Tom Lee predicts Ethereum at $200,000 as Bitmine nears 5% supply

Tom Lee, Fundstrat co-founder and Bitmine chairman, predicted Ethereum will lead tokenization and AI infrastructure, targeting prices from $50,000 to $200,000 over the next decade.

"We are betting everything in tokenization and AI will happen on Ethereum," Lee said on the Bankless podcast.

Bitmine, the NYSE-listed company Lee chairs, added 32,447 ETH worth about $81 million last week, lifting total holdings to 5,847,611 ETH — roughly 4.8 percent of circulating supply. The firm has bought ETH every week since June 30, 2025, and is 97 percent toward its goal of owning 5 percent of all ETH. Of its holdings, 5.07 million ETH — about 87 percent — is staked, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue.

Lee's forecast rests on Ethereum's general-purpose design supporting tokenized real estate, securities, AI model training, and data marketplaces — use cases he argues Bitcoin's store-of-value role cannot capture. He called an Ethereum flip of Bitcoin's market cap "plausible," citing Ethereum's revenue generation versus Bitcoin's narrower function.

Bitmine's Treasury Mirrors Strategy's Bitcoin Playbook

Lee drew a direct comparison between Bitmine's approach and Strategy's well-known Bitcoin treasury model. Both involve a company buying and holding one asset at scale, funded through capital markets. The difference, Lee said, is that Bitmine treats Ethereum as a "productive currency" — staking most of its holdings to secure the network and earn yield — rather than a passive store of value.

The staking strategy has produced meaningful income. Bitmine reported staking 5.07 million ETH, with annual staking revenue in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The company has also built its own validator network to support this operation. Bitmine's NYSE-traded shares opened the week up about 8.7 percent, following gains of nearly 28 percent over the past six months.

Supply Squeeze and Market Context

Bitmine's accumulation has coincided with a sharp ETH rebound. Ether gained more than 32 percent since the US Treasury announced plans to double monthly purchases of longer-dated Treasurys to $4 billion from $2 billion, breaking above $2,500 for the first time since January. The token traded at $2,477.87 as of Aug. 24, according to KuCoin data.

The firm's unrealized losses on its ETH position have narrowed to below $5 billion from more than $8.4 billion a week earlier, per DropsTab data. Bitmine has invested more than $19.5 billion in its Ether treasury since launching the strategy.

Ethereum developers are also preparing for future threats. A proposed deposit contract upgrade (EIP-7685) would replace the current BLS-based staking mechanism with a post-quantum-ready system, addressing risks from advancing quantum computing.

Lee's endorsement adds to a growing list of Wall Street strategists turning bullish on Ethereum's utility case. The network's upcoming scalability upgrades are expected to determine whether it can handle the volume of tokenized assets and AI activity that Lee anticipates. Competition from other layer-1 blockchains remains a risk, though Lee argued Ethereum's developer ecosystem and network effects give it a structural advantage.

If Lee's thesis plays out, Bitmine's position near 5 percent of ETH supply represents a significant supply-side constraint. The company's weekly buying cadence, combined with staking that locks up 87 percent of holdings, reduces available float. However, the $50,000 to $200,000 price range remains a speculative forecast — one that depends on tokenization and AI demand materializing on Ethereum's network at scale.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.