Tom Lee Sees Ethereum Following Bitcoin’s 100x Playbook
The BitMine executive chairman posted on X Sunday that ETH looks poised for the same kind of explosive run that turned his $1,000 Bitcoin
Quick overview
- Tom Lee believes Ethereum is on the verge of a significant price surge similar to Bitcoin's explosive growth in 2017.
- Despite recent price drops, on-chain data shows long-term holders are accumulating ETH, indicating potential institutional interest.
- Critics question Ethereum's unique utility compared to other chains and express concerns over its declining transaction fees and network activity.
- For Lee's supercycle prediction to hold, Ethereum needs increased on-chain activity and continued institutional investment.
Tom Lee thinks Ethereum is about to repeat what Bitcoin did starting in 2017. The BitMine executive chairman posted on X Sunday that ETH looks poised for the same kind of explosive run that turned his $1,000 Bitcoin call into a 100x winner.
Lee’s firm recommended Bitcoin to Fundstrat clients back in 2017. Since then, BTC has endured six drawdowns over 50% and three that exceeded 75%. Despite that carnage, it’s up 100 times from where Lee first flagged it. Now he’s saying Ethereum is “embarking on that same supercycle.”
The call comes at a weird moment. Ethereum hit its peak at $4,946 in August. Bitcoin? That one pushed past $126,000 by October. Since those peaks? Both have gotten hammered. Bitcoin’s off 25% from the top, but Ethereum took a worse beating with a 35% drop. ETH fell to $3,023 at one point before crawling back to about $3,185.
Lee frames these pullbacks as normal volatility in major cycles. He argues the market is “discounting a massive future” and that investors had to stomach “existential moments” to capture Bitcoin’s gains. Basically, if you couldn’t handle the drawdowns, you missed the supercycle.
On-chain data adds some weight to the argument. CryptoQuant analyst Burak Kesmeci notes that Ethereum is trading just $200 above the average cost basis of long-term holders. These are the wallets that have been quietly accumulating. The price has only dipped below that level once this year, back in April when tariff news hit markets.
Whale activity backs this up too. Large wallets holding between 10,000 and 100,000 ETH have accumulated 7.6 million tokens since April, a 52% jump. Smaller retail holders have been trimming positions during the same period. That divergence typically signals institutional players positioning for a bounce while retail stays cautious.
Not everyone’s buying it though. A Bitcoin influencer called “The Bitcoin Therapist” pushed back hard, questioning what unique utility Ethereum offers that hundreds of other chains don’t. He also doubted whether traditional finance would actually build 24/7 settlement on Ethereum’s infrastructure.
There’s also the fee problem. Since the Dencun upgrade optimized gas costs for layer-2 networks in March 2024, Ethereum’s fee revenue has collapsed 99% according to Token Terminal. During the 2021 bull run, transaction costs regularly exceeded $100 to $150. Now gas prices have dropped to 0.067 Gwei as activity has slowed.
That creates a tension in Lee’s thesis. If Ethereum’s going to pull off a Bitcoin-level supercycle, a few things have to happen. On-chain activity needs to pick up, layer-2s have to actually work at scale, and institutions need to keep piling in. The problem? Ethereum’s network is the quietest it’s been in years. Transactions are dirt cheap right now. Whether that’s accumulation before a surge or a sign of weakening demand depends entirely on who you ask.
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