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

[bbc.reporter]

It appears that one of our favorite chinamen named Tom Lee has made another prediction and this time this is on Ethereum. He has predicted that this will pump to $16k for 2025. However, I am very skeptical because Tom Lee is also one of the investors behind Bitmine which has become a digital asset treasury company where they copy the strategy of Michael Saylor for Microstrategy. However for Tom Lee's Bitmine, this is buying Ethereum to hold in their treasury.

Is Tom Lee on shilling Ethereum or will this really pump to $16k because of Bitmine's purchases from the market?



Tom Lee referred to a new presentation by Sean Farrell, Fundstrat’s head of digital asset strategy. Farrell’s analysis suggests Ethereum could reach $16,000 if it regains its 2017 ETH/BTC ratio peak of 0.14. While Tom Lee mentioned that this peak was in 2021, it actually occurred in 2017.

Read in full https://thecryptobasic.com/2025/08/07/tom-lee-believes-ethereum-could-reach-16000/

[OgNasty]

Tom Lee has definitely caught the Ethereum bug. You can tell that is where he has bet his money and it is his main focus. He isn’t shy about saying that he thinks Ethereum will be a better investment return over the next few years. A lot of Wall Street likes yield, so I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he is correct, but Bitcoin is still the best.

[BALIK]

Is Tom Lee on shilling Ethereum or will this really pump to $16k because of Bitmine's purchases from the market?

Sure, he is shilling ETH, but I agree with his prediction more than his prediction about bitcoin.

Many bitcoin maximalists will not like this prediction but as a crypto investor I agree with his prediction. ETH hitting $16k is much more likely and feasible than Bitcoin hitting $3 million (which I don't believe will happen).

Not only Tom Lee and Bitmine, but the demand for ETH has also skyrocketed as ETFs inflows into ETH have far outpaced BTC in the past 2 weeks. ETH price increase is inevitable, it is just a matter of time and it will not be surprising if it gives better returns than BTC.

[bangjoe]

It appears that one of our favorite chinamen named Tom Lee has made another prediction and this time this is on Ethereum. He has predicted that this will pump to $16k for 2025. However, I am very skeptical because Tom Lee is also one of the investors behind Bitmine which has become a digital asset treasury company where they copy the strategy of Michael Saylor for Microstrategy. However for Tom Lee's Bitmine, this is buying Ethereum to hold in their treasury.

Is Tom Lee on shilling Ethereum or will this really pump to $16k because of Bitmine's purchases from the market?



Tom Lee referred to a new presentation by Sean Farrell, Fundstrat’s head of digital asset strategy. Farrell’s analysis suggests Ethereum could reach $16,000 if it regains its 2017 ETH/BTC ratio peak of 0.14. While Tom Lee mentioned that this peak was in 2021, it actually occurred in 2017.

Read in full https://thecryptobasic.com/2025/08/07/tom-lee-believes-ethereum-could-reach-16000/

This is clearly a lot of new news about Bitcoin and ETH, however the media encouragement helps people to be confident, more and more people preach bullish encouragement to the market, the more retail and institutions enter into this market will boost accumulation on BTC and ETH, even though we cannot measure how much the words are, but this shows that the current media shows the current explosion of the market at the end of this cycle.

Not only Tom Lee is in addition, traders, influencers and institutions also speak up with market optimism which will continue to surge into the parabolic zone of the increase.

[bbc.reporter]

Is Tom Lee on shilling Ethereum or will this really pump to $16k because of Bitmine's purchases from the market?

Sure, he is shilling ETH, but I agree with his prediction more than his prediction about bitcoin.

Many bitcoin maximalists will not like this prediction but as a crypto investor I agree with his prediction. ETH hitting $16k is much more likely and feasible than Bitcoin hitting $3 million (which I don't believe will happen).

Not only Tom Lee and Bitmine, but the demand for ETH has also skyrocketed as ETFs inflows into ETH have far outpaced BTC in the past 2 weeks. ETH price increase is inevitable, it is just a matter of time and it will not be surprising if it gives better returns than BTC.

However, if we make an assumption that the pump on Bitcoin moves more slowly than Ethereum's pump to $16k, this might cause an occurrence that the people on social media call the flippening. This implies that Ethereum will have a bigger market capitalization than Bitcoin.

Do you agree that Ethereum will have a bigger market capitalization than Bitcoin is more possible than Bitcoin to pump to $3 million?

[Marvell1]

However, if we make an assumption that the pump on Bitcoin moves more slowly than Ethereum's pump to $16k, this might cause an occurrence that the people on social media call the flippening. This implies that Ethereum will have a bigger market capitalization than Bitcoin.

Do you agree that Ethereum will have a bigger market capitalization than Bitcoin is more possible than Bitcoin to pump to $3 million?

ETH is trading at around $4k7 and ETH's current market cap is $574 billion. If ETH hits $16k, that would mean its market cap would be $1.9 trillion. Meanwhile, bitcoin's market cap is currently $2.4 trillion and could continue to rise higher if bitcoin hits $150k this cycle. It can be concluded that ETH capitalization cannot surpass Bitcoin even if it reaches $16k.

ETH has never surpassed BTC but it came close in 2017 when its market cap was $34 billion while bitcoin was $41 billion. So we shouldn't be surprised if it happens again.


https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20170618/

[Mahanton]

Is Tom Lee on shilling Ethereum or will this really pump to $16k because of Bitmine's purchases from the market?

Sure, he is shilling ETH, but I agree with his prediction more than his prediction about bitcoin.

Many bitcoin maximalists will not like this prediction but as a crypto investor I agree with his prediction. ETH hitting $16k is much more likely and feasible than Bitcoin hitting $3 million (which I don't believe will happen).

Not only Tom Lee and Bitmine, but the demand for ETH has also skyrocketed as ETFs inflows into ETH have far outpaced BTC in the past 2 weeks. ETH price increase is inevitable, it is just a matter of time and it will not be surprising if it gives better returns than BTC.

However, if we make an assumption that the pump on Bitcoin moves more slowly than Ethereum's pump to $16k, this might cause an occurrence that the people on social media call the flippening. This implies that Ethereum will have a bigger market capitalization than Bitcoin.

Do you agree that Ethereum will have a bigger market capitalization than Bitcoin is more possible than Bitcoin to pump to $3 million?

Flippening was already been that long time talks whenever we are near on bull run on which there are tons of speculations around like this and that on which it will be causing up for you to have that kind of confusion on where you should be that investing but it will be just that depending on you because if we do speak about investment choices and preferences then you are the ones will be making out such decision and make it sure that you wont be that regreting it out. $3M per coin? Even thinking for $1m would be already hard, how much moreo n $3M? There are just that those times that these speculations and predictions it turned out to be that too much on which it will be that causing up that kind of criticisms but since we are dealing up with speculative market so any predictions will always be considered valid. On dealing up with a speculative market then we do always have those numbers that would be that go beyond the roof. Some people do think positively and some are just that having some baselines when they are trying out to speculate on what are the potential prices that the market would be able to hit up. Hopium? We are always that being hopeful specially into those who are that planning to hold up for long term then it will be having no issues when it comes into this aspect. You are the ones will be whether taking up these predictions or not, some are just that being highly reactive and there are those who dont care up that much because we do have our own insights and previews on how this market could possibly be able to achieve. There's no way that we can be able to predict on where it would be going but basing up into its potential then we can at least have the idea on where it could potentially projected. Its just that there are really those numbers that being that too far off or already that too much on just that simply unrealistic.

[JeffBrad12]

Tom Lee has definitely caught the Ethereum bug. You can tell that is where he has bet his money and it is his main focus. He isn’t shy about saying that he thinks Ethereum will be a better investment return over the next few years. A lot of Wall Street likes yield, so I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he is correct, but Bitcoin is still the best.

Ethereum and Bitcoin is not an either/or proposition for many in the market, including Tom Lee. Lee himself supports both, calling Bitcoin "digital gold" while seeing Ethereum as the engine of the digital economy. The current market dynamic reflects this, with significant institutional inflows into both Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs. While the "flippening" (Ethereum's market cap surpassing Bitcoin's) remains a talking point, both cryptocurrencies are attracting massive capital, driven by their distinct value propositions

Unfortunately many people can't see this.
Both coin can attract massive inflow while not eating each other's market share. BTC market cap can grow up alongside the altcoins and as a result the crypto market become bigger.
Too bad people are too focused on the flippening thinking as if the capital just gonna stagnate and it's all about war of market share.

[fuguebtc]

Tom Lee has definitely caught the Ethereum bug. You can tell that is where he has bet his money and it is his main focus. He isn’t shy about saying that he thinks Ethereum will be a better investment return over the next few years. A lot of Wall Street likes yield, so I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he is correct, but Bitcoin is still the best.

No, he is not attracted to ETH, but he is attracted to bigger profits and he knows clearly what will give him better profits. Likewise, Wall Street's goal when entering this market is also profit. I even believe that after ETH they will propose and bring a bunch of other altcoins to Wall Street. They will not only focus on ETH but also on many other altcoins in the near future, this is almost certain and we should not be surprised about that.

While Bitcoin is still the best and most trusted coin on the market, it is no secret that ETH will provide better returns in the next few years. Because this has happened in the past and if I remember correctly during the bull season of 2017 and 2021 ETH returns always outperformed BTC.

[STT]

I watch Tom Lee regularly, I rate him as fairly realistic and balanced though this whole year he has been bullish but mostly that is correct attitude.   I dont think he is faking or skin deep on his interest in crypto or like an investment bank saying one thing doing another but obviously his motivation is money thats the game he is in and its never great to over play your hand tbh.

[Leahized]

Bitcoin at 3 million gonna happen regardless whether you believe it or not because how the tradfi works is that it needs inflation which equates to printing money.

I don't understand these concepts very well. However, I want to say that it would take Bitcoin a while to reach $ 3 million. It cannot be done overnight. I don't expect Bitcoin to reach even 1 million before 2030. We may expect Bitcoin to reach 1 million dollars after 2030. Miracles might happen, and we may reach 1 million dollars before 2030, but let's stay in reality.

Yes, it is true that the price that Bitcoin is predicting, will not be implemented very quickly. However, it is not possible to say that Bitcoin will reach 1M before 2030. In January 2021, CZ Binance said Bitcoin would arrive at 1 million but it would never be possible to say exactly when it would happen. Moreover, he was saying, it may take years. But at present, it is never possible to say that based on the situation, Bitcoin will retire next. Yes, it is just the current effect of war flows on Crypto Market. However, we will never be disappointed, we always have to think long -term thoughts.

[bbc.reporter]

However, if we make an assumption that the pump on Bitcoin moves more slowly than Ethereum's pump to $16k, this might cause an occurrence that the people on social media call the flippening. This implies that Ethereum will have a bigger market capitalization than Bitcoin.

Do you agree that Ethereum will have a bigger market capitalization than Bitcoin is more possible than Bitcoin to pump to $3 million?

ETH is trading at around $4k7 and ETH's current market cap is $574 billion. If ETH hits $16k, that would mean its market cap would be $1.9 trillion. Meanwhile, bitcoin's market cap is currently $2.4 trillion and could continue to rise higher if bitcoin hits $150k this cycle. It can be concluded that ETH capitalization cannot surpass Bitcoin even if it reaches $16k.

ETH has never surpassed BTC but it came close in 2017 when its market cap was $34 billion while bitcoin was $41 billion. So we shouldn't be surprised if it happens again.


https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20170618/

You are correct, however, there is an occurrence during a bull market where Bitcoin will not pump very much highly and Ethereum and the other altcoins are pumping more. This causes Ethereum and the other cryptocoins to gain more market capitalization than Bitcoin and it would appear that people would begin to speculate if Bitcoin will be dethroned from slot no.1.

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?

[Emitdama]

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.

[el kaka22]

I would say in 2025 part is the wrong one. I mean surely ETH will become 16k one day, just not sure when, it may take a few years at least, but if he keeps getting more and more of it, while also holding, then it would make sense and it should not be a bad deal at all. I am sure that we are going to end up seeing the price go up, and because he is getting more, he is going to get richer as well.

We should assume that the best thing for companies is to save their money on the side with bitcoin or ethereum so that they could get a much better result. It should not be that complicated, we could make this work, we just need to arrange something that would not be all that complicated, and they can definitely do make it work, simply just use whatever cash you have on the side, to btc or eth.

[lionheart78]

ETH is trading at around $4k7 and ETH's current market cap is $574 billion. If ETH hits $16k, that would mean its market cap would be $1.9 trillion. Meanwhile, bitcoin's market cap is currently $2.4 trillion and could continue to rise higher if bitcoin hits $150k this cycle. It can be concluded that ETH capitalization cannot surpass Bitcoin even if it reaches $16k.

Theoretically, ETH can surpass Bitcoin market cap if its reach $16k  all it needs is Bitcoin to crash to less than 70% of its current price.  In reality, the question would be whether ETH will hit $16k, we know that the Bitcoin market can crash to less than 50% of its ATH price during a bear market.  So it is a bit complicated to think that ETH will surpass BTC in terms of market cap because the scenario would need Bitcoin market crash and ETH reaching $16k to happen at the same time.

About Tom Lee Prediction of $3m per BTC... I believe many of us think that it is a hopium for now...

[bbc.reporter]

I would say in 2025 part is the wrong one. I mean surely ETH will become 16k one day, just not sure when, it may take a few years at least, but if he keeps getting more and more of it, while also holding, then it would make sense and it should not be a bad deal at all. I am sure that we are going to end up seeing the price go up, and because he is getting more, he is going to get richer as well.

We should assume that the best thing for companies is to save their money on the side with bitcoin or ethereum so that they could get a much better result. It should not be that complicated, we could make this work, we just need to arrange something that would not be all that complicated, and they can definitely do make it work, simply just use whatever cash you have on the side, to btc or eth.

Tom Lee is making predictions and declarations on something where he can borrow billions of American dollars and use his company's stock as collateral and pump the cryptocoin where he has made his predictions.

This might not only be an empty declaration from Tom Lee. This might be a mission to create an occurrence where ETH will threaten bitcoin's no.1 slot in market capitalization hehehe.

[Marvell1]

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.

[khiholangkang]

I would say in 2025 part is the wrong one. I mean surely ETH will become 16k one day, just not sure when, it may take a few years at least, but if he keeps getting more and more of it, while also holding, then it would make sense and it should not be a bad deal at all. I am sure that we are going to end up seeing the price go up, and because he is getting more, he is going to get richer as well.

We should assume that the best thing for companies is to save their money on the side with bitcoin or ethereum so that they could get a much better result. It should not be that complicated, we could make this work, we just need to arrange something that would not be all that complicated, and they can definitely do make it work, simply just use whatever cash you have on the side, to btc or eth.

Tom Lee is making predictions and declarations on something where he can borrow billions of American dollars and use his company's stock as collateral and pump the cryptocoin where he has made his predictions.

This might not only be an empty declaration from Tom Lee. This might be a mission to create an occurrence where ETH will threaten bitcoin's no.1 slot in market capitalization hehehe.

It's impossible to beat BTC. No matter how hard Tom Lee tries, it won't be able to propel ETH to the top spot. That's a joke.
Given that BTC is already established and its mass adoption continues to grow, it's impossible for ETH to catch up.

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.

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.

[bbc.reporter]

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.

[Marvell1]

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.