BitMine’s Tom Lee says Ethereum is Wall Street’s blockchain of choice

Fundstrat co-founder and BitMine Chairman Tom Lee said Ethereum is a "truly neutral chain" that will be favored by Wall Street and the White House.

"I don't think anyone ever feels that someone's got a fat finger tilting [Ethereum] in their favor," Lee said, during Korea Blockchain Week 2025's Impact conference on Wednesday. "If you think about how Wall Street operates, they will only wanna do and operate on a neutral chain."

Lee further explained that he observed the White House and Congress, which had become more pro-crypto under the Trump administration, are primarily turning to Ethereum.

"So when I look at that, combined with agentic AI and robots that are really gonna create the need for a token economy for robots, a lot of that will happen on Ethereum," Lee said. "In fact, President Trump today just talked about how he needs proof-of-human to protect us, and a lot of that work is going to be done on Ethereum."

When the Wall Street strategist engineered BitMine's transformation into an ETH treasury vehicle, Lee said he saw the possibility that Ethereum was entering a "super cycle" that would last 10 to 15 years. 

Largest Ethereum DAT

Since transitioning into an Ethereum treasury company, BitMine's market capitalization grew from around $37.6 million in June, before the transition, to around $9.45 billion as of Wednesday. 

BitMine is currently the largest Ethereum treasury in the world, holding 2.15 million ETH, according to The Block's corporate treasuries data . It is also the second largest crypto treasury firm overall, behind Michael Saylor's Strategy.

Lee said that he thinks there is room for more than one Ethereum treasury firms, but stated that the market is picking its winners and losers.

"Bitmine trades $3 billion a day, Microstrategy trades $3.4 billion a day. I think the two of us represent 95% of all trading volume in the DATs," Lee said. "The two of us are 90% of the trading volume. That means institutions really only want to buy us."

Lee said the two companies have essentially become large-cap stocks, and they are going to receive passive flows as they will become a part of major indices when they rebalance.

"That really helped MicroStrategy too, and that's actually what sustains valuation premiums, because now you have someone who's buying every day."

Still bullish on BTC

Meanwhile, Lee said he expects bitcoin price to end the year between $200,000 and $250,000, while ether is expected to land between $10,000 and $12,000.

"I'm still bullish on bitcoin," Lee said during the conference discussion. "In the fourth quarter, seasonally bitcoin is strong. But now we have the Fed flipping dovish after being essentially hawkish all year. That's a tailwind for bitcoin." 

Lee added that his estimate aligns with Fundstrat CMT Mark Newton's technical targets. 

"Ethereum, as a price ratio to bitcoin, should recover to its prior, either average or at least five-year highs," Lee stated. "Using a $250,000 Bitcoin, that implies somewhere between 10 and 12,000 for Ethereum by the end of the year."

The BitMine chairman said he expects Ethereum to surpass its prior highs, and the cryptocurrency's "real price discovery" will be between $12,000 and $15,000. "But I don't think that would be the ceiling for Ethereum," Lee added.