저자: TomLee · 외국인
요약 보기
AI 에이전트·머신 경제가 3년 내 실현될 확률이 거의 100%이며, 이를 위해 탈중앙 결제 인프라(이더리움)가 필수라고 주장. 최근 암호화폐 부진은 2025년 10월 10일 이후 디레버리징과 AI 쪽으로의 자금 쏠림 때문이며 펀더멘털은 유효. 이더리움은 현재 저평가 상태이고 장기적으로 수조 달러 규모 네트워크 가치로 성장할 수 있다는 견해. 메모리 반도체는 실적 성장이 강해 과열이 아니라는 입장.
다듬은 글
Well, and the next step after that, of course, would be commerce between agents or machines, you know, meaning millions of machines, right. I mean, the probability of all three of these things happening in the next three years is close to 100%. Yeah, but the infrastructure doesn't exist today to handle all of that, because if you have machine-to-machine interaction and delegated authority, you can't rely on Amazon to control the robot, you know, because suddenly Amazon would essentially start controlling an entire population of workers.
You know, you need democracy among these agent Ethereum's network value currently hovering around $216 billion amid market disappointment and low price performance, Fundstrat's Tom Lee argues that the asset is significantly undervalued as investors focus on short-term price swings rather than long-term infrastructure growth.
Beneath the surface of cryptocurrencies’ recent struggles to compete with AI stocks, fundamental adoption continues to accelerate thanks to record- high usage of stablecoins, institutional development, tokenization of real assets, and the emergence of AI-powered autonomous economic agents. According to Lee, AI and blockchain technology are becoming deeply intertwined, making Ethereum a necessary financial foundation for the coming multi-trillion dollar cycle, during which trillions of dollars of assets will move onto the network.
Well, you know, if you asked me a year ago if AI stocks were going to go up a lot and if software was going to go up, and if there was a war going on, I would have said those three things should be good for crypto, right? Actually, yes. True. Because we would say: well, yes, AI is clearly useful for crypto, because crypto will be important for a future where agents rule.
And we would say that crypto stocks correlate with software because it's digital money, right? Money, software, money and software performed well , while crypto performed poorly. And, you know, in war situations, we should expect gold and Bitcoin to perform well. But instead, as you noted, the crypto performed very poorly.
Oh, and gold also showed itself to be quite weak. Uh, I think, uh... I think this points me to a few things. First of all, I think crypto still hasn't recovered from October 10th because that's when the industry crashed and I think there was such a strong depersonalization of borrowing that it wiped out a lot of people.
I mean, I just think people lost money and can't get it back. Well, and it takes time because people need to rebuild their savings. Well, and I think the second thing is that Cash Flow doesn't explain why stocks go up. Because if that were the case, gold should be rising in price because people are worried about war and have a lot of cash on hand that should be kept in safe assets.
Instead, I think investors buy everything that grows because there is a lack of yield. Agree. So AI stocks are going up, memory is going up, and it's an efficient way to invest because you're not getting any income anywhere else. Well, both yes and no. I mean, I've spent half my career studying technology, and for me, the history of AI technology is decades long, we see use cases and the infrastructure that needs to be built.
We see that companies that are in short supply of resources, such as supplies, memory, and energy, sell what they have in limited quantities. These stocks are performing great because their earnings are growing. So I don't think it's irrational. Mhm. But you're right in the sense that AI...if you buy AI, you should buy the whole ecosystem, but people are only buying what's missing right now.
Yes. Right. Agree. That's right. Yes, I think if that's what you're talking about, then I agree. That's actually a great question, and I was just working on it last night. Because I still write a lot of research for our projects. I think if you look at the AI roadmap for the next three years, a few things become pretty obvious.
First, we delegate authority to agents to become our economic representatives. They will interact with sites, have their own wallets, and make payments—that's guaranteed, because today they can work with travel sites and use your account, but we will give them more power. I think the autonomous capabilities of robots and cars will increase significantly.
If you think about robots, this means that they will soon have warehousing skills that surpass those of humans. Of course. But it also means that robots can autonomously start constructing entire buildings, meaning they can do the construction for us. Then cars will become much more functional, and the next step, of course, will be commerce between agents or between machines, right?
So all this is like a million cars, right? I mean, the probability of all three of these things happening in the next three years is about 100%. Yes. But today there is still no infrastructure capable of supporting all this . Because if there is machine interaction and delegated authority, you can't rely on Amazon to control the robot, because suddenly Amazon will essentially control an entire population of workers.
You see, there needs to be a kind of democracy among these agents. Well, there will be two approaches, right ? Someone will want to control everything. So there will be a company that will try to set communication standards for all robots, because a courier robot is not the one that drives a car. Yes.
And this is not the one who has the payment system in the restaurant. And it will be a centralized solution, but someone can hack it, or that company can become "hacked." Then I think the other way, of course, is to create a desire in people for an anonymous level of trust, and that's essentially what blockchain is, right?
So, I think those are going to be the two approaches that people will take. I do n't know which one will win. I would say that everyone except a monopolist would probably want a decentralized solution. Well, you were also involved in hype, right? Hype. Ahem. I think it shows that crypto models that look like corporations are performing well , you know, have an economic model.
Yes. You can use math to figure out how much it will cost in a few years, right? Yes. But one problem is that it doesn't explain —as in the world of stocks, where I've spent most of my 35 years—what exactly makes most stocks go up. In other words, crypto and people's belief that protocols that only have a commission model or a burn model are the ones that are growing.
This is not really the world of the stock market, because in fact, for example, over the last 20 years, the Korean stock market has had probably some of the best returns and margins, but it has been a crappy market so far. Yes. And in the US, profitability indicators are not always the best , but stocks are growing strongly.
For example, Apple did not have significant earnings growth, but its shares rose sharply. So, it shows you that if you want to look at value capitalization, well, models like units and " burn-in," that's a convenient way to think about how things should be valued, but I can tell you that in my 35 years, that's not how stocks are valued .
Tom Lee argues that the recent disappointment in the crypto market is not caused by weak fundamentals, but rather by the lingering psychological and financial effects of the brutal deleveraging process, combined with an aggressive capital flow into assets that yield quick returns, such as artificial intelligence.
Despite Ethereum's continued underperformance relative to Bitcoin, Lee believes its fundamental thesis remains unchanged, driven not so much by diminishing utility as by a temporary market gap while the major cryptocatalysts mature. Looking ahead, he identifies three structural forces that will fundamentally rethink Ethereum’s long-term value.
The rise of AI-powered machine economies, the widespread tokenization of traditional financial markets, and the growing global need for decentralized trust are ultimately laying the groundwork for a massive re-evaluation in the future. Well, for example, stocks of memory companies that have performed very well, they have good revenue visibility.
I mean, earnings growth is strong, but historically they've traded at low multiples because it's a notoriously cyclical industry. Mhm. So, in reality, at the peak of prices, the P/ E ratio should be the lowest, and the memory cycle is so expensive that you can lose more money during a downturn than you can make during a boom.
But what everyone is trying to figure out now is that perhaps the cycle is different because there is a structural new need for memory that didn't exist before, and that's why stocks may be overvalued. Hmm, I mean, if someone is pessimistic about technological progress, yes. I think they should take a step back, imagine if someone said to go back 1,000 years, or no, go through the entire history of American civilization.
Good. And every era of innovation, whether it's the industrial revolution or the agricultural revolution. Now it's like, there was the silicon revolution, and now we have the AI revolution, imagine if someone's conclusion was that this would lead to a great depression every time, you 'd say, wait, you want everyone to stay in the stone age, right?
Well, I mean, in general I think people are wrong, I think AI is probably most likely to bring about enormous prosperity. I agree. than huge losses, yes. I agree. Well, yes. I mean, you... Well, you know, I think there are a few ways to look at it. There is the price of Ethereum itself relative to the dollar, you know, this is fundamental growth.
Yes. Or the price of Ethereum relative to Bitcoin. Well, in both cases, things did n't go very well. And, um, I think part of the reason it has n't performed better than Bitcoin is because the narrative around Ethereum is in a state of transition right now . Uh , because there was this story a year ago where investors and cryptocurrency holders were excited about Ethereum because they saw the foundation's renewed focus on engaging with businesses, you know, and it was like...
the Ethereum Foundation was trying to, uh, you know, do things that were supposed to drive up the price of Ethereum. And, uh, but I think there's been some blurring of the narrative over the last year because, first of all, other protocols have done well with some notable wins , like Canton and, uh, Solana.
And I think the Ethereum Foundation is doing the right thing, uh, narrowing their role, you know, they're in the process of restructuring or streamlining. Uh, but this narrowing of focus only adds to the confusion among people who own Ethereum. However, I don't think these things really make Ethereum any less valuable.
I think, for that matter , uh, you know, it just shows that the crypto market, the narrative for the whole crypto market in general wasn't the best, right? Because Bitcoin has performed poorly. And in many ways this happened after October 10. Therefore, I believe that investor capital flows have reversed.
And I think the story of AI is perhaps even further into the future than people expect. And the story with tokenization, it's still very relevant , because stablecoins are showing good results, uh, banks are experimenting, but we haven't seen a significant transfer of real-world financial services activity to blockchain yet.
Perhaps this will happen after the passage of the Clarity Act. But this means that the reason Ethereum has lagged somewhat in performance is actually not as much about the fund's performance as people think. This is more because the two pillars of this story, AI and tokenization, may be a little further away from us than people thought.
I think, uh, I think the Ethereum story is based on three pillars. The first one is, uh, I think that in the future people will really value neutrality and decentralization. That's going to be a virtue, uh, because they don't want a blockchain that only has seven nodes, or it only works in one country, or, you know, there are two individuals or two organizations that own 30% of the network, you know?
Because this is not a decentralized protocol. Um, and especially, you know, it's going to be important when machines are interacting with each other, I think people are going to want to have some influence on finality, and that's where blockchains are going to become important, because you don't want any one company to control that.
The second is tokenization. I mean, it's not even discussed. Everything that happens in the financial system today can be implemented more efficiently on the blockchain, but all customers still use traditional financial rails, right? Well, you know, it's not going to happen overnight , but I think the third story that's very positive for Ethereum is that it's been around for so long, and the Lindy effect—it's a strong argument that it's time for the industry to organize to complement what the foundation is doing.
And I think it's really the only blockchain that's mature enough and collaborative enough to be capable of doing that. You know, that didn't happen with Bitcoin, and no other blockchain has lasted more than 11 years except it. So Tom Lee's main thesis is that current markets are driven by short-term emotions rather than future economic realities, leading investors to favor instant winners in AI while ignoring the underlying infrastructure needed for the next digital era.
As autonomous AI agents begin to independently transact and negotiate, neutral decentralized settlement layers become indispensable, which, combined with the expansion of stablecoin use, institutional finance migration, and tokenization of real assets, suggests that Ethereum’s long-term potential far exceeds today’s market cap.
While implementation will slow due to institutional caution, regulatory evolution, and changing narratives, Lee emphasizes that these structural delays only delay market acceptance, not disprove the thesis itself. Ultimately, he sees this period of underperformance not as the end, but as a quiet preparation for the next “ crypto spring,” when today’s valuations may seem impressively small over time as Ethereum’s network value potentially grows into the trillions.
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