What is the future of Ethereum?
To me, this is one of the more fascinating discussions within crypto. It is something that is more than just markets, although there is a lot of back and forth on that issue. We also have some fundamental development to consider.
Over the last 6 months, this appears to have picked up. The emergence of the Ethereum treasury company, led by Bitmine, is responsible for a lot of the attention.
We can couple this with the core development team working on the scaling. As discussed in my last article, there are two hard forks planned for 2026. This could help the scaling a great deal while also lower the fees during high traffic periods.
One of the biggest proponents of Ethereum's future is Tom Lee. He is of the aforementioned Bitmine, a company that seeks to accumulate 5% of the total float.
He has come out with this forecast for the 2026. We take a look at it.
Lee is an interest case.
He is a Wall Street guy, running a fund for a number of years. Appearances on networks such as CNBC were typically about traditional assets such as stocks. Over the last few years, however, his crypto views were espoused by the network. Like anyone appearing in such a position, he has both supporters and detractors.
Whatever the thoughts on the guy (and his forecasts), we cannot dispute his dedication to Ethereum. In running a treasury company, he is putting the money under his control in alignment with his forecasts.
The basis of his theory is the fact that he believes we are embarking upon an explosive period for both stablecoins and real world assets (RWA). This is something that many could agree with.
Of course, his bet is that Ethereum will capture a lot of the activity. Here is where many diverge. There are a number of networks which are seeking to gain the title. Lee assertion is that Ethereum will remain the top smart contract network.
Does his Wall Street background help? In my mind, it cannot hurt.
I bring this up because he feels institutions are going to gravitate towards Ethereum. He might have his finger on the pulse of the industry. So far, firms such as Blackrock are heading towards that network.
The big question is whether this will continue.
Tom is known for some wild forecasts. If memory serves me right, he has stated something like $60K as a potential future number for ETH. Naturally, this isn't much different from those who espoused $1 million Bitcoin.
In the near term, Lee sees more than a doubling.
Ethereum’s growing role in institutional finance took center stage on CNBC’s Power Lunch this week, when Tom Lee, co-founder and head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, said Ether could climb to $7,000–$9,000 by early 2026 as Wall Street accelerates efforts to tokenize assets and move financial activity onchain
This precedes a run to a potential $20K according to Lee.
“Wall Street wants to tokenize everything,” Lee said, pointing to initiatives at Robinhood and BlackRock. The shift, he said, could bring efficiencies to traditional finance while anchoring real-world use cases on Ether. He added that Ether could eventually reach $20,000 as adoption deepens.
Lee's theory is being validated by the numbers. Again, it is early days but it is hard to argue with that is taking place.
Tokenized real-world assets, traditional financial instruments and physical assets represented onchain have expanded rapidly this year, with total market value rising to about $18.9 billion, up from roughly $5.6 billion at the start of 2025.
This is led by both Blackrock and Robinhood, two companies that are making an early push to tokenize assets. The stablecoin market will likely explode in 2026. RWAs might not be far behind.
We are seeing the world of finance changing. Will Ethereum be the network that benefits.? Bitcoin is a speculative asset without much in the way of fundamentals. Ethereum could be driven by something completely different while also being an asset that is accumulated.
The next 90 days will tell us if Lee is correct on his assessment or not.
