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world's largest corporate buyer of Ethereum has almost completed the task it set itself. Bitmain, a company led by Tom Lee, has set a goal of owning 5% of all ETH in existence. As of the October 4 update, they have 6,016,414 coins, about 4.9% of the supply worth approximately $16.4 billion. This means they are less than 90,000 coins short of reaching their goal.
This raises an uncomfortable question for anyone holding ETH . If the biggest buyer steps aside, who will push the price further? Ethereum is still 45% below its August 2025 high of around $4,950, while Bitcoin was hovering below its peak of $126,080 in early October. Tom Lee answered this question on stage at the Token 2049 conference in Singapore, which drew about 25,000 people to the Marina Bay Sands on October 7-8.
Lee co- founded Fundstrat, heads research there, and is one of the few Wall Street strategists to build his entire crypto thesis around Ethereum. And the price he named for ETH in Singapore would be laughed at by most of the market . In this video, we'll break down this number and what it means. We'll discuss the capital that Lee believes will be the next buyer, his words about the AI bubble that everyone is preparing for, and a warning for Wall Street's biggest institutions.
So, let's begin. Bitmain has been operating for 15 months, which is 15 months within a 10-year business forecast. And we made a big bet on Ethereum, because at the time we thought Ethereum would be the payment network of the future. We believed that a supercycle would come for tokenization and cryptocurrencies , and that Ethereum was the most neutral infrastructure due to the size of the developer community and the fact that it had 100% uptime.
And in these 15 months, I think everything is going according to plan. For us, Ethereum continues to be the most neutral infrastructure. I think they are achieving a lot of success. And the price of the token is 2700. It has remained at the same level for 5 years. And, as you know, the longer the consolidation period, the more powerful the breakout will be .
Part of our thesis is that Ethereum is severely undervalued, and I think that in this bullish cycle the price could easily reach 25,000 or 50,000 per token. You answered a question that my communications team wanted me to ask . But maybe so: where do you think ETH will be at the end of the year? You know, I think Ethereum should surpass its all-time high.
So I think it's going to be above 5,000. I think Bitcoin is going to be over 100,000. And if that's the case, I think Ethereum is going to be around 7,500. And are there any indicators that you're looking at in the market? For example, what do you typically look at to assess infrastructure usage and have these predictions?
Well, I mean, I think crypto is a thematic story. And what I mean is that in 2016-2017, that " bull" market was really the history of ICOs. But these were mostly retail investors. But it was massive . I mean, it didn't take a lot of people to get Bitcoin to 18,000. And then, in the 2019-2021 bull cycle , a lot of it was related to NFTs, which was, you know, a new innovation.
But this was again mostly a retail boom. And you've seen huge fluctuations in cryptocurrency prices. But this bullish cycle comes at a time when institutions are creating a lot of products. And I think we're seeing real innovation. For example, today's Ondo announcement about private markets—it's bigger players, bigger money.
I think this is going to be a much, much bigger cycle than the ones we've seen in the past. I think people are actually not optimistic enough . I think you will see incredible price spikes in cryptocurrencies. Let's start with what Bitmain's steak is doing while it's sitting idle . Of these 6 million coins, 5 million 67,309 are staked through the company's own Maven platform, yielding a 7-day annualized return of 2.63% as of an update on October 4.
If you do the math, that's about 133,000 new ETH per year just for holding, about $360 million at the price Bitmain was using. In an August interview on Bankless, Lee said that if the company decides to stay around the 5% mark, it can sell that staking revenue to keep the stake from growing, and that exceeding 5% is an issue they will likely revisit in 2027 .
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But for traders from the US, this is a real breakthrough. The link is . Procurement slowed down intentionally. Bitmain added 15,112 ETH in the week ending October 4. Back in May, Lee stated that the company was slowing down from over 100,000 coins per week, and by the end of September, their 12-week average had dropped to around 21,600 per week, according to CoinTelegraph’s calculations.
Now compare Lee's range to the price Bitmain used for that update—$ 2,726.25,000—that's about nine times as much. 50,000 is about 18 times. At a price of $50,000 per coin, the entire Ethereum network would be worth about $6 trillion , and Bitmain's assets alone would be about $300 billion. The institutional products he pointed to are real, but they are outdated.
On October 6, Ondo launched Ondo Private Markets, which sells tokenized bonds that track a select AI company and are traded 24/7. The fine print matters. They are only available to investors outside the US and do not provide shareholder rights or voting rights. Four days earlier, on October 2, the SEC approved a rule change for Cboe, paving the way for Volatility Shares to list the first U.S.
3X Bitcoin and 3X Ether funds based on CME futures . But a $6 trillion network is much bigger than one company or a few new funds. So where is the money of this magnitude actually located? First of all, the market is huge. I mean, it's at least $ 200 trillion, at least, and it's growing at about $7 trillion a year.
Of course? This, I mean , just think about it for a minute. Every year, another $7 trillion in liquid assets emerges looking for somewhere to invest. So , for example, you know when you hear people talking about hyperscalers and AI and they're going to spend a trillion a year, where is that money coming from—there 's already $7 trillion of new money waiting to fund anything.
But I think most of the wealth and most of these liquid assets are managed by wealthy people who want to protect their capital. And they want to have, you know, a higher return than what they're earning. So I think part of this radical change is to convince people that moving these tokens to the blockchain will outperform traditional ways of distributing capital.
And I think, for example, that a lot of wealthy people are investing in private equity and private lending. But these are illiquid assets. And the profitability actually turned out to be lower than expected. Therefore, I believe that the idea that tens of trillions of dollars have been invested in funds that pay out after 4, 5, or 10 years is questionable.
And when you get your money back, you get about the same amount as you would from a money market fund. This is a very large market to reach. But I think another big obstacle, or something that needs to change, is that the crypto industry needs to look more mature. Because I think anyone who is going to engage in tokenized trading or tokenized shares should feel like they are working with trusted partners and that their money is safe.
That they wo n't be broken and they won't disappear. Things like managing your private keys. And the worries about FinCEN and sanctions because your tokens could get mixed with assets from sanctioned countries. So, I think there are a lot of little things like that. But once these framework conditions are established, I think things will start moving very quickly.
Private equity is the easiest part of this statement to verify. According to PitchBook, the 10-year net return on private equity is 14.17% per annum as of September 2025, compared to 15.30% for the S&P 500, an index that can be bought for a few basis points and sold any day the market is open. A shorter period of time looks worse.
MSCI estimates that US private equity funds returned 5.8% annually from 2022 to the third quarter of 2025, while the S&P 500 returned 11.6%. Fear for safety also has its price. Chainalysis estimated about $3.4 billion stolen in the cryptosphere in 2025 , and one event—the $1.5 billion hack of Bybit in February— accounted for about 44% of that amount.
Hacking groups linked to North Korea stole a record $2.02 billion of the total. For a pension fund or family office, this is exactly the headline that ends the conversation . However, the collection of rules is gradually being supplemented. The GENESIS Act, the US stablecoin law, was signed into law on July 18, 2025, and on September 17, 2026, the SEC issued a temporary innovation permit.
5 years of relaxations aimed at allowing tokenized versions of US securities to trade online. Now compare what is already on the network to the pool that Lee describes. Depending on the tracker, the value of tokenized real assets is between $38 billion and $46 billion, with Ethereum holding the largest share— approximately 43-48%.
Against the backdrop of $200 trillion, this is only about two hundredths of a percent. Stablecoins add another approximately $305 billion, according to DeFi Llama’s calculations as of the end of September. There is another fear that is making big money cautious, and it has nothing to do with cryptocurrencies.
If you want to keep up with the numbers that determine whether Lee is right, Bitmain’s purchases, ETF flows, and how quickly Wall Street is moving assets to blockchain, I track them nonsense, just important signal. Yes. I want to provide some perspective as I have been following the markets for 34 years.
Actually, 36 years old. I'm not sure. It's been a long time. More than one generation. And most of the time I worked with institutional investors, meaning fund managers and professional asset managers. It's worth remembering that the average age of a fund manager is probably 35. This means that such a manager most likely came into business in 2016.
Do you understand? So, they have only seen the light since 2016. By the way, in 2016, the fund manager began his career in 2006. This means that if someone has 10 years of experience, their review does not cover other bubbles. For example, the average asset manager today did not manage money during the 2008 global financial crisis .
And the average asset manager today didn't work during the dot-com bubble. Instead, I followed the markets throughout this entire period. If you think there 's an AI bubble today , right? First of all, this is a common opinion. I've never seen a bubble where everyone around me thinks it's a bubble. Do you understand?
Think about this for a minute. If you all think it's a bubble, you're more likely not to blow it up because you believe it yourself. And I think that's why when I look at artificial intelligence, we have to take some measurements. ChatGPT was launched in 2023. So, we're in year 3 of innovation coming from artificial or superintelligence.
The public internet was launched, essentially, in 1994, right? And that's when mobile networks began to be built. Total costs for developing the Internet, mobile communications, and mobile devices in 2026 prices amounted to about 35 trillion. The cost of AI infrastructure is about 30 trillion, so it costs about the same.
That's the thing. Cisco's peak only occurred in 2000, okay? And between 1993 and 2000, Cisco shares fell by 50% twice. So, you were on the verge of total collapse twice. And I think today we are actually in 1997. I believe we are still far from a bubble. With that in mind , here's another thing to remember : wireless has evolved along an S-curve, growing exponentially over the past 25 years.
The peak of stocks occurred in the 10th year of the cycle. So I believe that in the AI cycle, even if it lasts 25 years, the peak of the bubble will probably be in 2033. Poll data shows how deep this concern runs. According to a September survey of fund managers by Bank of America, 170 managers managing about $470 billion ranked an AI bubble as the second- highest risk (28%) after the sharp jump in bond yields .
In July, this was noted by 45% of respondents. And the costs continue to rise . Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta, after reporting for the first quarter, forecast capital expenditures for 2026 at approximately $700 billion compared to $410 billion in 2025. Alphabet alone increased its budget for 2026 to $ 195–205 billion on July 22 .
If this is truly 1997 in the AI cycle, the story is worth knowing. The Nasdaq ended 1997 at around 1,570 points. It reached a peak of 5,048 points on March 10, 2000, which is more than three times higher. And that same month, Cisco briefly became the most valuable company in the world. Anyone who sold stocks in 1997 because they smelled a bubble missed out on the biggest growth phase.
Anyone who held them until 2002 lost most of their profits as the Nasdaq fell about 78% after its peak. Here's why it's important for your cryptocurrency. When AI stocks fall, cryptocurrency often sells along with them, as many of the same funds own both. If the AI cycle continues to grow and grow, the risk appetite that crypto is based on will not disappear.
The long investment horizon still leaves the difficult question of exactly which sectors of Wall Street this money will eventually circulate through. I think investors always like liquidity. They like to move assets cheaper and they value the information advantage. I believe that tokenization has a huge advantage.
Perhaps more importantly , I think there will be a role for tokenization that involves the deconstruction of the asset . For example, last week at the KBW conference, the company announced that it is allowing trading in Waymo shares , which are part of Google. This is a huge innovation happening in blockchain, and I believe it is something of a mass market.
I think people would like to be able to buy shares, for example, Elon Musk, they want to buy Starlink from SpaceX. They want to buy full autopilot from Tesla. And I think these are the things that can really expand the market. And how soon do you think other issuers will start joining? Right now, a lot of the demand is coming from asset managers, who I think are interested in this.
This is a way to access new capital. It is also a way to launch new types of products. What other components of the value chain do you think will join next? Well, I think we should remember that tokenization is a real disruption because you can tokenize almost everything a bank does. Is n't that right?
So, you're not just tokenizing assets, you're tokenizing all the functional services of the bank. So I understand why asset managers are embracing tokenization, because their fee model is not disrupted. It's just an asset management fee. But if a company makes money from capital expenditures , trust operations, or insurance, and in a tokenized world, you don't have to worry about that , I think that creates huge risks.
That's why, if you look at tokenization, the asset management world is embracing it, and Wall Street in general, I think, will be very slow. The infrastructure is being implemented into the system that Wall Street already operates on. DTCC, which clears and settles nearly every U.S. equity transaction, received approval from the SEC in December 2025 to tokenize Russell 1000 stocks, index ETFs, and Treasury bonds held in the depository.
The first limited “live” tokenized transactions took place on July 15, 2026, and the full launch of the service is scheduled for October 2026. Nasdaq received SEC approval in March 2026 to allow tokenized shares to trade on the same order book as regular shares. Now look at how much of the banking industry has already changed.
Two non- bank companies, Tether and Circle, issue roughly four out of five dollars worth of stablecoins : about 183 billion in USDT and about 74 billion in USDC, according to DeFi Llama. This is a deposit- type business, and banks do not own it. On September 1, 2026, 21 financial institutions, including Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Deutsche Bank, and UBS, announced plans to create a joint stablecoin company, scheduled to launch in the first half of 2027.
So, banks are reacting years after the pioneers. This leaves the obvious question about those who wait even longer. I think today, the IT director of the traditional financial sector faces an existential question. How many of you have heard of National Cash Register, NCR? They were giants in the mainframe world.
In 1980, they virtually controlled the computing industry . But they didn't switch to personal computers, you know ? How many of you have heard of MCI? They were giants in telecommunications, offering long distance calling and calling cards. They never switched to mobile technology and disappeared. I think many large financial institutions today, if they don't deploy crypto infrastructure or crypto strategy, will become the NCR and MCI of our era.
Do you still hear this in conversations on Wall Street? Are IT directors still challenging you? Or how has it changed in the last 18 months? Most people, investors, and companies consider crypto to be a niche because they can point to the current world where 99% of transactions occur on traditional financial rails.
I believe this bias regarding recent events will actually hold many back. The history of business is full of giants who sold the future early and still lost to it. A Kodak engineer named Steve Sasson created the first digital camera in 1975. Kodak filed for bankruptcy in January 2012. In 2000, Blockbuster had a chance to buy Netflix for about $50 million , but turned it down.
The company went bankrupt in 2010. This pattern repeats itself. The old business was too profitable to cannibalize, so the company waited, and when the numbers forced action, the new product already had customers. Some big names have already chosen sides. Morgan Stanley launched its own spot Bitcoin ETF on April 8, 2026, with a 0.14% fee— the lowest among all spot Bitcoin funds in the US.
JP Morgan has started accepting Bitcoin and Ether as collateral for loans to institutional clients. Summarize the following steps and you will start to see who is lining up for Bitmain. Put it all together and you get a picture different from the headlines. Bitmain is approaching its 5% mark and is buying significantly less than before.
So, the simple version is that Ethereum just lost its biggest buyer. Lee's argument is that this company was just a warm-up. The main event is the money that has barely started moving. A pool of liquid capital of $200 trillion. A private equity industry that has lagged behind the traditional index fund and a rulebook that now includes a US stablecoin law and an SEC exemption for on-chain trading of tokenized securities.
The infrastructure is being created in parallel. DTCC conducted its first real tokenized transactions in July. Nasdaq has received approval for tokenized shares. 21 banks are creating a joint stablecoin. Ondo sells tokenized access to a private AI company. Each of these projects is testing whether traditional assets will be settled on public blockchains , and Ethereum already has the largest share of tokenized assets available.
None of this guarantees an Ethereum price of $25,000 or $50,000, and Lee's prediction applies to the entire cycle without being tied to a date. ETH is still about 45% below its record. The Fed raised rates again in September, and Bitcoin failed to break above $ 87,000 in early October. Bitmain's departure also removes the steady demand that has supported the price for over a year.
The path will not be easy, but the answer to the question that began the video is there. When the largest corporate buyer of ETH is done with, more than one company will be the next buyer . These are institutions moving their assets, changing the rules step by step and launching pilots on the same rails that Bitmain put on.
If you want to put aside your fear and follow these changes in real time: institutional moves, ETF flows, and the actions of the largest ETH holder apocalyptic predictions, no noise, just important signal. So, .
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