current business landscape. Right now, the number of large-scale, revenue-generating applications is still small.
Interestingly, I might have been willing to pay that much back in 2019 or 2020. At that time, the ecosystem felt far more viral, and the expectation of continuous, exponential growth seemed inevitable.
Today, growth feels quieter — but also more deliberate.
The Role of Future Businesses
Which leads to the real question:
Can we still expect strong, meaningful businesses to join this ecosystem in the future?
Absolutely.
Infrastructure adoption doesn’t happen in straight lines. It happens in phases — often quietly, often ignored — until suddenly it becomes indispensable.
When those businesses arrive, the economic picture changes dramatically. The same token that once covered “experimentation” begins to underpin real commerce, real data flows, and real demand.
At that point, today’s $17 price will look almost unbelievable in hindsight.
Commodity Treatment Changes Everything
True price discovery can only happen when an asset is treated like a real commodity — traded on fully audited, transparent, regulated markets. Until then, pricing remains fragmented, speculative, and distorted.
That doesn’t mean the current price is wrong.
It means the market hasn’t finished understanding what’s being priced.
Until utility is fully recognized — and until this network is valued as infrastructure rather than a narrative — bargain pricing is likely to persist.
And for those who understand what they’re actually buying, that’s not a problem.
It’s an opportunity.
