Tom Lee Predicts $3M BTC — Hopium or Real Talk?

[khiholangkang]

In any case, I ask this question. What is a higher possibility occurrence, Ethereum will have a higher market capitalization than Bitcoin or Bitcoin will pump to $3 million?

I predict the scenario of ETH market cap surpassing BTC is more likely than Bitcoin surpassing to hit $3 million, as ETH has at least come close to doing so in the past. As for BTC hitting $3 million, I never even thought about it and don't believe it will happen in this century.

Bbitcoin has a lot of potential and adoption is still happening but that doesn't mean the potential and demand for bitcoin is limitless. Even an asset with practical applications and worldwide demand like gold has yet to reach a market capitalization of $60 trillion. To me, expecting a highly speculative asset like bitcoin to reach a market cap of 60 trillion is a bit too much.

Agreed. However, will either of these speculations really occur? This we cannot answer for certain. Both of them might not become a reality, I reckon.

@khiholangkang. I am not arguing that it is easy or it is for certain to occur, however, we cannot argue that Tom Lee appears to be on a mission to pump Ethereum to a high price where everyone said it will be impossible. If you are an altcoin holder, this should be good news because Ethereum will be the leading pumper of the market instead of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is going through a strangeness where a big dumper sells much coins that stops the pump.

Yes, we will never know what tomorrow will be like. No one can predict what will happen in the future, whatever it is, including whether I will still be alive next week. The argument arises from the mind, the heart that creates hope and sees what has happened with anomalous expectations that are close to the confidence approach from what has been read. Honestly, it seems impossible, but no one knows. Even 10 years ago, no one could have predicted today.

Yes, I should have altcoins that I bought. Of course, most people want a real altseason to happen in the market, but ETH is too slow in its adoption, it's not as expected. Some people like Tom Lee do that to increase interest from their fans.

I don't even believe in either of them. Although ETH's market cap has nearly caught up with Bitcoin in the past, it has never surpassed Bitcoin in its history, except for that damn Ripple coin that once beat BTC. By the way, reaching 3 million is very difficult at the moment, but it's not impossible in the future; we just need time.

If I remember correctly, XRP surpassed BTC in January 2018, and although that moment didn't last long. But think about it, even a lousy coin like XRP could surpass BTC in capitalization in 2018, the scenario of ETH surpassing BTC is much more feasible than bitcoin reaching $3 million.

As for bitcoin hitting $3 million, I won't believe it and won't rush to think about it until bitcoin hits $1 million. Bitcoin is even further away from the 1 million target and no one knows when that will happen, let alone the 3 million target, that's too vague.

the past, from the strength of the community and also the current adoption strength regarding Bitcoin, it is very contrasting, and it is necessary to measure that ETH is very difficult to catch up considering that ETH's capitalization must increase five times again to catch up, but unfortunately, getting even 2x from its ATH is very difficult.

[bbc.reporter]

@khiholangkang. However, we should be certainly honest with ourselves and ask if adoption is really needed for the price of a cryptocoin to pump to very high prices that we have not witnessed before. Ask yourself, is it really adoption that caused the pump on bitcoin to be more than $100k? I would be shaking my head if you said yes on this because this is a lie. Adoption on bitcoin is also slow. It was Michael Saylor who was pumping bitcoin on much of this bull market while there are others who used him as exit liquidity.

[Marvell1]

@khiholangkang. However, we should be certainly honest with ourselves and ask if adoption is really needed for the price of a cryptocoin to pump to very high prices that we have not witnessed before. Ask yourself, is it really adoption that caused the pump on bitcoin to be more than $100k? I would be shaking my head if you said yes on this because this is a lie. Adoption on bitcoin is also slow. It was Michael Saylor who was pumping bitcoin on much of this bull market while there are others who used him as exit liquidity.

Bitcoin adoption is indeed essential, but Bitcoin's rapid rise to $100k and higher ATHs this year is not the result of Bitcoin adoption but the result of speculation and manipulation from Wall Street. To put it bluntly, Wall Street is the one who can manipulate and dictate the price of bitcoin, and once they can do it with bitcoin. They can do the same with ETH or any altcoin, it's a matter of whether they want to or not. If they want to push ETH to surpass bitcoin, no one can stop them from doing so, and it's not that hard for ETH either.

Cryptocurrency remains a highly speculative financial market.

[M47AK16]

Bitcoin adoption is indeed essential, but Bitcoin's rapid rise to $100k and higher ATHs this year is not the result of Bitcoin adoption but the result of speculation and manipulation from Wall Street. To put it bluntly, Wall Street is the one who can manipulate and dictate the price of bitcoin, and once they can do it with bitcoin. They can do the same with ETH or any altcoin, it's a matter of whether they want to or not. If they want to push ETH to surpass bitcoin, no one can stop them from doing so, and it's not that hard for ETH either.

Cryptocurrency remains a highly speculative financial market.

The 112k is really not that easy to handle for most people because it was a sudden drop and people were not ready for it. But it's fine and we are not going to be in trouble for long if we can sustain a bit longer without going lower.

We should be able to actually do fine, and if we can do that then we are going to end up with a better result. Of course it's not going to be that easy, but it can make sure that we are dealing with some holding during these corrections and if we can do that, then the price will recover anyways. So 3+ million is not impossible neither, not right now of course but as long as it keeps going up, then we are going to see it and not going to face that much trouble about it and can do it.

[STT]

Tom Lee relates this use of crypto as being a 1971 moment which is where gold stopped being used as currency backing in a direct way.  So he thinks crypto is about to take over from Dollar in substantial ways due to innovation being required as Dollar is no longer the currency it once was.
   He thinks there is a cross over from the banking sector which true enough is gigantic and has much benefitted from Dollar being the way it is, then he thinks AI relates to contracts over crypto and this is to verify security or authority of operations and transactions I presume.

If all of that were true at least in potential then it makes alot more sense then the high estimates by themselves, not just purely speculation but a build of detail and movement in business.   A cross over between banking and technology sectors is already true to some extent, if an increasing trend then that is a massive change fair enough but its not proven yet.

[stadus]

We gotta give respect to this guy since he predicted it right when he said Bitcoin would hit $150k. It hasn’t reached that yet, but it’s realistic now as we’re already close. His new prediction is higher, and we’re kinda in the same price range as when he first called that $150k if I’m not mistaken.

I’m bullish so I believe in him. That means at the current price there’s still a lot of room for growth if we just hold until it happens.

[DanWalker]

We gotta give respect to this guy since he predicted it right when he said Bitcoin would hit $150k. It hasn’t reached that yet, but it’s realistic now as we’re already close. His new prediction is higher, and we’re kinda in the same price range as when he first called that $150k if I’m not mistaken.

I’m bullish so I believe in him. That means at the current price there’s still a lot of room for growth if we just hold until it happens.

If you believe in his prediction, you should also invest in ETH quickly. Because he has recently turned bullish on ETH, he thinks ETH will be able to hit $16k or if the market is more bullish $30k this cycle, as well as ETH will surpass bitcoin's market cap. Because according to him, ETH has more practical applications than bitcoin.

Although he made an extremely optimistic prediction about bitcoin that the price could reach $3 million. But his company BitMine is focused on an ETH accumulation strategy and their long-term goal is to hold 5% of the ETH supply, not bitcoin.

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/08/18/bitmine-s-ether-holdings-top-usd6-6b-stock-slides-7-alongside-eth-s-tumble

[free-bit.co.in]

Sort of hopium, but also on the long run, of course it will happen. If we look at the next 20 years or 30 years, is it impossible to reach 3 million? I would say it will eventually happen. We just need to make sure that we can handle this for the long term. This isn't really that complicated, we are going to face a ton of issues if we are not careful, and because of that we are going to end up with a lot better results.

This isn't really a bad take, we can make it work, we just need to handle all this waiting period. Because waiting is the hardest part, and we have more milestones until then. We broke over 100k recently, we need 250k, then 500k, and then 1 million and waiting for those is already hard for many people.

No one knows what will happen in the future so you can say whatever you want and no one can judge you.
But in reality, the value of bitcoin will depend on the world's demand for it. And in my opinion, if it can only serve as an investment and the need for it stops there, and it cannot be widely applied and used beyond investment demand. It will never even surpass gold, let alone reach a market capitalization of $60 trillion and be larger than gold.

Just because bitcoin can reach $100k and a market cap of $2 trillion, doesn't mean it's limitless and will reach whatever price people think it will.

[FinneysTrueVision]

Tom Lee’s entire personality is all about being ultra bullish on Bitcoin and now ETH. He can say something crazy and eventually he will end up being right, even if it takes 10 or more years. He is wrong 99% of the time when he makes a short-term prediction, but if you leave it open-ended, he can make himself look like a genius in the future and keep getting attention from the media. He's a very good salesman, similar to Michael Saylor, and that is why he is leading the largest Ethereum treasury company.

[dezoel]

If you believe in his prediction, you should also invest in ETH quickly. Because he has recently turned bullish on ETH, he thinks ETH will be able to hit $16k or if the market is more bullish $30k this cycle, as well as ETH will surpass bitcoin's market cap. Because according to him, ETH has more practical applications than bitcoin.

Although he made an extremely optimistic prediction about bitcoin that the price could reach $3 million. But his company BitMine is focused on an ETH accumulation strategy and their long-term goal is to hold 5% of the ETH supply, not bitcoin.

While I never liked Tom Lee, and believe that he is way too bullish, even for me, I do not think that one has to be right about everything. He could be right about bitcoin and wrong about eth, or wrong about bitcoin and right about eth. I honestly believe he is wrong about both, we are not getting to those numbers on this bull run, we may hit on the next bull run or even the one after that who knows.

But the difference is obvious, ETH peaked near 5k already, but lets say 4k, it's x4 to reach 16k, and even if we take 30k, that is about x8, even less, so about x7 increase. Whereas, bitcoin reaching 3 million is literally x25 increase, even x30, so that is not really the same thing. ETH may actually happen, whereas bitcoin still has long way to go.

[JeffBrad12]

Real talk for the long term.

Tom Lee himself now putting a lot more attention to ETH, even saying it will be the future of finance.
Realistically if we're talking for real, bitcoin will DEFINITELY reach $3m at some point. It's obvious with how M2 supply keep climbing make deflationary nature of bitcoin even more deflationary, it only matters when.

This kind of thing is like saying an obvious thing that most certainly will happen in the future, like saying you gonna be hungry the next day. No shit, Sherlock.

[free-bit.co.in]

Tom Lee himself now putting a lot more attention to ETH, even saying it will be the future of finance.

Finance is not just about investing and storing value, it is much broader than that. So to be fair, what he said is not wrong as the ETH ecosystem is vast and diverse with smart contracts, defi, Dapps and thousands of projects like Aave and Chainlink. These are essential elements for the modern financial system that the world is moving towards. Things that the bitcoin ecosystem does not and cannot provide.

Realistically if we're talking for real, bitcoin will DEFINITELY reach $3m at some point. It's obvious with how M2 supply keep climbing make deflationary nature of bitcoin even more deflationary, it only matters when.

This kind of thing is like saying an obvious thing that most certainly will happen in the future, like saying you gonna be hungry the next day. No shit, Sherlock.

If we are honest and realistic, we need to know that the future is unpredictable and bitcoin price reaching $3 million is really a pipe dream, not realistic.

It is not wrong to say that increasing M2 supply will lead to an increase in bitcoin price, but it is important to know that the economy's money flow will not only focus on bitcoin but also on gold, real estate, stocks...Therefore, it would be naive to think that M2 will increase and money will just flow into bitcoin and help it reach millions of dollars.