Is the Tom Lee team still trustworthy despite aggressively promoting ETH externally while being bearish internally?

Author: Aki, Wu Talks Blockchain

If one were to choose a representative figure for the 2025 Ethereum bull narrative, Tom Lee, the chairman of BitMine, a company in the Ethereum treasury, and co-founder and chief investment officer of Fundstrat, would often be placed in the most prominent position. He has repeatedly emphasized in various public statements that ETH is undervalued, and during the Binance Blockchain Week on December 4th, he also stated that Ethereum at $3,000 is “severely undervalued,” and he has given a high target price estimate of “$15,000 for ETH by the end of 2025.” As a Wall Street veteran known as the “Wall Street oracle” and a strategist who has long been active in media and institutional roadshows, Tom Lee's views are often seen as a market sentiment barometer.

However, when the market shifted its focus from the lens to internal documents, the situation reversed: in the latest internal outlook strategy recommendations for 2026 from Fundstrat, founded by Tom Lee, an opposing view was presented. Their baseline forecast suggests that significant pullbacks in crypto assets may occur in the first half of 2026, with ETH target range set at $1800–2000. This difference between the “publicly bullish” and “internally bearish” statements has also brought Tom Lee and his associated institutions to the forefront of public opinion.

Fundstrat '2026 Crypto Outlook' Core Predictions and Insights

The report is issued by Sean Farrell, an analyst responsible for cryptocurrency asset research under Fundstrat, who currently serves as the Head of Digital Asset Strategy, primarily covering strategy research and insights related to the cryptocurrency market and blockchain. This report is mainly aimed at its internal subscription-based clients, with a monthly subscription fee of $249.

The report presents a short-term market outlook that is starkly different from public opinion to internal clients, predicting a significant correction in the market in the first half of 2026: Bitcoin may drop to $60,000–65,000, Ethereum could fall to $1,800–2,000, and Solana might decline to $50–75. It indicates that these correction areas will be a good opportunity to establish bullish positions. If the market does not undergo the expected deep correction, the team also tends to maintain a defensive strategy, waiting for clear trend reinforcement signals before re-entering.

The report explains that the aforementioned pessimistic scenario does not signify a shift to a long-term bear market, but rather is a risk management measure of “strategic reset”. Fundstrat points out several short-term headwinds that may suppress the crypto market in early 2026: including the potential government shutdown in the United States, uncertainties in international trade policy, waning confidence in AI investment returns, and the policy suspense brought about by the change in the Federal Reserve Chair.

These macro factors combined with high volatility may trigger a valuation pullback of crypto assets in a tight liquidity environment. Fundstrat emphasizes that this round of adjustment is a “pullback rather than a collapse,” believing that sharp declines are often a prelude to a new round of upward movement. After digesting risks in the first half of the year, there is hope for a rebound in the second half.

The report even provided an optimistic target for the end of 2026: Bitcoin at $115,000 and Ethereum at $4,500, and specifically mentioned that Ethereum might show relative strength during this round of adjustment. The report pointed out that Ethereum has some structural advantages: after the transition to PoS consensus, there is no selling pressure from miners, unlike Bitcoin which faces continuous selling pressure from miners; there are also no potential selling pressure factors like large holders such as MicroStrategy. Additionally, compared to Bitcoin, there are also lower concerns about quantum computing threats for Ethereum.

These factors imply that Ethereum may better withstand selling pressure in the medium term. It can be seen that the internal research report from Fundstrat has a cautious tone. Although they remain bullish in the long term, they suggest that internal clients increase their cash and stablecoin holdings and patiently wait for a better entry point in the short term.

Tom Lee's Public Optimistic Prediction for Ethereum in 2025

In stark contrast to the internal report from Fundstrat, its co-founder Tom Lee has consistently played the role of a “super bull” in public throughout 2025, repeatedly issuing price expectations for Bitcoin and Ethereum that far exceed the actual market.

At the beginning of the year, bullish on Bitcoin, according to CoinDesk, Tom Lee projected Bitcoin's target by the end of 2025 to be as high as about $250,000. In July-August 2025, as Ethereum's price surged close to its historical highs, Tom Lee publicly stated that Ethereum is expected to soar to $12,000–$15,000 before the end of 2025, calling it one of the biggest macro investment opportunities in the next 10–15 years.

In August, during his guest appearance on CNBC, he further raised his target price, stating that Ethereum is entering a pivotal moment similar to Bitcoin in 2017. In 2017, Bitcoin started at under $1,000 and surged to $120,000, achieving a 120-fold increase, driven by the “digital gold” narrative. With the “Genius Act” giving the green light to stablecoins, the crypto industry is welcoming its “ChatGPT moment,” and the core advantages of smart contracts do not apply to Bitcoin. He predicts that this is Ethereum's “2017 moment,” and it is not impossible for the price to rise from $3,700 to $30,000 or even higher.

Super Cycle Theory: After entering the autumn market, Tom Lee remains extremely optimistic. In an interview in November 2025, he stated, “We believe ETH is entering a super cycle similar to Bitcoin from 2017 to 2021,” implying that Ethereum has the potential to replicate Bitcoin's hundredfold increase trajectory in the coming years.

Dubai Summit Speech: At the Binance Blockchain Week in early December 2025, Tom Lee once again astonishingly shouted bull market, predicting that Bitcoin could soar to $250,000 in “a few months,” and bluntly stating that the then approximately $3,000 price of Ethereum was “seriously undervalued”.

He pointed out through historical data comparison that if the ETH/BTC ratio returns to the eight-year average level (approximately 0.07), the price of ETH could reach 12,000 dollars; if it returns to the relative high point of 2021 (approximately 0.16), ETH could rise to 22,000 dollars; and in an extreme case, if the ETH/BTC ratio rises to 0.25, theoretically, the valuation of Ethereum could surpass 60,000 dollars.

Short-term new high expectations: Even in the face of market fluctuations at the end of the year, Tom Lee has not restrained his bullish remarks. In mid-December 2025, during an interview with CNBC, he stated, “I do not believe this rally has ended,” and bets that Bitcoin and Ethereum will reach historical new highs before the end of January next year. At that time, Bitcoin had already surpassed its 2021 high, while Ethereum was around $3000, still about 40% away from its historical high of $4954.

The above forecast list almost covers most of the time nodes in 2025. On the unbias fyi Fundstrat analysis page, Tom Lee is labeled as “Perma Bull” and every time he speaks, he gives the market a higher target price and a more optimistic timeline outlook. However, these aggressive predictions are far from the actual trends. This series of facts has led the market to start questioning the credibility of “Wall Street's oracle” Tom Lee.

Who is Tom Lee

Thomas Jong Lee, commonly known as Tom Lee, is a well-known stock market strategist, research director, and financial commentator in the United States. He started his career on Wall Street in the 1990s, having worked at Kidder Peabody and Salomon Smith Barney. In 1999, he joined JPMorgan Chase and has served as the chief equity strategist since 2007.

In 2014, he co-founded the independent research firm Fundstrat Global Advisors and served as the head of research, transitioning from an investment banking strategist to the head of an independent research firm. He is regarded as one of the Wall Street strategists who were early to incorporate Bitcoin into mainstream valuation discussions. In 2017, he published a report titled “A framework for valuing bitcoin as a substitute for gold,” which first proposed that Bitcoin has the potential to partially replace gold as a store of value.

Due to the media-centric nature of his research and viewpoints, Tom Lee often appears on mainstream financial programs and events as the “Head of Research at Fundstrat” (including references to his title on CNBC-related program/event pages and video content). Since 2025, his influence has further extended to the narrative of the “Ethereum treasury”: According to a report by Reuters, BitMine added Fundstrat's Thomas Lee to its board after advancing financing related to its Ethereum treasury strategy to support its Ethereum-oriented treasury strategy. At the same time, Fundstrat continues to release market outlooks and opinion segments centered around Tom Lee through its own YouTube channel.

Contradiction Between Publicly High-profile Calls and Internal Cautious Bearishness

Tom Lee and his team have made contradictory statements on different occasions, sparking heated discussions within the community regarding their motives and integrity. In response to the recent controversy, Sean Farrell, Head of Digital Asset Strategy at Fundstrat, published a statement claiming that there is a misunderstanding of Fundstrat's research process.

It indicates that there are multiple analysts within Fundstrat, each adopting independent research frameworks and time scales to serve the goals of different types of clients; among them, Tom Lee's research is more oriented towards traditional asset management institutions and “low allocation” investors (who typically allocate only 1%–5% of their assets to BTC/ETH), emphasizing long-term discipline and structural trends, while he primarily serves portfolios with a high proportion of crypto assets (around 20%+). However, Tom Lee himself did not state that he was targeting the “1%–5% allocation to BTC/ETH” group when publicly bullish on ETH.

Farrell further stated that his cautious baseline scenario for the first half of 2026 is a matter of risk management, rather than a bearish shift in the long-term outlook for crypto. He believes the current market pricing is skewed towards “almost perfect,” but risks such as government shutdowns, trade volatility, uncertainty in AI capital expenditure, and changes in the chair of the Federal Reserve still exist. He also listed his historical performance, stating that his token portfolio has approximately tripled since mid-January 2023, and his cryptocurrency stock portfolio has increased by about 230% since its inception, outperforming BTC by about 40%. In their respective durations, both are likely to have outperformed most liquidity funds. However, this wording seems more like a cover-up for Bitmine's $3 billion paper loss and contradictions from its founder.

Conclusion: The contrast is not the problem itself, the issue lies in disclosure and boundaries

The real controversy in this matter lies not in the different frameworks within Fundstrat, but in the lack of sufficiently clear applicability and disclosure of interests between the co-founders on the public communication side and the service side.

Sean Farrell explains the contradictory statements and differences for different types of clients. Logically, it can be established, but on the level of communication, it still cannot avoid three issues:

1. When Tom Lee frequently expresses strong optimism for ETH in public videos and media interviews, the audience does not automatically assume this is “only applicable to long-term allocation discussions for low-position portfolios,” nor do they automatically understand the implied risk premises, time scales, and probability weights. He has also not publicly clarified this or specified its applicable scope.

2. FS Insight /Fundstrat's subscription model is essentially “monetization of research”, with the official website directly presenting subscription prompts such as “Start Free Trial” and showcasing Tom Lee as the face of the promotion. Tom Lee is a key figure at Fundstrat, and the FS Insight page directly labels him as “Tom Lee, CFA / Head of Research”. As traffic and subscriptions grow, largely due to Tom Lee's public interviews in various media, how does the company persuade the public that “this is just expressing personal opinions”.

3. Public information shows that Tom Lee serves as the chairman of the board for the Ethereum treasury strategy company BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), which has ETH as one of its core treasury directions. Under this identity structure, his ongoing promotion of a “bullish outlook on ETH” will naturally be interpreted by the market as being highly aligned with the interests of related parties. For CFA charterholders, professional ethics also emphasize the need to make “adequate and clear disclosures” regarding matters that may affect independence and objectivity.

Such disputes typically involve compliance issues: anti-fraud and conflict of interest disclosure. In the context of U.S. securities law, Rule 10b-5 is one of the typical anti-fraud provisions, which focuses on prohibiting significant false or misleading statements related to securities transactions.

Moreover, the structure of Fundstrat complicates the controversy: Fundstrat Global Advisors emphasizes in its terms and disclosure documents that it is a research company, “not a registered investment advisor, nor a broker-dealer,” and that the research subscription is “for client use only.” However, at the same time, Fundstrat Capital LLC clearly provides advisory services as an “SEC Registered Investment Advisor (RIA).”

Considering that the public interviews and the operation of the Fundstrat YouTube channel actually serve the function of “customer acquisition/marketing,” another question arises: which content belongs to personal research dissemination, and which content belongs to company marketing. If an institution's public video channel continuously releases “bullish snippets” while the subscription service publishes “bearish forecasts for the first half of the year” without synchronously presenting key limiting conditions and risk frameworks on the public dissemination side, it would at least constitute a selective presentation under information asymmetry.

This may not violate the law, but it will continue to erode the public's trust in the independence and credibility of research, and blur the boundaries of “research - marketing - narrative mobilization.” For research institutions that have reputation as one of their commercial cores, this kind of trust cost will ultimately backfire on the brand itself.