Tom Lee Token2049 Speech: Bitcoin and Ethereum in My Eyes

Author| Tom Lee
https://www.panewslab.com/en/articles/7874a0be-7bfd-4fec-b884-b06d22726152https://www.panewslab.com/en/articles/7874a0be-7bfd-4fec-b884-b06d22726152

On October 1, at TOKEN2049 in Singapore, Tom Lee, co-founder and CIO of Fundstrat, chairman of BitMine, and Wall Street strategist, took the main stage at OKX to deliver a keynote speech titled "The Biggest Macro Shift on Wall Street Since the Gold Standard."

In recent months, he has once again taken the spotlight with a series of bold predictions: Bitcoin is expected to surge to the $200,000 range driven by the easing cycle and seasonal factors in the fourth quarter, while Ethereum's year-end target is aimed at $10,000 to $15,000, making him the "first Ethereum bull."

In this speech, he attempted to explain why Wall Street, AI, and blockchain will converge into a "new inflection point" using a narrative that stretches from 1971 to 2025.

New Inflection Point in Wall Street Narrative: 2025 May Be the Next Structural Moment

Lee opened with a "level set." He stated that he and his team began systematically researching crypto assets nine years ago when Bitcoin was around $963. Nine years later, Bitcoin has "evolved" as an asset class, with cumulative returns exceeding 100 times. During the same period, Nvidia saw about 65 times growth, gold roughly tripled—while Ethereum's long-term gains, in his view, have "outperformed Bitcoin."

From this "relative return curve," he quickly zoomed back to 1971: when Nixon announced the end of the dollar's convertibility to gold, bidding farewell to the gold standard. After that, the real opportunity was not just to "go long on gold," but rather the wave of financial engineering that Wall Street initiated to maintain the dollar's dominance—money market funds, futures, debit cards, currency and interest rate swaps, index futures, zero-coupon bonds, and a whole suite of tools were created, allowing the financial industry to grow stronger. Today, a significant portion of the top 30 companies by market capitalization globally are financial institutions.

Lee used this to propose his core judgment: 2025 will see a structural moment similar to that of 1971.

On the "new 1971 path" he outlined, the key variables are "Wall Street × AI × Blockchain." He believes that the U.S. regulatory and legislative landscape has laid several "foundations"—including the GENIUS Act, which establishes a framework for stablecoins, the SEC's "Project Crypto," and the "Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Act," among other topics.

They all point to the same thing: using financial engineering to "synthesize" desired returns and turning real assets into tokens that can circulate on the blockchain. In this regard, Bitcoin remains the "OG" level digital value reserve, but from the "other side of the ledger," Wall Street will deeply engage and create a massive market for digital assets, with Ethereum being the biggest beneficiary.

Compared to Gold, Bitcoin's Market Value Still Has Significant Upside Potential

Regarding asset pricing, he first provided a reference framework for Bitcoin: if gold reaches $4,000 (or even $5,000) per ounce. If Bitcoin's network value is compared to gold at just 10%, the target price for Bitcoin would be around $140,000. However, he believes this ratio is too low; if it matches or even exceeds gold, it corresponds to a range of $1.4 million to $2.2 million per coin. Based on this, he remains bullish on Bitcoin, currently around $110,000.

However, the main thread he emphasized is "how tokenization can start from stablecoins and cover all measurable elements in the economy." In his list, stablecoins are the starting point for "tokenized dollars," which will then extend to stocks, credit, real estate, reputation, and intellectual property; even more "invisible" metrics will be brought on-chain and monetized—data collection, royalty distribution, membership and loyalty, Agent AI, and "Proof of Human."

Why does the U.S. government care about stablecoins? Lee's answer mirrors the "dollar maintenance war" after 1971: the dollar accounts for about 27% of global GDP but 57% of central bank foreign exchange reserves, with a trading share in financial markets as high as 88%, while stablecoins are almost 100% dollar-denominated.

Today, the circulation of stablecoins is about $280 billion, and some in the Treasury believe it could grow to $4 trillion; once the stablecoin ecosystem holds over $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds, it could even become "the largest holder of U.S. Treasuries globally." Meanwhile, companies that "restructure their business on-chain" will gain actual benefits from improved settlement and process efficiency, which is also the business motivation for tokenization.

Subsequently, he used a comparison of "native chain company profitability" to reinforce the feasibility of "rebuilding Wall Street on-chain": taking Tether, the issuer of stablecoins, as an example, he stated that its financing valuation reached $500 billion with about 150 employees, translating to a "per capita corresponding market value" far exceeding that of traditional large banks; while JPMorgan, with a market value of $869 billion and 317,000 employees, has a "market value per employee" significantly lower than the former.

Lee concluded that native companies built on public chains demonstrate strong capital efficiency and profit elasticity.

The Biggest Beneficiary of Transformation: Institutional Preference for Ethereum

Returning to what he identifies as the "biggest winner": Ethereum. Lee's logic is that Wall Street wants to build businesses on a "neutral public chain," and in reality, more and more institutions are choosing Ethereum; he noted that Ethereum's current TVL accounts for about 68%, and its TVL has supported Ethereum's valuation like a "floor" over several cycles; he also mentioned that SWIFT recently announced it would conduct migration experiments on Ethereum's second layer.

In terms of price structure, he views Ethereum as having undergone an extended consolidation since 2018: reaching a peak in 2021, followed by four years of horizontal fluctuations, and is now attempting to break upward. From a relative price perspective, ETH/BTC is currently around 0.036, with a long-term average of about 0.047 and a 2021 peak of 0.087. "2025 is Ethereum's '1971 moment'," he stated, asserting that a ratio returning to at least 0.087 is not a fantasy.

In scenario calculations, he applied the aforementioned ratio to the assumption of "Bitcoin reaching $250,000 by year-end": if it returns to the long-term average of 0.0479, Ethereum would be about $12,030; if it returns to the 2021 peak of 0.087, it would be about $22,000; if Ethereum becomes the primary payment/settlement rail and its network value equals that of Bitcoin, it would correspond to about $62,000.

"This is not the ceiling," he added, "overall, we are more optimistic about Ethereum."

To substantiate the investment thesis of "going long on Ethereum," Lee turned to the capital market strategy of "digital asset treasury companies": using MicroStrategy as a model, since it initiated "issuing shares to increase Bitcoin holdings" five years ago, Bitcoin's price has roughly increased tenfold (from about $11,000 to about $108,000), while MSTR's stock price has risen about 25 times, significantly outperforming the underlying asset.

Multi-Chain Landscape, Solana and Others Still Have a Big Stage

Following this line of thought, he elaborated on the practices of BitMine, where he serves as chairman: claiming to be the second-largest treasury company holding Ethereum globally, with a financing speed faster than MSTR and ample liquidity, the "Ethereum held per share" has increased about ninefold over the past nine weeks. In his vision, such treasury companies are not just "holding assets," but also act as crypto infrastructure companies: providing services for network security through staking, generating revenue, and promoting cross-border collaboration between "Wall Street and crypto" through ecological investments.

During the Q&A session, the first questioner asked, "Will there ultimately be only one chain left, and do Solana and others still have a chance?" Lee responded that there is no need to fall into the "single-chain destiny"; the infrastructure and market organization of the real world are inherently diverse, and so is blockchain.

With a global GDP of $80 trillion, about half of which is already financial transactions, and adding elements like royalties on-chain, on-chain economic activity could potentially expand to a scale of $100 trillion. If all of this were to be concentrated on Ethereum, "then Ethereum's price would reach an unbelievable height," and clearly, the market would leave enough space for other layer networks with expertise, as Solana and others still have a big stage. "Don't be too tribalistic," he emphasized, "the pie is big enough."

How Do DATs Survive the Bear Market?

The second question focused on "how bear markets allow digital asset treasury companies to survive." Lee provided two disciplines: first, maintain a clean balance sheet, avoid debt, and complex capital structures, using ample cash as a buffer to weather downturns; second, continuously increase the "Ethereum held per share."

Even if a winter arrives after 12 months, as long as the company accumulates intrinsic value per share day by day during this period, then even if the stock price retraces 50% in a bear market, it may not be lower than today. This method of "continuously increasing core assets on a per-share basis" is, in his view, the fundamental means to combat cycles.

At the end, Lee once again drew the timeline back to the metaphor at the beginning: 2025 resembles a new 1971. Bitcoin plays the role of a reserve and value anchor, while Ethereum will become the main stage for innovation and tokenization; Wall Street will "redo finance" on public chains.

This is both his macro judgment and the betting direction he provides as the "first Ethereum bull." ```