Tom Lee’s $20,000 Ethereum Call: The Tokenization Supercycle That Will Make 2021 Look Tiny

Driven by an erupting tokenization wave that would make ETH Wall Street's main settlement layer for real-world assets (RWAs) and tokenized securities, Fundstrat's Tom Lee has delivered a blockbuster forecast: Ethereum may reach $20,000 by 2026. According to Lee, while Ethereum has finally broken out of a huge W-pattern and is set to dominate the next leg of crypto adoption after five agonizing years of sideways grinding, Bitcoin's customary four-year halving cycle has given way to macro-driven moves (with BTC now tracking the S&P 500 in 2025 before new highs in early 2026). Lee thinks the network is woefully underappreciated as the foundation of 24/7 on-chain financial infrastructure given that ETH and its Layer-2 ecosystem already accounts for almost 70% of the RWA market.

To support his belief, Lee's own company established BitMine (BMNR) as a publicly traded Ethereum treasury instrument and has been actively adding millions of dollars in ETH in recent on-chain transactions. Technically, Ethereum's RSI is rising from oversold levels in a manner that formerly kicked off multi-year rallies, therefore confirming the end of the consolidation phase. According to Lee, the coming tokenization shift is a "1971 moment" for finance—the year the U.S. left the gold standard—arguing that programmable, constantly-on settlement will rewrite global markets.

Price-wise, Lee expects $7,000–$8,000 feasible by year-end 2025 if momentum persists, with the $20,000 target reliant on institutional RWA adoption and a steady ETH/BTC ratio recovery. There are still risks: failure to overcome near-term resistance, bigger equity pullbacks, or bureaucratic delays in tokenization systems might slow the advance. Lee is wagering the tokenization supercycle will launch ETH into a new valuation paradigm even though corporate treasuries and Wall Street behemoths are gently building on Ethereum.