Bitmine's Tom Lee Sees $6,000 Ethereum By Year-End If Bitcoin Hits $150,000

• Tom Lee said the Ethereum-to-Bitcoin ratio could get to 0.04 by year-end, taking Ether to about $6,000 with Bitcoin at $150,000.
• He described that target as “very conservative,” saying that the ratio should be above its 2021 high of nearly 0.08.
• The CLARITY Act remains the biggest near-term catalyst, Lee said, but if it doesn’t pass in September, Ethereum will “do fine either way.”

Ethereum (ETH) could trade near $6,000 by the end of 2026, with the prediction tied to a recovery in the asset’s exchange rate against Bitcoin (BTC), said Tom Lee, co-founder of Fundstrat and chairman of Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR).

The Ethereum-to-Bitcoin ratio was hovering around 0.03 and could reach 0.04 by the end of the year, Lee said on the Milk Road Show on Friday. At that level, Ether would be worth about $6,000 with Bitcoin at $150,000, he said. Lee said the projection was “very conservative,” noting that the ratio soared to nearly 0.08 in the 2021 cycle.

This cycle is being driven by tokenization and agentic AI, rather than the meme coins and NFTs that drove 2021, he said, so the ratio should be higher than that previous high. "Maybe it even goes to 0.25. Maybe it even goes to one," he said.

Why Ethereum Is Undervalued

Ethereum was “vastly, vastly undervalued” compared to its previous high around $5,000, Lee said. The network will capture future growth as financial activity moves onto blockchains, and will have a role in governing AI agent transactions, he added. 

The legacy payment rails were built for human-to-human transactions and are not built to support agent activity, Lee said, referring to card networks that route a transaction through dozens of validation systems. Agents would either use crypto rails or create a separate monetary system that excludes humans entirely, Lee said.

The Biggest Catalyst: CLARITY Act

The biggest near-term catalyst, Lee said, was the passing of the CLARITY Act, which could come in September. He said the bill was more important for conventional financial institutions than for the crypto industry itself. Once a designated regulator has rulemaking authority, firms could build on crypto rails. It won’t be damaging if it doesn’t pass because the industry has innovated without regulatory clarity before, he said.

“If it doesn't pass, it's not the worst thing for crypto because the crypto industry has already shown it innovates in the absence of regulatory clarity. So I think Ethereum is going to do fine either way, but I think you're really going to supercharge the movement if the Clarity Act passes." 

- Tom Lee, co-founder of Fundstrat and chairman of Bitmine Immersion Technologies.

He also noted investors were waiting for the four-year cycle timing to clear in October, cash on the sidelines in Asia, and institutional performance chasing. Ether has been the best-performing major asset since June 30, and a strong close to the third quarter would pull allocators into the fourth, said Lee.

Ethereum’s price was trading around $2,436, down over 2% in the last 24 hours, amid broader market weakness. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around ETH remained in the ‘neutral’ zone, as chatter dropped to ‘normal’ from ‘high’ levels over the past day. 

https://stocktwits.com/DeFi_Wookie/message/663173303 

One Stocktwits user said retail investors were missing the investment opportunity in blockchain infrastructure needed for AI agents, with their strategy gearing towards accumulating positions in ETH, Chainlink (LINK) and Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 (QQQ) before retail investors realize.

Read also: Bitcoin, Ethereum And HYPE? Charles Schwab's Adam Lynch Maps Out A Crypto Portfolio As Debasement Fears Build

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