Tom Lee Says Ethereum Seems Prepared To Exit Crypto Winter

Tom Lee used a Hong Kong convention stage to argue that Ethereum could also be near a cyclical flip, pointing to historic market analogs and on-chain cost-basis knowledge that, in his view, counsel the selloff has reached exhaustion.

Talking on the third Futu Expo 2026 in Hong Kong on March 13–14, Lee mentioned Bitmine advisor Tom DeMark had recognized a hanging resemblance between Ethereum’s latest worth motion and two main S&P 500 declines: the 1987 crash and the 2011 selloff. Lee described the setup as unusually tight.

Is The Ethereum Backside In?

“Tom DeMark, he’s a legendary market timer, and he’s supplied an evaluation to us that claims Ethereum, in the previous few months, particularly since October, is de facto mirroring what occurred to the S&P 500 in 2011 and what occurred to the S&P 500 in 1987,” Lee mentioned. “For those who had been concerned in US markets, each instances marked main declines within the S&P. Properly, in keeping with him, there’s a 93% correlation to what Ethereum’s doing as we speak to what the S&P did in 1987.”

Associated Studying

That comparability is doing quite a lot of work in Lee’s argument. If the 1987 analog holds, he mentioned, Ethereum would have already bottomed on March 7. If the 2011 comparability is the higher match, the market is bottoming now. In both case, Lee’s conclusion was the identical: “So utilizing his evaluation, we predict we’re on the backside or exiting the crypto winter now.”

He didn’t go away the case resting on chart symmetry alone. Lee additionally pointed to Ethereum’s realized worth, the on-chain metric that estimates the typical acquisition price of cash primarily based on their final motion on the blockchain. In his telling, that determine now sits at $2,241 for ETH, giving buyers a technique to decide how deeply underwater the typical holder has turn into.

Lee mentioned the sample at prior lows is revealing. In 2022, Ethereum fell to a 39% low cost to realized worth. In 2025, the low cost reached 21% earlier than ETH turned increased. “Presently, we’re at 22%,” he mentioned, including that the market is now sitting in roughly the identical zone the place final 12 months’s reversal started. “So we’re on the degree the place in 2025, Ethereum began to show increased.”

Associated Studying

In different phrases, Lee’s thesis is that Ethereum doesn’t want a pristine macro backdrop or a contemporary narrative cycle to stabilize; it solely must revisit the sort of holder ache that has traditionally marked exhaustion. By his measure, that threshold is already right here.

TOM LEE:THE ETHEREUM BOTTOM IS IN ‼️

Bitmine x TOM DEMARK mapped ETH in opposition to previous S&P 500 crash recoveries.

The construction now intently matches 1987 and 2011, each main cycle bottoms.

🔹 93% correlation to 1987🔹 Match to 2011 backside🔹 Realized worth: $2,241🔹 ETH ~22%… pic.twitter.com/62TZscjChe

— BMNR Bullz (@BMNRBullz) March 19, 2026

He additionally tried to zoom out from the quick drawdown and re-anchor ETH in an extended time horizon. “Earlier than you lose any hope, needless to say during the last 10 years, Ethereum has outperformed each different asset class over the previous decade,” Lee mentioned. “Within the final 10 years, Ethereum’s return is 49,000%. Meaning nearly 490 instances your cash.”

Lee contrasted that with Bitcoin’s 11,000% achieve over the identical span and even with Nvidia, which he referred to as “the only greatest inventory within the US,” saying it had returned 65 instances buyers’ cash.

At press time, ETH traded at $2,147.

Featured picture created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com