Ethereum’s price fell below $2,000 for the first time since March 29.
Santiment warned that retail “buy the dip” optimism may be a bearish contrarian signal.
The drop came shortly after Bitmine’s Tom Lee reiterated a bullish “supercycle” view.
Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee said Bitcoin’s price could eventually reach as high as $2 million if the crypto achieves a network value comparable to gold.
Speaking in a CNBC interview, Lee pushed back against criticism from billionaire investor Mark Cuban, who recently said he had sold his Bitcoin holdings because the cryptocurrency had failed to behave as a reliable inflation hedge.
The comments come as Bitmine continues to aggressively purchase Ethereum, even as Lee admitted its market performance has been lacking.
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On Monday, Lee acknowledged that cryptocurrencies have underperformed expectations in recent months.
“Crypto has been disappointing because crypto should move with equity markets, and it should be rallying with software,” Lee said in the CNBC interview.
“Software has really started to rally big, and crypto hasn’t moved.”
However, he argued that investors abandoning the asset class may be prematurely giving up on a long-term trend.
“I think there are what I call ‘rage quitting’ people selling here as if something is wrong,” Lee said. “
If someone asked me, is the thesis for Bitcoin or Ethereum broken, it’s absolutely not.”
Lee said growing adoption of AI and tokenized financial assets continued to support the investment case for cryptocurrencies.
“The more work we do, and we’re hearing it from founders like Palantir, Bitcoin and Ethereum are really the future of money,” he said. “Wall Street wants to go towards tokenization. It’s a vast improvement in efficiency of how money moves, and it’s an innovation.”
Bitcoin Price Could Reach $2 Million if It Rivals Gold?
Asked how investors should value crypto, Lee said there were two established frameworks for estimating Bitcoin’s worth.
“Market sentiment plays a huge role,” Lee said, but added that network activity remains the strongest driver of value.
“Wallets and activity per wallet still explain, even now, 87% of the rise of Bitcoin, so as long as more people use it and they’re transacting it, the value of Bitcoin should go up. It’s a network effect.”
Lee also pointed to comparisons with gold as a benchmark for Bitcoin’s long-term potential.
“The second is the umbrella value of gold,” he said.
“If Bitcoin had the same network value as gold, and gold is not as scarce as Bitcoin, that would put Bitcoin at around $2 million.”
The comments represent one of Lee’s most bullish long-term projections to date, even as Bitcoin currently trades far below that level.
Lee’s bullish stance on Bitcoin’s price comes as BitMine Immersion Technologies, the publicly traded Ethereum treasury company he chairs, continues to expand its ETH holdings.
Last week, BitMine purchased an additional 26,497 ETH worth roughly $52 million, bringing its total Ethereum holdings to more than 5.4 million tokens.
In a company statement, Lee acknowledged that Ethereum’s market performance has lagged improvements in the network’s fundamentals.
“In our view, ETH prices are not reflecting the strengthening of Ethereum fundamentals, but then again, this is not surprising given we are in the early stages of crypto spring,” Lee said.
Lee has repeatedly argued that Ethereum stands to benefit from Wall Street’s push toward tokenized assets.
During the CNBC interview, he said Ethereum’s value should rise as more financial assets migrate onto blockchain rails.
“For every dollar of tokenized assets, tokenized dollars or others, it’s created $1 value for ETH, the coin,” Lee said.
“If you believe Wall Street’s going to tokenize, Ethereum’s price should go up a lot.”
Ethereum Drops Despite Lee’s Supercycle Calls
Ethereum’s recent price action has contrasted sharply with Lee’s optimistic outlook.
The crypto recently fell below the psychologically important $2,000 level for the first time since late March, underperforming Bitcoin amid a broader crypto sell-off.
“We continue to expect a supercycle ahead for crypto and Ethereum, driven by the dual drivers of Wall Street tokenization and agentic-AI,” Lee said.
Lee also described Ethereum’s earlier decline below $2,200 as “an attractive opportunity” for long-term investors, though the token has since fallen further.
Kurt Robson is a London-based reporter at CCN, specialising in the fast-moving worlds of crypto and emerging technology. He began his career covering local news in Cornwall after graduating from Falmouth University with First Class Honours in Journalism. There, he cut his teeth on everything from council meetings to missing swans.
He quickly rose through the ranks to become a frontline journalist at several of the UK’s leading national newspapers. Over the years, he has interviewed musicians and celebrities, reported from courtrooms and crime scenes, and secured multiple front-page exclusives.
Following the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kurt shifted his focus to technology journalism—just ahead of the AI boom. With a natural curiosity and a trained eye for emerging trends, he has found a new rhythm in reporting on innovation.
At CCN, Kurt's work focuses on the cutting edge of crypto, blockchain, AI, and the evolving digital world. Drawing on his background in people-first reporting and his deep interest in disruptive tech, Kurt delivers stories that are insightful, entertaining, and human-centric.
