Tom Lee Says ETH Could Top $10,000 In The Next 12 Months, Calls Arthur Hayes' Year-End Target 'Conservative'

Tom Lee said crypto treasury companies could ramp up buying over the next 12 to 18 months, potentially tightening ETH supply.

• Lee said Ethereum could trade well above $10,000 within the next 12 months, though he was less certain it would happen by year-end. 
• He said most institutions still have little or no crypto exposure, setting up what he called a "huge rotation" in the fourth quarter. 
• Lee also argued that Ethereum remains dominant in tokenization, saying that major firms such as JPMorgan and BlackRock are still building largely on Ethereum. 

Fundstrat’s Tom Lee expects Ethereum (ETH) to trade well above $10,000 in the next 12 months, adding that accelerating crypto treasury purchases and a potential wave of institutional allocation could fuel one of the larger crypto cycles yet.

On Wednesday, Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) chairman Lee said in a discussion at Korea Blockchain Week that he wasn't sure Ethereum could realistically hit the target “before year-end, but I think in the next 12 months ETH will have much higher prices than 10,000.” He said he expects this to be one of the larger crypto cycles. 

Tom Lee Sees Ethereum Above $10,000 

Arthur Hayes predicted in the same interview that Ethereum could reach $10,000 by the end of the year. To which Lee said Hayes may be shooting too low, pointing to Ethereum’s previous cycles, when the cryptocurrency rose by multiples of 50x to 200x. 

"...one is we're going to want to maintain our maximum exposure to ETH, because again, I think Arthur's conservative in the sense that you know in the past cycles Ethereum has gone up 50 times to 200 times.”

Tom Lee, Co-Founder and Head of Research at Fundstrat Global Advisors.

Lee illustrated that potential upside by saying that if Ethereum were to rise 25-fold from its previous cycle, it could theoretically reach around $62,000. 

Crypto Treasury Could Tighten ETH Supply

According to Lee, crypto treasury companies will play a big role in that move. He anticipates all digital asset treasuries (DAT) to increase buying over the next 12 to 18 months. “The Ethereum DATs own a total of 7% of the supply right now," Lee said. It could go to 15% this cycle, he said.

Bitmine is the largest Ethereum treasury and holds 6,001,302 ETH. This represents 4.9% of Ethereum's supply, the filing added.

BMNR’s stock was down more than 0.2% in early morning trading. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around BMNR remained in the ‘bearish’ zone over the past day. Chatter around it dropped to ‘low’ from ‘normal’ levels.

HYPE Offers Another Treasury Buying Example

He cited Hyperliquid (HYPE) as an example. The main Hyperliquid treasury holds 14% of the token supply and continues to buy, said Lee. Hyperliquid Strategies (PURR) holds approximately 13.5% of HYPE’s circulating supply, according to DefiLlama data.”What happens when they get to 50% of supply? I mean, HYPE could go parabolic," Lee said.

Institutions Could Drive A Huge ‘Rotation’

Most institutional investors still own no crypto, Lee added. Only approximately 2% of the institutions in Fundstrat's universe have an allocation, he said. Ethereum was up around 65% in the third quarter, while the S&P 500 remained roughly flat, he added. "I think you're going to see a huge rotation in the fourth quarter," Lee said. 

He also dismissed the idea that Ethereum is losing out to competing blockchains. Lee added that 99% of the tokenization projects that firms like JPMorgan (JPM) and BlackRock (BLK) are working on are on Ethereum. Ethereum hasn't lost any market share, he claimed.

Ethereum’s price was trading around $2,670, down over 1% in the last 24 hours. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around ETH remained in ‘bearish’ territory, with ‘normal’ chatter levels over the past day. According to platform data, Ethereum has seen more than 15% more watchers over the past week.

ETH is down more than 10% so far this year and down 36% in the last 12 months. 

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