Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee Says Traders Are 'Rage Quitting at the Bottom' of Ethereum's Price Cycle

The big reason to buy Ethereum (ETH-USD) is no longer about regular crypto trading or guessing where the price goes next. According to Tom Lee, the chairman of Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), the future of the token depends entirely on big Wall Street firms moving into the space.

TipRanks Welcomes a New ETF – NYSE:RANK

200% short exposure to AMZN with AMZO

Right now, the price of Ethereum sits near $1,880, which is about 60% lower than its old peak near $5,000. Even with this big drop, Lee believes this gap shows the market is changing for the better rather than hitting a permanent ceiling. Because of this temporary slow patch, Lee warns that impatience is blinding retail investors, stating, "I think people are rage quitting at the bottom for Ethereum here."

Big Banks Are Building on the Ethereum Network

In the past, Ethereum's growth came from early tech trends like initial coin offerings, digital art NFTs, and basic stablecoins. Lee believes the next major phase belongs entirely to large financial companies. Unlike the bad crypto market crash of 2022, big Wall Street firms are now actively using Ethereum to build actual financial systems.

The names backing this trend are quite large. BlackRock's (BLK) special BUIDL fund, which runs on top of the Ethereum network, now holds around $2.6 billion in digital government bonds. It even earned top safety ratings from Moody's. JPMorgan (JPM) followed right behind by launching digital funds built on ETH's network, continuing a tech push that the bank started back in 2020. Because these projects rely on this specific network, data shows that Ethereum ranks first for attracting new software builders, with nearly 6,000 developers working on its systems.

Robinhood Chain Relies on Ethereum

A new network launched by the trading app Robinhood (HOOD) on July 1 helps prove this point. Within just two weeks, this new system ranked third among all networks for daily trading volume, handling about $811 million a day. Total volume has already crossed the $1 billion mark.

The Robinhood chain is an important deal because it relies on Ethereum to process every single trade. The transaction fees are paid using Ethereum, which means the system treats the token like real money.

Moreover, Robinhood's CEO Vlad Tenev has argued that everything running on regular bank systems will eventually move over to these network systems. Lee compares today's Ethereum to Amazon's stock (AMZN), which stayed stuck at a low price for twelve years before its business expanded and the stock skyrocketed. Due of this, Lee thinks people are "quitting" and selling their ETH tokens at the exact wrong time.

Tom Lee Has a Vested Interest in ETH

Of course, not everyone agrees with this bright outlook. Artemis CEO Jon Ma warn that the recent trading rush is driven by joke meme coins rather than serious financial companies.

It is also worth noting that Lee is not a neutral onlooker. His firm, Bitmine, recently shared that it holds 5.77 million Ethereum tokens, which is nearly 5% of the entire ETH supply in the world. This large holding would make Lee one of the biggest winners if his theory about Ethereum comes true and Wall Street adoption pushes ETH's price higher.

At the time of writing, Ethereum's price is sitting at $1,824.37.