Tom Lee is making a big call on crypto markets: the next 12 months could be “really bullish.” Coming from the Wall Street strategist, the prediction is notable. It is also complicated by the fact that the company he chairs is sitting on billions of dollars in unrealized losses.
Lee leads research at Fundstrat Global Advisors and chairs BitMine Immersion Technologies, which currently holds 5.93 million ether.
His case for a stronger year ahead starts with something that already happened: one of the ugliest episodes of forced selling in recent crypto history.
Why Tom Lee thinks crypto markets have already taken the hit
Lee points to October 10 of last year, when a threat of 100% tariffs on China triggered a historic wave of liquidations. More than $19 billion in leveraged positions disappeared in a single day.
His interpretation is that much of the excess borrowed capital has already been washed out. He also believes crypto is approaching the bottom of a four-year market cycle, which he expects to arrive next month.
Prices, however, still look bruised compared with their recent peaks.
Bitcoin was trading around $77,315, roughly 39% below its record above $126,000 set shortly before the October crash. Ether, meanwhile, had gained 3.2% over 24 hours to about $2,533.
Lee delivered his outlook in an interview with Wealthion, saying: “I think it’s going to be a really bullish period for crypto for the next 12 months.”
That prediction rests on more than a market-cycle thesis. Lee sees another potential source of demand in one of the crypto industry’s favorite institutional ideas: tokenization.
The trillion-dollar theory behind the crypto markets forecast
Tokenization means putting traditional assets such as stocks, bonds and funds onto blockchains. The pitch is straightforward: move financial assets onto newer infrastructure instead of relying entirely on the slower back-office systems that underpin conventional markets.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has argued that essentially every asset can be tokenized.
Lee takes that idea and pushes it into enormous territory. His calculation assumes $100 trillion worth of assets eventually move on chain. At a 1% revenue take, that would produce about $1.1 trillion in annual income.
Apply a conventional business valuation, Lee argues, and the opportunity could be worth roughly $20 trillion.
There is an important catch: the assets actually have to move.
Theo chief investment officer Iggy Ioppe has dismissed some versions of the trend as “tokenization theater,” arguing that simply wrapping an asset and leaving it parked on chain does not necessarily create meaningful economic activity.
Data from BeInCrypto Research underlines the gap between the vision and the current market. Its Tokenization 2026 report counted about $60 billion in tokenized assets as of May 31, while 56% of that value recorded no weekly transfers.
That is a long way from the scale required for Lee’s $20 trillion thesis to become reality.
Still, the broader push toward regulated digital assets is gaining political attention in Washington. Lawmakers are due to vote Tuesday on whether to advance debate over the CLARITY Act, which would give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission authority over spot crypto markets.
Lee has argued that the CFTC already effectively operates in that role.
The policy question matters because greater regulatory clarity could help determine how quickly institutions move from experimenting with blockchain-based assets to actually using them at scale.
For crypto markets, that distinction could be more important than another short-term price rally.
The awkward part of the crypto markets argument
Lee’s optimism also comes with an obvious conflict of interest.
BitMine’s ether holdings are about $5 billion underwater, according to BeInCrypto. That does not invalidate his market thesis, but it does make the context impossible to ignore.
Lee has also previously suggested that fear could drive Bitcoin as high as $150,000.
His argument for staying bullish is rooted in a longer investment horizon. Fundstrat has recommended a 2% allocation to crypto for more than a decade, and Lee said that in client portfolios that followed the strategy, crypto has since grown to represent more than 85% of the portfolio.
There is a sharp lesson buried inside that figure. A small allocation can become a very large one when an asset rises dramatically over time.
Lee put the broader question bluntly: “I might just say the real question that people need to ask is do they want to be right or do they want to make money?”
The case for another strong year depends partly on a market cycle that has not yet fully played out, and partly on a tokenization boom that remains far smaller than the numbers being used to describe its ultimate potential.
That leaves Lee with a bullish forecast—and the industry with plenty to prove.