BitMine Chairman Tom Lee will deliver a speech at WebX 2026 on July 13, proposing a long-term target price for Ethereum of $250,000, and stating that Ethereum is in the “ETH 2.0” valuation jump phase; he compares it to the “1.0 to 2.0” shift at Amazon, Nvidia, and JPMorgan Chase.
Tom Lee: Four key drivers pushing Ethereum’s $250,000 long-term target
According to Tom Lee’s public remarks at WebX 2026, the four drivers behind Ethereum’s move toward an “ETH 2.0” valuation jump are as follows:
A new foundation era: The Ethereum Foundation is undergoing separation and restructuring, with multiple independent institutions taking over their respective functions.
The Agentic-AI wave: The large-scale adoption of AI agents (Agentic-AI) requires trustworthy on-chain payment infrastructure, and ETH is the option with the broadest consensus.
Role as a financial settlement layer: Ethereum is becoming a universal settlement base for tokenized assets, stablecoins, and RWA (real-world assets).
ETH as money itself: Led by Robinhood Chain, an increasing number of L2s and application layers charge and settle in ETH back to L1, forming a complete money-logic closed loop.
Tom Lee presents practical case studies for “ETH is money”
According to Tom Lee’s post on X, Robinhood Chain has rapidly grown into a phenomenon-level product, with its trading volume surpassing multiple mature DEX platforms; its architecture uses ETH as the native Gas coin, all transaction fees are denominated in ETH, and final settlement occurs on the Ethereum Layer 1 mainnet.
Tom Lee emphasized that this complete path—“fees → settlement → main chain”—makes the argument “ETH is money” clearer than ever, providing concrete on-chain economic activity evidence for the ETH 2.0 valuation framework.
BitMine holds 5.74 million ETH
According to Tom Lee’s disclosures at WebX 2026, BitMine currently holds 5.74 million ETH, about 4.8% of Ethereum’s total supply; at the current estimate of about $1,800 per ETH, the value of its holdings is approximately $10.3 billion.
BitMine has supported two separation and restructuring institutions of the Ethereum Foundation as the lead investor: EthLabs (founded by a former Ethereum Foundation contributor, focusing on accelerating Ethereum’s “institutional super-cycle”) and Ethereum Institutional (an independent nonprofit organization advancing large-scale institutional finance on-chain).
Tom Lee’s announced future goals include gradually increasing its holdings to 5% of the supply, continuing to fund Ethereum Foundation spin-off projects and public goods, and investing in financial services and crypto unicorns.
FAQ
What is Tom Lee’s ETH long-term target price proposed at WebX 2026?
Based on Tom Lee’s public speech at WebX 2026, he proposed a long-term target price for Ethereum of $250,000, and stated that Ethereum is entering the “ETH 2.0” valuation jump phase; he uses the “1.0 to 2.0” shift at Amazon, Nvidia, and JPMorgan Chase as an illustrative framework.
How much ETH does BitMine currently hold?
Based on Tom Lee’s disclosure at WebX 2026, BitMine currently holds 5.74 million ETH, about 4.8% of Ethereum’s total supply; using about $1,800 per ETH, the value of its holdings is approximately $10.3 billion, and it has set a goal to slowly increase to 5% of the supply.
How does Tom Lee use Robinhood Chain to support the “ETH is money” argument?
According to Tom Lee’s X post, Robinhood Chain uses ETH as the native Gas coin; all transaction fees are denominated in ETH and settled back to the Ethereum Layer 1 mainnet. This complete path of “fees → settlement → main chain” specifically illustrates ETH’s foundational role as on-chain money.
