Fundstrat Chief Investment Officer Tom Lee has predicted that Ethereum will rally in the near term to $5,500, with an ambitious year-end target of $12,000.
During his August 26 guest appearance on the Amitis Investing program, Lee disclosed that institutional Wall Street sentiment toward Ethereum has shifted dramatically following the U.S. Senate’s passage of the GENIUS Stablecoin legislation.
Lee emphasized that Ethereum is the foundational blockchain infrastructure for traditional finance (TradFi), currently supporting over $145 billion in stablecoin supply.
This substantial market dominance is among the primary reasons he considers ETH one of the largest macro investment opportunities of the coming decade.
Following Lee’s launch of the ETH treasury firm BitMine, substantial capital flowed into Ethereum.
Investment managers and retail investors have been systematically reallocating funds from Bitcoin to Ethereum, with daily rotation volume averaging $900 million.
Source: X/woonomic
Between June 30, when Tom Lee initiated BitMine’s Ethereum accumulation strategy, Ethereum’s market capitalization expanded by over $255 billion.
Standard Chartered analyst Jeff Kendrick recently observed that ETH treasury companies are becoming increasingly large in terms of capital flows compared to their Bitcoin counterparts.
From a regulatory arbitrage standpoint, Kendrick believes these Ethereum-focused treasury entities possess greater expansion potential compared to Bitcoin treasury companies.
Tom Lee’s internal analyst, who accurately predicted last week’s Ethereum decline to $4,075 before the subsequent rally to an all-time high of $4,900, has provided new analysis to the BitMine leadership.
On August 26, Tom Lee anticipated Ether’s price floor to materialize within hours, coinciding with BitMine Immersion Technologies’ acquisition of an additional $21.28 million in ETH, increasing total holdings to 1.72 million ETH worth $7.65 billion.
This forecast aligned with insider analyst Mark Newton’s technical evaluation, which suggests Ethereum will advance toward new peaks near $5,100 before targeting the $5,500 level.
In a subsequent CNBC interview, Lee reinforced his ETH projections with bold price targets ranging from $12,000 to $16,000 for Ether, stating his belief that “Ethereum is experiencing its Bitcoin 2017 moment.”
Tom Lee gained recognition in 2017 when he appeared on CNBC advocating for a $55,000 Bitcoin target, while the cryptocurrency was trading at $2,000.