On February 11, 2026, Tom Lee delivered a keynote speech at the Consensus Conference in Hong Kong.
In a fast-paced and confident tone, he delivered a core message in 15 minutes using 60 slides: despite the current market downturn and the fact that many, even friends, have given up on cryptocurrency, this is still the early stages of the crypto industry, and the best days are yet to come. #非农意外强劲
Part 1: Gold outperforms in 2025, Bitcoin regains its store-of-value narrative in 2026
Tom Lee began by explaining why gold will significantly outperform Bitcoin in 2025. Over the past year, gold has risen by 73%, while Bitcoin has fallen by 29%, causing many to lose confidence in Bitcoin and even triggering a "mini winter."
He listed five possible reasons for gold's strong performance: #黄金白银反弹
Geopolitical uncertainty (in which cryptocurrencies should also benefit)
Dovish central bank policies (cryptocurrencies should also benefit)
Currency devaluation (both gold and cryptocurrencies should benefit)
Precious metal prices have too much momentum.
A complete loss of confidence in the entire fiat currency system (at which point Bitcoin, as a digital currency, may underperform compared to gold).
Part Two: Ethereum's multiple V-shaped rebounds indicate a near bottom, with strong future driving factors.
Tom Lee turned to Ethereum. He acknowledged that many people are frustrated with Ethereum, but pointed out that since 2018, Ethereum has experienced eight drops of more than 50%, each time achieving a V-shaped rebound at almost the same speed, recovering 100%.
He cited insights from his collaboration with renowned market timing expert Tom DeMark: Ethereum only needs to touch $1890 again (forming a "low entry point") to complete a perfect bottom. Ethereum is currently very close to the bottom. Similar to the situations in 2018, 2022, and April 2025, after a significant drop, there should be no need to worry about further collapses, but rather to start looking for opportunities. #何时抄底？
Ethereum's future drivers include:
Wall Street will rebuild the financial system on blockchain, with stablecoins being a key entry point.
The deep integration of AI and blockchain (Ethereum can provide AI with a trustless, private interaction and economic layer)
With the rise of the creator economy, creators will be able to secure direct compensation through blockchain.
Tom Lee revealed that after in-depth discussions with Wall Street, he found that although disagreements remain between evangelists and executives within companies, mainstream financial institutions clearly favor using public blockchains and hope to gain broad community support. Significant announcements from major financial institutions regarding their adoption of Ethereum are expected in the coming months.
Part 3: The Rise of Dominant Crypto Asset Holding Entities; BITM May Become the Best Exposure Method for Ethereum
The most important part of the speech was Tom Lee's analysis of "dominant crypto asset holders" (the speech repeatedly mentioned "dominant DAs/debts," which, in context, actually refers to publicly traded companies like MicroStrategy that hold crypto assets through government treasuries).
The two dominant entities are:
MicroStrategy (largest Bitcoin holder)
BitMine (holds approximately 4.4 million ETH)
These two entities account for 90% of the trading volume of all similar entities. BITM's size is five times that of the next largest, and its trading volume is 14 times greater. Trading volume is the lifeline for these entities' access to capital markets.
Performance comparisons are more convincing:
In the second half of 2025 (June 30 to December 31), Ethereum rose 22%, while BITM's stock price rose 500%, resulting in an excess return of 4800 basis points.
Since 2026, Ethereum has fallen by 32%, Bitcoin by 21%, while BITM has still outperformed Ethereum by approximately 1100 basis points.
Tom Lee believes that a well-structured publicly listed company ownership model will systematically outperform underlying Layer 1 assets.
He elaborated on BITM's four pillars of growth:
Maximizing Treasury Returns: Optimizing staking rewards (alpha strategies provided by advisors such as Tom DeMark), optimizing cash returns, and engaging in value-added capital market transactions (potentially including mergers and acquisitions in the future). BITM is debt-free, has approximately $600 million in cash, and has staked about two-thirds of its Ethereum, yielding annualized rewards of approximately $200 million, which will reach $300 million after full staking (approximately $1 million per day). If Ethereum reaches $12,000, staking rewards will increase to $2.4 billion. Meanwhile, the amount of Ethereum held per share has increased tenfold since June 30th.
Investing in the moonshot project: A key mention is of Beast Industries (related to MrBeast). MrBeast is a top creator for Gen Z and Gen Alpha, boasting an audience of 120 million (more than the millennial generation), and recently announced its acquisition of digital bank Step. Tom Lee believes Beast has the potential to become a core financial institution for this generation, similar to Charles Schwab for baby boomers, Blackstone/BlackRock for Gen X, and Robinhood/Chime/SoFi for millennials. With massive wealth shifting to Gen Z/Alpha over the next 10-15 years, Beast's synergies will align perfectly with BITM's digital asset strategy.
Bitline (staking service): Provides staking services for tokens such as Solana and Canton for itself and other clients.
Bridging traditional finance with DeFi.
Finally, Tom Lee provided his Ethereum price outlook. He still uses the Ethereum/Bitcoin price ratio as his primary reference, with an eight-year average of 0.0479. If Bitcoin reaches $250,000, Ethereum will reach $12,000. However, he believes this is still conservative, and Ethereum will be the core narrative of cryptocurrency for the next 15 years (Wall Street, AI, and the creator economy will all be primarily built on Ethereum), potentially recovering to the 2021 high of 0.0873, or $22,000, or even higher (if it becomes a payment track).
Correspondingly, if Ethereum reaches $22,000, BITM's stock price is expected to reach $500; if it reaches $62,000, BITM's stock price is expected to reach $1,500.
Tom Lee concluded optimistically: the best days for Ethereum and BITM (debt-free, bonded Ethereum for a bright future) are ahead. He regretfully stated at the end of his speech that he didn't have enough time to answer questions.
