I recently noticed a rather interesting phenomenon: well-known Wall Street analyst Tom Lee has recently transformed into a staunch bull on Ether. The founder of Fundstrat, who is acclaimed as the “Wall Street Oracle,” has not only been appointed chairman of the board of the mining company Bitmine, but also took part in the company’s $250 million Ethereum treasury strategy, boldly predicting that Ether will climb to $10,000 in the current market cycle.

As for Bitmine’s fundraising plan this time, it has indeed attracted widespread attention in the market. In July, the stock surged by more than 1,000%, winning support from a group of active institutions such as Founders Fund and Galaxy Digital. But what’s even more interesting is: why does Tom Lee—an experienced analyst from traditional Wall Street—have such a strong bullish view on Ethereum?

In a recent interview, analyst Tom Lee pointed out that his core logic for being bullish on Ethereum is actually very clear: stablecoins. He mentioned that Circle has recently gone public with a valuation of $9 billion—something that, in Wall Street’s eyes, is essentially a god-tier IPO. To him, stablecoins are like ChatGPT in the crypto space; they’ve already broken into the mainstream market.

More importantly, analyst Tom Lee noted that stablecoins must run on blockchains, and most stablecoin transactions take place on Ethereum. The stablecoin market is currently only $250 billion, yet it already accounts for 30% of Ethereum’s transaction fees. He predicts that if the stablecoin market grows 10-fold to a size of $2 trillion, it will lead to exponential growth in Ethereum’s transaction fees. The U.S. Treasury Secretary also looks favorably on this direction, and stablecoins have already become the 12th-largest holder of U.S. debt.

What’s interesting is that JPMorgan, Amazon, Walmart, and Goldman Sachs are all paying attention to stablecoins. Once these traditional giants launch their own stablecoins, they will inevitably run on Ethereum, which will provide a huge boost to demand for Ethereum.

Then why did Bitmine choose a treasury strategy instead of directly buying Ether? Analyst Tom Lee explained five core advantages. First, the goal of treasury companies is to increase the number of coins held per share. If the trading price is higher than the net asset value, they can issue stock to create a reflexive growth effect. Second, Ether’s volatility is twice that of Bitcoin, and treasury companies can sell volatility at a lower cost through convertible bonds or derivatives. The third advantage is the arbitrage space between market price and net value.

More importantly, as a staking token, Ethereum allows treasury companies to create operating businesses, such as Ethereum staking loans. Finally, there is the so-called structural put option: if these treasury-asset companies hold a sufficient proportion of Ether, they become extremely important to the ecosystem. When Wall Street companies launch stablecoins, they must ensure the security of the Ethereum network, and ultimately they will buy large amounts of Ether; and the staked entities already hold it—forming a Wall Street put-option logic.

Looking back at Tom Lee’s background, he was the first major strategist on Wall Street to provide formal Bitcoin research to clients, and he previously served as the chief stock strategist at JPMorgan. In 2014, he founded Fundstrat Global Advisors. He is known for accurate long-term forecasts; recently, he predicted that the S&P 500 index would rise 10% in 2025. This time, Tom Lee’s view on Ether indeed reflects a shift in traditional Wall Street’s understanding of crypto assets.

Currently, the price of Ether is around $2,340, still a considerable distance from his predicted $10,000. In any case, it’s definitely worth paying attention to how firmly an institutional-level Wall Street analyst is bullish on Ethereum.