Tom Lee (톰 리), chief strategist at Fundstrat, has recently stressed that investors should beware fear-driven selling despite extreme pessimism surrounding the cryptocurrency market. He advised paying attention to long-term fundamentals and technological advances rather than short-term price moves.

On June 29, blockchain outlet U.Today reported that Lee described current crypto market sentiment as a “dark age” in a recent interview on Anthony Scaramucci’s “All Things Markets.” He said interest in bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) has dropped sharply, Google search volumes have fallen and the Fear & Greed Index has slid to a level worse than immediately after the FTX collapse.

“The crypto market has had a very tough week, and it is hard for investor sentiment to get worse,” Lee said.

He also said such extreme pessimism could instead be a signal of a market reversal. Based on more than 35 years watching markets on Wall Street, he stressed that during major correction phases investors should focus on opportunities rather than prices. “In every bear market you have to focus on opportunity,” he said. “I have seen many times when fundamentals keep improving but prices fail to reflect it.”

Lee cited the AI investment boom as a main driver of the correction. As the AI industry grows quickly, computing resources, power and investment funds have moved in large amounts into AI, creating a temporary funding vacuum in the crypto market, he said. “This is a time of massive technological innovation,” he said. “AI is advancing exponentially, and it requires enormous computing power and energy and investment capital.”

He said the shift in funds does not undermine the growth logic of blockchain. He forecast that the role of blockchain could become more important as AI spreads. The convergence of AI, traditional finance and blockchain technology could become a new growth engine for the crypto market, he said.

He also delivered a warning to investors trying to time the market. Lee said those who wait until the macroeconomic environment fully improves or try to find a perfect buying point are likely to miss the biggest rally phase.

“Most crypto market returns are made in just 10 days,” he said. He added that bitcoin has been one of the assets with the highest average annual return over the past 10 to 15 years, but excluding the 10 best days each year would have resulted in an annual return of about a 27 percent loss. That means it is important to maintain a long-term investment perspective rather than trying to predict the market, he added.

In the industry, some assess that Lee’s remarks interpret the recent weakness in the crypto market as a temporary correction driven by overlapping deterioration in investor sentiment and shifting funds, rather than a structural collapse.

He repeatedly stressed that investors should pay more attention to technological advances, institutional money flows and long-term changes in market structure than to short-term price swings. He said that in times like now, when pessimism is maximised, investors should examine fundamentals before prices.