The Wall Street 'traitor' and his Ethereum rhapsody:
While traditional financial giants are still revolving around bonds and stocks, Tom Lee has already led Bitmine to sweep up 3.86 million ETH. This Wall Street 'traitor' is betting real money on a future that we may not fully comprehend yet.
While most people are tangled up in whether the next Federal Reserve meeting will involve an interest rate hike or cut, Tom Lee has already set his sights on a further future where Ethereum becomes the global financial settlement layer. His company, Fundstrat, has not only included Ethereum in its investment strategy of 'Tech Seven Giants and Bitcoin' but also claims it will be the biggest macro trade in the next 10-15 years.
However, Tom Lee is not a mere talker. As the chairman of Bitmine, he has quietly accumulated about 3.86 million ETH off the market, accounting for 3.2% of Ethereum's total supply, and plans to increase this ratio to 5%. This operation inevitably reminds people of MicroStrategy's early bet on Bitcoin.
01 Are the three major engines driving Ethereum's value severely underestimated?
Why is Tom Lee so optimistic about Ethereum? His logic is based on three core engines.
The first engine is the tokenization revolution. Tom Lee pointed out in his recent speech at Binance Blockchain Week that the core narrative for 2025 is tokenization, similar to Ethereum's 'ChatGPT moment.' Wall Street suddenly realized that simply tokenizing the dollar could yield huge profits.
The second engine is the large-scale entry of institutional capital. According to data cited by Tom Lee, there are currently only 4.4 million Bitcoin wallets globally holding more than $10,000, while there are nearly 900 million retirement accounts globally with more than $10,000. If all these accounts allocate to cryptocurrencies, it would mean a 200-fold increase in adoption rate.
The third engine is Ethereum's own network effects. Tom Lee believes that Ethereum has already won the smart contract war, with almost all mainstream financial institutions building products on Ethereum. Especially the tokenization of RWA (real-world assets), which could be the biggest narrative in the future.
02 Divergence in price predictions, have market signals quietly changed?
In terms of price predictions, there are significant divergences among Wall Street giants, but the overall sentiment leans towards optimism.
Tom Lee and his Fundstrat team predict that Ethereum is expected to reach the range of $7,000-$9,000 before January 2026. Standard Chartered's prediction is even more aggressive, forecasting Ethereum to reach $12,000 in 2026, $18,000 in 2027, and $25,000 between 2028-2029.
Some crypto analysts even predict that in an extremely optimistic scenario, if Bitcoin hits $200,000 and Ethereum performs exceptionally, ETH could reach as high as $16,000.
The bullish consensus is mainly based on the following key data points:
The exchange balance ratio is only 8.1%, a historic low, significantly reducing the salable chips.
The staking ratio has surpassed 30%, with over 36 million ETH locked, and the actual circulating supply continues to decline.
The total net asset value of Ethereum spot ETFs is $25.712 billion, with a holding amount reaching approximately 6 million ETH.
03 On-chain data reveals that supply and demand imbalance has become a foregone conclusion.
From on-chain data, it can be seen that the supply and demand structure of Ethereum is undergoing fundamental changes.
On one hand, the circulating supply is sharply shrinking. After excluding ETFs, institutional holdings, and staked locks, the circulating supply is only about 75.1 million coins. According to the basic principles of supply and demand, the proportion of the circulating supply reduction will proportionately push up the price per coin.
On the other hand, network activity continues to rise. Ethereum processes about $17 billion in transactions daily, surpassing Bitcoin, highlighting its extremely high popularity and massive network utilization. The number of Ethereum addresses is also steadily increasing: over 123 million addresses have been registered, with about 4.5 million active addresses daily.
The NVT (Network Value to Transactions ratio) model shows that Ethereum's NVT is currently about 37, which is at historically low levels. If the NVT multiple rises back to the historical average range of 60-110, Ethereum's price is expected to see significant improvement.
04 Risks still persist, optimism must be balanced with clarity.
Although the outlook is optimistic, investors must remain vigilant about potential risks.
Regulatory risk is the primary concern. If the US defines staking as 'securities issuance,' it could trigger short-term sell-offs. Macro risks also cannot be ignored; if inflation rebounds and forces the Federal Reserve to restart rate hikes, risk assets will come under pressure.
Technical risks also exist. If the L2 fee market underperforms expectations after the Dencun upgrade, it may affect on-chain activity. Additionally, challenges from competing public chains like Solana cannot be underestimated, as they attract users with higher TPS and lower fees.
The most contentious point is: when financial institutions like banks use Ethereum in the future, will they really need to hold ETH? Or will they just utilize Ethereum's technology, similar to how we use the Linux system but do not need to hold shares of the Linux company?
Tom Lee's response to this is: 'Value is captured more at the protocol level than at the application level. When Wall Street tokenizes trillions of assets and puts them on Ethereum, they will inevitably be deeply involved, whether through staking ETH or directly holding large amounts of ETH.'
Standing at the crossroads at the end of 2025, we see a financial world that is splitting: on one side, the increasing complexity and centralization of the traditional financial system; on the other, the transparent and open new financial system being built on Ethereum.
Tom Lee's predictions may seem bold, but they are based on profound insights into trends. As he himself said: 'If you have been in the crypto world for many years, congratulations, your persistence is remarkable. But at the same time, be wary not to let your thinking become rigid. What really matters is what young people in their twenties are doing now and what they care about.'
So, will you choose to continue to wait and see, or are you ready to participate in this macro trade that may last for 10-15 years? Feel free to share your thoughts and strategies in the comments.
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