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, recommend the selloff has reached exhaustion.
Talking on the third Futu Expo 2026 in Hong Kong on March 13–14, Lee stated Bitmine advisor Tom DeMark had recognized a putting 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 basically mirroring what occurred to the S&P 500 in 2011 and what occurred to the S&P 500 in 1987,” Lee stated. “If you happen to had been concerned in US markets, each occasions marked main declines within the S&P. Nicely, in response to him, there’s a 93% correlation to what Ethereum’s doing immediately to what the S&P did in 1987.”
Associated Studying
That comparability is doing loads of work in Lee’s argument. If the 1987 analog holds, he stated, 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 common acquisition value of cash based mostly on their final motion on the blockchain. In his telling, that determine now sits at $2,241 for ETH, giving traders a strategy to decide how deeply underwater the common holder has develop into.
Lee stated 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 stated, including that the market is now sitting in roughly the identical zone the place final yr’s reversal started. “So we’re on the stage 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 type 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 towards previous S&P 500 crash recoveries.
The construction now carefully 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 fast drawdown and re-anchor ETH in an extended time horizon. “Earlier than you lose any hope, remember the fact that during the last 10 years, Ethereum has outperformed each different asset class over the previous decade,” Lee stated. “Within the final 10 years, Ethereum’s return is 49,000%. Meaning virtually 490 occasions 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 finest inventory within the US,” saying it had returned 65 occasions traders’ cash.
At press time, ETH traded at $2,147.
Featured picture created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
