Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee says Ethereum is nearing a cyclical low, arguing that on-chain fundamentals and relative valuation versus Bitcoin indicate that ETH is “pretty close to bottoming this week.”
“Personally, I think that we’re pretty close to bottoming this week,” Lee told CNBC, linking the current drawdown to a broader crypto correction that began after a sharp liquidation event on October 10. Despite that shock, he insisted that Ethereum’s core investment story remains intact.
Will Ethereum Bottom This Week?
For Lee, that story centers on Ethereum as neutral infrastructure for tokenization and stablecoins, increasingly relevant as Wall Street intensifies its on-chain ambitions. “There are stablecoin creations. Larry Fink and BlackRock and Wall Street want to tokenize assets, bring stocks, bonds, real estate onto the blockchain. And they have to find a neutral 100% uptime blockchain. That’s Ethereum. And that’s the fundamental story,” he said.
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Lee framed crypto’s extreme volatility as structurally tied to how the market values long-term innovation rather than as a sign of fundamental weakness. “The price, of course, for Ethereum will fluctuate because crypto is hyper volatile. In fact, it’s kind of a… it’s sort of a feature of the blockchain itself,” he noted. “Crypto suffered from that liquidation event on October 10th, but because the fundamental story is intact and crypto discounts the future, that’s why it’s volatile, but it still looks pretty attractive here.”
He placed the current move in the context of a broader risk-off environment and a continuing correction across digital assets. According to Lee, macro data remains a crucial driver of crypto cycles, particularly for Bitcoin. “The most correlated factor to Bitcoin prices when you see it… at a peak actually is the ISM,” he said, referring to US activity surveys. “So I think we’re still in a correction phase of crypto.”
Asked specifically what underpins his bullish view on Ethereum now, Lee pointed to two structural “floor” mechanisms.
First, he cited the value of assets locked on the Ethereum blockchain. “Ethereum kind of has several ways that it establishes a floor. One is the value of all the assets locked onto the blockchain, and that number is growing,” he said. “Historically, Ethereum bottoms when that ratio is about 50%. So I’d say we’re pretty close to that level. That’s why I think Ethereum is probably bottoming this week.”
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Second, he highlighted Ethereum’s valuation relative to Bitcoin, using both price and network value. “The other way to look at Ethereum is really its price ratio or even its network value ratio to Bitcoin. It currently sits at 0.032,” Lee said. “The long-term average, like the eight-year average, if we were just to trade to that eight-year average, would put Ethereum at around $12,000.”
On that basis, Lee characterized Ethereum as undervalued versus its historical relationship with Bitcoin. “So I think Ethereum is undervalued because number one, the story is gaining relative to Bitcoin this year. But two, we’re getting this sort of intrinsic floor because of the value that the assets locked onto the Ethereum blockchain,” he argued.
Summarizing Lee’s stance, the CNBC host concluded: “Tom Lee saying that Ethereum is bottoming this week.” Lee did not offer a specific price target or an exact day, but his message was clear: in his view, Ethereum is close to completing its correction as on-chain value and relative valuation metrics converge toward levels that have historically marked major bottoms.
At press time, ETH traded at $3,018.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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