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"The mood is worse than ever." That's how Tom Lee described the crypto market on a Friday night in late June 2026 in a conversation with Anthony Scaramucci. Bitcoin was trading at around $60,000, more than half its record high of $126,080. Ether was worth less than $ 1,600. According to CoinGecko’s daily prices, Ether’s lowest point for the year was recorded that same week, and Bitcoin’s on July 1, at around $58,600.
By the third week of October 2026, Bitcoin was near $81,800 and Ether was around $2,400. If you count from the evening Lee spoke, this is an increase of about 36% for Bitcoin and about 53% for Ether. On the same program, Scaramucci said that the Fear and Greed Index looks worse than it did after the FTX collapse.
Lee is the head of research at Fundstrat and the chairman of Bitmain, the company that owns more Ether than any other. In that interview, he was asked how investors should choose the time to enter this market and what advice he would give to people who are holding Ether at a loss. Later in the video, we'll invite Lynn Alden, a macro analyst best known for the four words: " Nothing's stopping this train." In this video, we'll break down what Lee's post-interview rally says about trying to predict the crypto market, Lee's price prediction for Ether, how a Wall Street analyst learned to wait out hard pullbacks, and Alden's macro arguments for owning rare assets.
So, let's begin. Scaramucci asked Lee if Bitcoin was still in a four-year cycle with the price falling more than 50% from its high . Well, it's...um...I mean, I think there are two things in the crypto that haven't changed and that are showing up this year. You know, first of all , crypto is a hypervolatile asset.
So, by and large , a 50% drop from the high, as you know from Bitcoin's history, is not even necessarily a correction. And secondly, despite the fact that the crypto market is full of traders and people who trade it, the best investment decisions really required people to have a longer planning horizon .
And that's why I think the four-year cycle is part of it, because for those who are long-term oriented and maybe acting tactically , time is of the essence , because they might not even think about buying crypto until we get closer to that early window of the four-year cycle. So, it's actually, you know, August- October.
And then in people's minds, you know , these are prices, well, it could be 50 or 60 thousand. Um, I think this is really a question for an investor, let's say someone who's new to crypto, because they might be used to quarterly announcements of, you know, specific catalysts. But in the history of crypto, we know that not only is it hypervolatile and decentralized, so there are virtually no announcements, so to speak, but we also know that crypto makes most of its profits in 10 days.
So, the top 10 days provide almost all of the annual profits. So if someone is trying to guess the time to buy Bitcoin, and if they have a great model, I think that could serve them very well. But remember, Bitcoin has had the best compound annual return of any asset over the past 10 or even 15 years.
But the interesting thing is that if you exclude the top 10 days of each year for Bitcoin, you would actually be down 27% per year. So, all of Bitcoin's gains essentially boil down to 10 days. What-what? Apply his rule to the months immediately following that interview. Between August 19 and 21, 2026, Bitcoin rose from approximately $64,700 to $78,300, a jump of 21% in 3 days.
According to our CoinGecko price calculations, if we were to remove the top 10 days between Lee's interview and the third week of October, Bitcoin would have been down about 16 % over that period, instead of up 36%. No one rang the bell before this jump. Binance Research later estimated Bitcoin's 7- day gain at 24.8%, ranking in the top 1% of weekly movements since 2020.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted $3.52 billion in August, up from $172 million in July, with nine days of continuous inflows from August 17 to 27 . About $2.7 billion in short positions were liquidated during this movement. Binance attributed much of this movement to macro conditions, rather than anything crypto-specific.
The Ether version was more drastic. On August 19 alone, it added about 17.5%, almost as much as it had gained in the previous 8 weeks. Scaramucci, who himself owns shares of Bitmain, asked Lee what he would say to investors holding Ether and Bitmain at a loss. Hmm, but I guess Ethereum can't escape the fact that we're in a period where the price is lagging behind fundamentals.
You know, Ethereum got additional assets. So more and more real assets are being tokenized on Ethereum. The Ethereum Foundation is currently updating and making Ethereum quantum- resistant, adding privacy, all things that will help secure the future of Ethereum. And I think if someone asks the question, you know, do we need decentralized blockchains in the future?
We already know what Wall Street does. They are engaged in tokenization. You know, most of the major funds and stocks that are going through tokenization are doing so on Ethereum because it's the most common blockchain. And I think that for those who are seriously thinking about AI, it's worth remembering: in the world of artificial intelligence, many engineers are starting to realize that the development of this field requires identity verification and decentralized control.
And I will give you an example. It's probably not many years until AI agents start generating revenue for us. You know, they will become our delegated representatives. They will earn money and accumulate wealth. AI agents may become even richer than us. In other words, we will start to wonder: are we working for an AI agent , or are they actually working for us?
And if it's a centralized system, then eventually we'll get Skynet . This is why I believe the focus will be on people relying on decentralized systems to protect humanity from over-emphasis on AI. So I would say that the idea behind your interest in the crypto industry— the future of AI and the renewal of Wall Street's tech stacks— remains the same.
But yeah, it wasn't fun at all . This summer was not the summer of crypto assets. You know what? The prices were terrible. Some of what Lee points out can be measured. As of early August 2026, Ethereum held about $17.3 billion of the roughly $38 billion in tokenized real-world assets tracked by rwa.xyz — more than any other blockchain, according to Crypto Briefing.
DeFi Llama counted about $301 billion in stablecoins in the third week of October 2026, of which about $143 billion was in Ethereum. Regarding quantum technologies: Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake announced the creation of a dedicated post-quantum team on January 23, 2026, and reported that the foundation's leadership has identified post-quantum security as a top strategic priority.
And now about his numbers. At the Token 2049 conference in Singapore in October 2026, Lee stated that Ether should exceed $5,000 by the end of 2026 and trade at $7,500 if Bitcoin reaches $100,000. During the full cycle, he estimated the token's value at $25,000, according to reports from O Daily and Yellow.
In the third week of October, Ether was worth around $2,400, about 51% below its record high of $4,946 set in August 2025. Be careful with calendar dates . In November 2025, Lee stated on CNBC that Bitcoin could still reach $150,000–$200,000 by the end of that year, and Ether could reach around $ 7,000.
None of that came close to the mark. His predictions for the end of the year did not come true. The direction he indicated from the June low turned out to be much more accurate. If you need help separating the signal from the noise in a market like this, I cover it . Flows, big owners, numbers behind the headline.
Scaramucci asked Lee about his temperament and what he would say to people who have unrealized losses in Bitcoin, Ether, or Bitmain. Yeah, well, you know, I've been through this before. I think what really prepared me was spending over 35 years on Wall Street. And of those, I covered the wireless industry for 17 years.
For me, those first 17 years taught me the difference between fundamental progress and cost, as wireless subscriber numbers grew steadily at 40% per year, while technology spending, telecom capex, and innovation around wireless exhibited parabolic growth. And yet , these stocks were extremely cyclical.
In fact, they faced what I think was a huge perception problem : people thought wireless was just a yuppie toy. They didn't see the benefit and how much value it created. So I saw stocks make huge jumps and suffer big dips, but to me, and many of my clients knew this, it was always a big opportunity.
So, during my sit-ups, I remember the Japanese word for crisis, which sounds like "kiki." Actually, it's two words. This is a danger and an opportunity. People focus too easily on danger. And really, that's your instinct, isn't it? Self-survival. But in every slump, you have to focus on the possibilities, because just like Nvidia was limited in range for years, and then made a parabolic jump.
Take a look at the stocks of memory companies. They were in a certain range for two years before they exploded. By the way, I worked at JP Morgan for 15 years. The stock was mostly worth $17 for maybe 13 of those 15 years. And where is JP Morgan now? You know, over $200. So for me, I'm used to seeing when fundamentals are I'm used to Lee started his career in 1993 at Kidder Peabody and then moved to Salomon Smith Barney where he worked in telecommunications and wireless.
Industry data from those years confirms his story. CTIA, the wireless communications industry group, counted about 20 million American mobile phone users in mid-1994, a 48% increase from the year before. By the end of 2007, the total number exceeded 250 million. At the height of this period, the Nasdaq composite technology index fell by approximately 78% from its peak in March 2000 to October 2002 .
That same year, Nextel publicly criticized Lee's research—a conflict that the Wall Street Journal reported on in November 2002. He left JP Morgan in 2014 to found Fundstrat. Lee's argument is based on implementation, where more people and money move into these networks over time. The other part of the argument concerns the dollars in which it is all measured, and that is where Lynn Alden comes to the rescue.
She founded Lyn Alden Investment Strategy, an electrical engineer by training, and wrote Broken Money, her 2023 book about why the financial system fails people. In an interview with Bitcoin Magazine in the fall of 2026, she was asked to explain the phrase she is best known for. So, yes, this trend is fiscal deficits, especially in the United States.
Uh, at first it was a reference to the series Breaking Bad. Uh, basically, the inability and unwillingness to stop, you know, applied here. And, basically, it's a combination of several things. One of them is, uh, the high level of political polarization in the United States. It's very difficult to achieve any significant, uh , changes.
Uh, and the other part is mostly demographics and decades of accumulated decisions. We, we've built these social benefit structures that seem to assume that each succeeding generation will be greater than the one before. And now, of course, we have a rather overloaded demographic structure. Uh, we have 40 years of falling interest rates that have offset ever-higher debt loads.
But now that our debt is over 100% of GDP, and interest rates, you know, they've bounced off zero and are no longer falling, that means interest costs have become a significant component of the deficit. So even decisions to cut something a little here or there are unlikely to affect the big picture.
And so a lot of this is fixed, and it's a macroeconomic variable for investors. This is macro, you know, it's important for politics, it's important for everyday life. But from my perspective, the main thing I do is focus on the investment implications. And, you know, under fiscal dominance, government spending, you know, it can work against the Fed's efforts to control inflation.
What can actually bring prices under control if Washington doesn't cut spending? Not much. I mean, this is kind of the definition of fiscal dominance versus monetary dominance—the central bank is kind of in the passenger seat here. Their tools are mostly based on accelerating or slowing down bank lending, which works when, you know, extremely high bank lending rates are the main driver of inflation, like what we saw in the 70s.
That's why these medications were suitable for that particular problem. But when the government has a deficit of 7% of GDP and when so much debt has accumulated that higher interest rates inflate the fiscal deficit more than they slow bank lending, their tools simply become less effective. It's not that they don't have an impact, but the impact is mixed, compared to the "pure" anti-inflammatory drugs they once were when debt levels were lower.
So, you know, things like increasing oil production can help bring down the cost of goods or at least make it rise more slowly. You know, cutting parts of the deficit, where possible, can sometimes help. But because everything is so deeply ingrained, it's unlikely to stop anytime soon. And partly that's because when a country becomes so indebted, it will default one way or another.
And when they control the currency in which they have their own obligations, this default occurs mainly through loss of purchasing power, not nominally. So a certain amount of inflation and devaluation of money becomes inevitable because they allowed the state of affairs we have now. Full annual figures for fiscal year 2026 were released in October.
According to an analysis by the American Action Forum published on October 18, 2026, the Treasury's final monthly report estimated the deficit at about $2 trillion, or about 6.1% of GDP. Net interest on the debt reached about $1.1 trillion —more than the $965 billion spent on national defense and about 19% of all federal revenues.
Debt held by the public at the end of the fiscal year was 32.4 trillion, which is approximately equal to 100 % of GDP. Now look at what the Fed did against this backdrop. On September 16, 2026, it raised rates by a quarter of a percentage point to a range of 3.75% to 4%. This is the first increase since July 2023 .
During the same month, its balance sheet continued to grow from about $6.54 trillion in December 2025 to about $6.75 trillion by October 21, 2026, according to Federal Reserve data. So, the Fed tightened policy with one tool and loosened it with another. Alden owns both gold and Bitcoin, and the two assets have gone their separate ways.
Gold reached a record high of around $5,307 per ounce on January 28, 2026, according to the World Gold Council, and as of October 20, the price was around $4,120, down about 22%. Bitcoin, whose price was approaching $81,800, was about 35% below its own record. Alden was asked why these two assets continue to move at odds and what it would take for Bitcoin to return above 100,000.
Good question. I mean, first of all, the Bitcoin market is about an order of magnitude smaller than the gold market and it is more volatile. Therefore, it has a slightly different profile of owners. That is, gold is more often held by states, older investors, and it is partly stored in the form of jewelry.
While Bitcoin, on average , is of course held by many institutional owners, there are also government owners. On average, the profile of a retail owner will be slightly younger than in the case of gold. It is considered a slightly riskier asset in some ways, at least for a portfolio. And so pricing here simply works differently.
Sometimes they rise, sometimes they fall together. And in general, fiscal dominance should push up various types of quality scarce assets in the long run. It could be quality stocks, it could be bitcoin, gold, anything that is a leader in its category, as long as the category is performing well. As for what will push Bitcoin above 100k, well, that's a question for the trader.
It rose quite quickly from lows of around 58 thousand to the current price, which is significantly higher. To reach 100, less movement is needed than what has already occurred. And I think it's a combination of liquidity. I think it's a combination of the fact that the schedule has become more attractive.
First, they saw that Bitcoin was no longer falling. So they start coming in. If it starts to gain momentum, then traders who work on impulses come. And so a lot of "fast money" has already been made. It is in strong hands, and over time, factors will appear that can return the "fast money." But I think the long-term backdrop is that the money supply worldwide will continue to grow.
Bond market volumes around the world will continue to grow. Nothing will stop these trains. So there is some background pressure, a kind of inflow for the highest quality assets, although, as with an inflow, there are waves that roll in and out. So you see, you know, spikes and corrections. But you still want to own the highest quality rare things, and, you know, Bitcoin is obviously one of the best.
Data on the money supply fit into its picture. The U.S. M2 measure —the total amount of dollars in cash, checking, savings accounts, and retail money markets—reached a record high of about $23.34 trillion in August 2026 , according to data from the Federal Reserve. This is about 51% more than in February 2020, and almost 6% more than a year earlier.
The total market value of Bitcoin in the third week of October was about $1.64 trillion , according to Coin Gecko calculations. That's about 7% of the M2 money supply in the US and less than the roughly two trillion dollars the federal government borrowed in fiscal year 2026 alone. Combine Lee and Alden and you get two halves of the same thing.
Lee is talking about how people behave with an asset whose returns come in spurts. Alden talks about the pressure that continues to build under him, regardless of whether anyone is following the schedule. The months since Lee's June interview have demonstrated both factors at work. The deficit continued to grow, the Fed raised rates, and Bitcoin still gained about 21% in three days in August, as billions of dollars poured into ETFs.
All of this doesn't make the next step easy at all. Lee's year-end goals have been wrong before. The Fed, which has returned to raising rates again, could quickly collapse risky assets. Bitcoin can plummet in a matter of days, while ether still remains almost half its record low. But if most of the gains come on a few days that no one can predict, the bigger risk for a long-term owner is not being in the market when those days come.
If you don't want to spend the next surge watching from the sidelines, that's exactly what Crypto Nutshell is designed for. This is my free 5- minute daily newsletter, designed to keep you calm and informed during any fluctuations. . Anyway, .
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