Tom Lee's Futu investment exhibition speech review: The crypto winter is preparing to end, Ethereum may V-shaped rebound to $5,000 by 2026

While traditional markets are still concerned about high crude oil prices, the crypto digital asset market is quietly brewing the wealth code for the next decade.

$Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR.US)$ Futu's Chairman Tom Lee delivered an important speech on cryptocurrency investment at the Futu Investment Exhibition on March 14. Tom Lee provided an in-depth analysis of the latest developments in crude oil, US stocks, gold, and cryptocurrencies, focusing on Ethereum's three growth engines (Wall Street on-chain activity, AI-driven economies, creator identity economies), Bitmine's strategic positioning, and its excess return logic. He also offered $Ethereum (ETH.CC)$ a multi-scenario forecast for Bitmine's stock price.

Amid increasing macroeconomic uncertainty, which assets truly have the potential to weather cycles? Below is a summary of Tom Lee's speech prepared by Crypto Sir for fellow investors.

Analysis of Crude Oil, US Stocks, Gold, and Cryptocurrencies

Ongoing geopolitical conflicts have continued to push crude oil prices higher. Market forecasts indicate that there is an 86% probability crude oil will break $100 by the end of March and an 88% probability it will remain above $100 by the end of June. The oil supply through the Strait of Hormuz directly affects major economies such as China, India, South Korea, Japan, and Europe, with high oil prices placing pressure on global economic growth.

Tom Lee highlighted this using the Chinese term 'crisis': High oil prices pose dangers, but opportunities lie in investors seeking growth areas unaffected by high oil prices. As an oil-producing nation, high oil prices benefit the US economy.

Tom Lee noted that since the outbreak of war, gold has underperformed, whereas the 'Magnificent Seven' stocks and software shares in the US have outperformed the S&P 500 Index. There is a high correlation between cryptocurrencies and US growth stocks; the US software index has closely tracked Bitcoin's price movements. Data shows that after the war began, both Bitcoin and Ethereum significantly outperformed the S&P 500 Index.

Regarding gold versus Bitcoin, Tom Lee argued that gold underperforms inflation 48% of the time, while Bitcoin serves as a better inflation hedge.He pointed out that over the past 55 years, gold underperformed inflation 48% of the time, whereas since 2009, Bitcoin has underperformed inflation in only 3% of months.

The Upcoming Transformation of Ethereum

Tom Lee believes that Ethereum has three major growth drivers that will reshape the entire industry.

Wall Street finance on-chainis becoming a reality. Blackrock and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon have both publicly stated that digital asset ledgers are superior to existing financial systems. There are four core reasons why Wall Street is adopting blockchain:

1. Shared ledgers provide efficiency improvements, as Wall Street institutions currently use different ledgers and accounting systems.

2. Promoting the tokenization of stocks is not just about enabling 24/7 trading but also about improving collateral liquidity and making asset lending easier.

3. The programmability of blockchain technology allows currencies to become software once they are on-chain, enabling the management of more assets such as reputation and intellectual property.

4. Wall Street uses Ethereum because it is a standard adopted by the majority and boasts a large developer community, gaining recognition from banks.

AI agent system tradingis the second important driver. Vitalik has urged the Ethereum community to ensure that Ethereum is ready for AI. There are three key reasons why AI agents use blockchain: AI agents need decentralized identity identifiers, and blockchain is the ideal way to manage decentralized identities. A large number of AI agents collaborating require a neutral environment to coordinate actions and instant settlement functionality, which blockchain provides.

Both the Coinbase CEO and Binance CEO believe that the next billion users of blockchain are likely to be AI systems, and Tom Lee believes that Ethereum is well-prepared for AI.

Creator Blockchain Economyis the third driving force, combining the above two. Creators are concerned that AI and deepfake technologies may harm identity verification. Top YouTube creator Mr Beast and others have shown strong interest in blockchain technology and the Worldcoin project. Creators hope to use 'proof-of-human' technology to ensure content is created by real people and that they receive due compensation.

In this regard, Tom Lee introduced two major strategic investments currently underway at Bitmine. The first is a $200 million investment in Beast Industries. As the world's largest content creator, Mr Beast has 1.4 billion unique followers, with a monthly viewership of 5 billion, and recently acquired Step Bank to enter financial services.

Tom Lee believes that every generation has its iconic financial institutions: Charles Schwab for Baby Boomers, Blackstone and Blackrock for Generation X, Robinhood and SoFi for Millennials, and Mr Beast will dominate the financial markets for Gen Z and Alpha generations (a combined 120 million people). With Millennials set to inherit $46 trillion and Gen Z inheriting $15 trillion over the next 20 years, Mr Beast is locking in the wealthiest customer base for the next 40 years.

The second project is Orbs, where Bitmine invested in Worldcoin (Human Proof Network), created by Sam Altman, while also investing in Mr Beast and facilitating collaboration between the two. Given OpenAI's plan to create a human-only social network, Mr Beast has shown significant interest. Therefore, investing in Orbs equates to gaining dual exposure to both OpenAI and Mr Beast pre-IPO.

Cryptocurrency Price Forecast: Ethereum Nears Bottom

Tom Lee provided several reasons why Ethereum is nearing its bottom.

Tom Lee collaborated with Tom Demark on technical analysis. Tom Demark found that Ethereum's recent movements correlate 93% with the S&P 500’s patterns in 1987 and 2011.According to the 1987 pattern, Ethereum should bottom out on March 7th, while following the 2011 pattern, Ethereum is bottoming out right now.

Realized Price analysis provides another bottom signal. The current average purchase price of Ethereum is $2,241.Looking at the lows in 2022 and last year, Ethereum was trading at a 39% discount to its realized price in 2022 and a 21% discount at the beginning of 2025. Currently, Ethereum is trading at a 22% discount, which has already reached the level needed for a rebound starting in 2025.

Tom Lee analyzed eight instances where Ethereum fell more than 50%. After the previous seven major declines, V-shaped reversals occurred. If this pattern continues into 2026, Ethereum could return to $5,000 this year; it took four months for Ethereum to drop from $5,000 to $1,800, and the rebound to $5,000 will take less than five months. Tom Lee believes that $12,000 is a very reasonable mid-term target price for Ethereum, signaling that the crypto winter is about to end.

Bitmine’s Ethereum Yield Optimization

The digital asset management market showed clear differentiation by 2025. There are over 80 digital asset management companies in the market, but only Strategy and Bitmine have truly attracted large-scale assets, with these two firms accounting for 90% of all cryptocurrency asset management company trading volume. Bitmine holds approximately $11 billion worth of Ethereum, five times the scale of the second-largest player, with liquidity 14 times higher than the second-largest firm.

Ethereum Yield OptimizationThis is Bitmine's core competitive advantage. Bitmine collaborates with Tom Demark to identify the optimal timing for buying Ethereum. Tom Lee estimates that this strategy saves Bitmine around $100 million per month. Anticipating an upcoming V-shaped reversal, Bitmine slowed down its purchase pace and accumulated $1.2 billion in cash, aiming to lock in Ethereum at lower prices.

The fundamental difference between Bitmine and other cryptocurrency asset management companies lies in the fact that Bitmine has no debt.Bitmine has no convertible bonds, no debt, no preferred shares, and holds more than $1.2 billion in cash.Bitmine’s weekly staking annualized revenue grew from $34 million in December of last year to $175 million currently. Once fully staked, annualized revenue will reach $259 million.

By the end of the year, Bitmine’s Ethereum holdings will exceed 5% of the total Ethereum supply, and annualized staking rewards will surpass $300 million. Assuming the Ethereum price reaches $12,000, Bitmine’s staking income will reach $2 billion, with zero debt.

Bitmine stock price forecast

Finally, Tom Lee gave his concluding remarks on the price trend of Bitmine.

He believes that due to approximately 90% correlation between Bitmine's stock price and Ethereum, with expectations that Ethereum will become the foundation of future finance, he providedthree scenario analyses.

1. Conservative scenario: Ethereum price at 12,000-22,000 USD (maintaining the 2021 ratio), corresponding to a Bitmine stock price of around 500 USD;

2. Fair value scenario: Ethereum price at 62,000 USD (a reasonable valuation in the payment sector), corresponding to a Bitmine stock price of approximately 1,500 USD;

3. Optimistic scenario: Ethereum price at 250,000 USD (predicted by ConsenSys founder Joe Lubin), corresponding to a Bitmine stock price reaching up to 5,000 USD.

Based on the current price, Tom Lee concluded that Bitmine has significant upside potential.

This concludes the text review of Tom Lee's presentation at the Futu Investment Exhibition. If fellow investors wish to rewatch the video and view the full content of Tom Lee’s speech, please click the link below >>

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