Tom Lee Doubles Down: Ethereum to $62,000 by 2026?
Forget the noise—a veteran analyst just placed a staggering new price target on the crypto world's second act.
The Big Call
While traditional finance grapples with rate decisions and earnings reports, one voice is cutting through the chatter with a prediction that bypasses incremental gains entirely. The forecast? A meteoric rise for Ethereum, setting a 2026 horizon for a price point that would make even the most seasoned crypto bull do a double-take.
Beyond the Hype Cycle
The rationale isn't rooted in fleeting meme-coin mania. It points to fundamental shifts—network adoption, protocol upgrades, and an institutional embrace that's slowly moving from cautious pilot programs to full-scale portfolio allocations. It’s a bet on infrastructure, not just speculation.
The Finance Jab
Of course, on Wall Street, a bold prediction is just another Tuesday—right between the morning coffee and revising yesterday's overly conservative estimates. It’s the industry that can issue a 'strong buy' and a profit warning on the same stock in the same quarter.
So, mark the calendar for 2026. Whether it’s prescient vision or just another number in the prediction game, the $62,000 question is now officially on the table.
Lee’s Thesis For Ethereum
“In 1971, the dollar went off the gold standard. And in 1971, it galvanized Wall Street to create financial products to make sure the dollar WOULD be the reserve currency,” Lee argued. “Well, in 2025, we’re tokenizing everything. So it’s not just the dollar that’s getting tokenized, but it’s stocks, bonds, real estate.”
In his view, this shift positions ETH as the primary settlement and execution LAYER for tokenized assets. “Wall Street is, again, going to take advantage of that and create products onto a smart contract platform. And where they’re building this is on Ethereum,” he said. Lee pointed to current real-world asset experiments as early evidence, noting that “the majority of this, the vast majority, is being built on Ethereum,” and adding that “Ethereum has won the smart contract war.”
Lee also stressed that ETH’s market behavior has not yet reflected that structural role. “As you know, ETH has been range bound for five years, as I’ve shaded here. But it’s begun to break out,” he told the audience, explaining why he “got very involved with Ethereum by turning Bitmine into an ETH treasury company, because we saw this breakout coming.”
The core of his valuation case is expressed through the ETH/BTC ratio. Lee expects Bitcoin to move sharply higher in the near term: “I think Bitcoin is going to get to $250,000 within a few months.” From there, he derives two key ETH scenarios.
First, if the ETH/BTC price relationship simply reverts to its historical mean, he sees substantial upside. “If ETH price ratio to Bitcoin gets back to its eight year average, that’s $12,000 for Ethereum,” he said. Second, in a more aggressive case where ETH appreciates to a quarter of Bitcoin’s price, his long-standing $62,000 target emerges: “If it gets to 0.25 relative to Bitcoin, that’s $62,000.”
TOM LEE CALLS FOR $62,000 $ETH
“I think Ethereum’s going to become the future of finance, the payment rails of the future and if it gets to .25 relative to bitcoin that’s $62,000. Ethereum at $3,000 is grossly undervalued.” pic.twitter.com/VydvLou9IE
— CryptosRus (@CryptosR_Us) December 4, 2025
Lee links these ratios directly to the tokenization narrative. “If 2026 is about tokenization, that means Ether’s utility value should be rising. Therefore, you should watch this ratio,” he told the crowd, arguing that valuation should track growing demand for ETH blockspace and its role as “the payment rails of the future.”
He concluded with a pointed assessment of current levels: “I think Ethereum at $3,000, of course, is grossly undervalued.”
At press time, ETH traded at $3,128.
