I think I understand now why there’s GöETH demand. Protocols like zkSync bridge GöETH over to L2, where they can be used to mint NFTs like the recent zkApe.
This means that whichever network is the long-running dApp testnet will always be pathological with regards to its token use: It’ll always have some value. Whether it also has scarcity is another question. Sepolia for example is permissioned, which means “stupid amounts of SepplETH” does not create issues re griefing the validator set.
We could sunset - or just restart - Görli and have a continuously refreshed validator testground with “plenty of” testETH, while Sepolia becomes the playground for “rational actors”, our beloved utter degens. The continous, every N months, refresh of the validator testnet gives a strong incentive for dApps to land on Sepolia, so we don’t find ourselves in this same situation again.
We can split the use cases, make testETH not scarce for both use cases, and that should do the trick. We can’t make testETH on the dApp testnet not valuable.
It’ll always hold value as long as people want NFTs: But as long as it’s also abundant, that value is so close to zero as to be indistinguishable from zero.