Tom Lee (톰 리) has set a $12,000 end-2026 target price for ethereum.

Cryptopolitan, a blockchain outlet, reported on May 9 that Lee, speaking in a Consensus 2026 keynote in Miami, set a bitcoin target of $150,000 to $200,000 and an ethereum target of $9,000 to $12,000.

Lee, chairman of BitMine Immersion Technologies, sees the long downturn in the cryptocurrency market as over. He said a crypto spring has begun and that investor sentiment remains bearish even as prices rise. He also interpreted a mass exodus of retail investors in March as a signal the market has bottomed, saying it meant the end was nearing when people give up on bitcoin.

Lee's forecast also dovetails with BitMine's ethereum accumulation strategy. BitMine aims to secure 5 percent of ethereum's circulating supply and held 5,180,131 ether as of May 2026. The holdings are worth about $12.07 billion.

BitMine bought more than 100,000 ether each week over a period of less than a year. Its average purchase price was about $2,206 per coin. With ethereum trading around $2,328 as of May 9, the holdings hovered near break-even.

Volatility concerns remain. In a recent quarterly report, BitMine disclosed unrealised losses of about $3.78 billion related to its ethereum holdings. Kalshi Crypto pointed out that losses in BitMine's ethereum portfolio at one point widened to about $6.3 billion.

Scepticism also emerged. Frank Giustra (프랭크 지우스트라), a Canadian billionaire and mining executive who advocates investing in gold, criticised Lee's outlook on social media as embarrassing to watch. For ethereum to reach $12,000, it would have to rise more than 400 percent from its current price of around $2,300, and for bitcoin to reach $200,000, it would need to almost double from about $80,700.