Tom Lee: ETH could reach $7,000–$9,000 in early 2026; BTC seen at $200,000
Tom Lee, chair of BitMine Immersion Technologies and co-founder of Fundstrat, told CNBC that institutional tokenization and on-chain settlement by Wall Street could push Ether (ETH) to $7,000–$9,000 in early 2026. Lee cited growing use of Ethereum as financial infrastructure — dominance in tokenized real-world assets (RWA), custody of roughly $12 billion in RWA, and issuance of about $170 billion in stablecoins — making ETH central to on-chain dollar settlement. He also forecast a long-term ETH upside to $20,000. Lee remains bullish on Bitcoin (BTC) as a store of value and said a BTC price near $200,000 next year is reasonable, arguing recent underperformance versus gold is temporary. Separately, BitMine executed its first ETH staking from a holding of over 4,066,062 ETH (~3.37% of supply); at ~3.12% APY that could generate ~126,800 ETH yearly (~$371M at an example price). Market context links these bullish views to increased institutional adoption, RWA tokenization and staking activity.
Bullish
The announcement is overall bullish. Tom Lee’s high-profile forecasts and BitMine’s large-scale ETH staking both signal growing institutional confidence in Ethereum as on-chain financial infrastructure. Key bullish drivers: accelerating tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) and institutional pilots for on-chain settlement (cited participants include BlackRock and Robinhood), large stablecoin volume on Ethereum, and sizeable ETH holdings being staked — all increase on-chain demand and reduce liquid supply. Short-term impact: positive sentiment may boost ETH and related on-chain assets, drawing momentum-trading buyers and higher futures basis; however, price moves could be volatile as markets digest bold targets and as macro factors (rates, liquidity) matter. Long-term impact: if institutional tokenization and stablecoin settlement on Ethereum scale as Lee describes, fundamental demand for ETH as settlement and collateral could strengthen, supporting higher valuations and lower circulating supply via staking. For BTC, Lee’s bullish price target reinforces narrative of renewed inflows into digital-asset risk-on allocations, which can lift broad crypto markets. Caveats: price targets are forecasts, not guarantees — similar past high-profile bullish calls (e.g., bullish ETF or institutional adoption narratives) sometimes sparked rallies followed by pullbacks when execution or macro conditions lagged. Traders should watch on-chain metrics (staking inflows, RWA issuance), institutional product launches, derivatives open interest, and macro liquidity to time risk exposure and manage leverage.