Tom Lee Predicts Dramatic Scenario: Ethereum Could Reach $250,000, Traditional Bitcoin Cycle Coming to an End

Tom Lee — co-founder of Fundstrat and currently head of Bitmine — continues to attract attention in the investment community by sharing his career journey as well as bold perspectives on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the digital asset market in a recent program. Famous for his strong optimistic stance on crypto, Lee has now proposed an ETH valuation model that could be considered the boldest to date. ETH Could Reach $16,000 – Even $250,000? Lee stated that historically, the ETH/BTC ratio has fluctuated around 0.08. Therefore, if Bitcoin approaches $200,000 — which he believes is feasible — then Ethereum returning to its average correlation level would be enough to push ETH to about $16,000. However, this is only the baseline scenario. In a more optimistic scenario, Lee hypothesizes that Ethereum’s network value could be equal to Bitcoin’s. This would correspond to an ETH price of up to $250,000. He gave an example: if OpenAI goes public, it could be valued at $1 trillion — three times Ethereum’s current market cap. Therefore, if Ethereum becomes the core infrastructure platform for blockchain and Web3, reaching a valuation of “several trillion USD” would be entirely reasonable. Currently, the price around $3,000 is described by Lee as “very attractive given future potential.” October Crash Was Just a ‘Glitch’, Not a Systemic Risk Lee also revisited the sharp volatility on October 10, calling it a form of “technical error.” According to him, a stablecoin triggered the (automatic deleverage mechanism) due to incorrect price data on a single exchange, while this stablecoin maintained a $1 peg across all other platforms. He commented: “If this was a price aggregate from multiple exchanges, no one would be liquidated. People would say ‘this is a price discrepancy, hold on.’ But due to the automatic operation of the code, the ADL wave from one exchange has spread into system-wide liquidations.” Nevertheless, he believes that the $86,000–$92,000 zone for BTC and the $3,100 level for ETH are forming a strong support, very similar to the bottom formation phase at the end of 2022. Bitmine Quickly Buys Double ETH Quantity – Declares No Long-Term Selling Lee revealed that Bitmine believes ETH has bottomed out. The company has doubled its ETH purchases over the past two weeks. Bitmine currently holds approximately 3.7 million ETH, more than all other DATs combined. Lee affirms that ETH in Bitmine’s treasury is a permanent strategic asset: “There’s no reason to sell when staking still yields consistent profits. ETH in the treasury is a long-term asset.” Bitcoin Could Break the Traditional 4-Year Cycle According to Lee, if Bitcoin closes above $126,000 before January 31, the story of the four-year cycle will officially “end.” He emphasized: the market will soon have a clear answer to the BTC cycle debate. According to traditional logic, 2026 should be a “bad year” for Bitcoin. But Lee thinks quite the opposite. 2026 – The Beginning of the Tokenization Era, Not Just ‘Digital Gold’ Lee believes next year will be a “breakthrough” year for crypto, as the market story will shift from “Bitcoin as digital gold” to a tokenization trend — digitizing real-world assets onto the blockchain. Bringing bonds, stocks, real estate, and traditional financial instruments onto chain will open up: A new ownership eraThe wave of Web3 infrastructure developmentA series of new blockchain financial productsMarket capitalization expanding by trillions of USD Lee believes tokenization will be the core driving force of the crypto market from 2025 to 2030.