Tom Lee - Crypto Spring Turning Into Full Blown Bull Market - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2026 — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:07Hi. I've got uh 20 minutes to talk to
2. 0:11you about uh
3. 0:13something I think is very important,
4. 0:15which is congratulations.
5. 0:17Uh uh
6. 0:18We are at the start of a crypto bull
7. 0:20market.
8. 0:21And uh if I had to give it a date, I'm
9. 0:24going to say it was August. But you
10. 0:26might be doubting if it's a crypto bull
11. 0:28market because people think it's
12. 0:30fragile, but that's exactly what happens
13. 0:32at the start of a bull. So, let me walk
14. 0:34you through my presentation.
15. 0:37So, first, we are having a full-blown
16. 0:41crypto bull market. There are too many
17. 0:43signs that have happened that only
18. 0:45happen in a bull market.
19. 0:47Um so, let me start.
20. 0:49The first is we have institutional
21. 0:51backing. I mean, it's not just Franklin
22. 0:54saying a bull market is starting, it's
23. 0:56Fidelity, BlackRock,
24. 0:59all the major players. I've never seen
25. 1:01this in the past three cycles of crypto
26. 1:05winters, never seen institutions declare
27. 1:07this.
28. 1:09We also have a technical argument.
29. 1:12Bitcoin is above its 200-day moving
30. 1:14average.
31. 1:15>> [snorts]
32. 1:15>> That happened on August 19th. Also on
33. 1:18August 19th, Ethereum had a golden
34. 1:20cross.
35. 1:21But see, the last time Bitcoin crossed
36. 1:24above its 200-day, that was August of
37. 1:26last year, April of last year.
38. 1:29>> [snorts]
39. 1:29>> But since 2010,
40. 1:31Bitcoin averages 80% positivity over the
41. 1:34next 6 months,
42. 1:36200% gains. Ethereum averages 290%.
43. 1:42Okay.
44. 1:44Now,
45. 1:45you can see this on a chart cuz I can
46. 1:46make it simple. These are the other
47. 1:48crosses above the 200-day.
48. 1:51Out of the last nine crosses, eight were
49. 1:53bull market starts.
50. 1:56We also have positive ETF flows.
51. 1:59You don't have positive flows into
52. 2:01crypto in a bear market, only in bull
53. 2:04markets.
54. 2:05Only in bull markets for equities do you
55. 2:06have positive flows.
56. 2:09And then we have proof positive because
57. 2:11crypto in the third quarter of this
58. 2:14year, June to September,
59. 2:16was the best performing macro asset by a
60. 2:19country mile. The AI stocks were down in
61. 2:22the quarter.
62. 2:24>> [snorts]
63. 2:24>> We had
64. 2:26very terrible financial conditions. We
65. 2:27had a hawkish Fed,
66. 2:29surging oil,
67. 2:31global bond yields going up, and tight
68. 2:34financial conditions,
69. 2:36yet crypto outperformed. That's what
70. 2:38happens in a bull market.
71. 2:40Crypto is ignoring the fact that
72. 2:42basically the Fed's been hostile.
73. 2:45And lastly, uh it's from coming from Tom
74. 2:48DeMark.
75. 2:49>> [snorts]
76. 2:49>> He is the ex- one of our exclusive
77. 2:51advisors
78. 2:52for timing. He's saved Bitmain at least
79. 2:55a hundred million dollars this year. He
80. 2:57is worth his money in gold,
81. 2:59and he says we are confident Ethereum
82. 3:01will continue to trade higher.
83. 3:03He thinks [clears throat] Ethereum
84. 3:05should easily break 3,000 in the next
85. 3:08few weeks.
86. 3:09And lastly, I know it's a bull because
87. 3:12the four-year cycle bottomed. So, if you
88. 3:14set your clock,
89. 3:16>> [snorts]
90. 3:16>> the bottom was October 5th. So, we are
91. 3:19two days past the bottom for crypto. So,
92. 3:22in short,
93. 3:24it's all in the math. Uh we are in a
94. 3:26bull market.
95. 3:28But here's the thing.
96. 3:30This may be the biggest bull market
97. 3:33uh we've ever seen, okay? So, I'm going
98. 3:35to give you
99. 3:36four reasons that this bull market is
100. 3:39different than other bull markets, okay?
101. 3:41So, as Joe Lubin says, you're not
102. 3:43bullish enough.
103. 3:45Okay.
104. 3:46The first is
105. 3:47there's a big institutional story
106. 3:50around tokenization.
107. 3:53In the bull market of 2016-2017,
108. 3:56that was about ICOs.
109. 3:59It was a retail story.
110. 4:012029 or 2019 to 2021, that was an NFT
111. 4:06boom, but that was a retail boom. Of
112. 4:08course, some new tech and great tech
113. 4:10came out of that.
114. 4:12Last year, we had a stablecoin boom.
115. 4:14That was cut short by that October 10th
116. 4:16auto deleveraging event that [snorts]
117. 4:18wiped a lot of people out and started a
118. 4:20huge crypto winter.
119. 4:22But here we are.
120. 4:24We have an institutional wave coming.
121. 4:26BlackRock, asset managers beyond
122. 4:29BlackRock, want to tokenize everything
123. 4:31on blockchains.
124. 4:33Vlad
125. 4:34Tenev of Robinhood, who I think is going
126. 4:36to end up being a top 10 financial
127. 4:38institution within a decade,
128. 4:41says, "We are the beginning of a
129. 4:42supercycle. Everything running on
130. 4:45traditional financial rails will be
131. 4:46tokenized."
132. 4:48That's a massive wave. How big is that
133. 4:50wave? Well, crypto members are $2
134. 4:53trillion market.
135. 4:55There's $200 trillion of liquid assets
136. 4:58outside of crypto today,
137. 5:00growing by $7 trillion a year. If you
138. 5:03ever wonder if there's money to be
139. 5:04building data centers, there's $7
140. 5:06trillion of new money every year.
141. 5:09Just the top three markets alone is $160
142. 5:12trillion that can go into crypto.
143. 5:15Remember, the ratio is 1 to 37. A
144. 5:18trillion dollars going into crypto would
145. 5:21turn it into a $37 trillion market. And
146. 5:24of course, a lot of this is happening on
147. 5:25Ethereum.
148. 5:27BlackRock, JP Morgan, Robinhood, they're
149. 5:29building on Ethereum.
150. 5:32Ethereum, of course, has a massive
151. 5:34community.
152. 5:36The number of developers today is equal
153. 5:38to the entire rest of the community
154. 5:39combined.
155. 5:41So, it's a massive wave.
156. 5:43The second difference in this bull
157. 5:45market
158. 5:46>> [snorts]
159. 5:46>> is there's a huge wealth transfer taking
160. 5:48place.
161. 5:50I don't think people have talked about
162. 5:52this enough.
163. 5:53But Vlad says it's a hundred trillion
164. 5:56over the next
165. 5:5710 years.
166. 5:59We can see this.
167. 6:01This is from the IRS. In the last crypto
168. 6:03bull market, okay?
169. 6:05There was 400 billion dollars of
170. 6:07inherited wealth.
171. 6:10In the next cycle, it's probably close
172. 6:12to one and a half to two trillion. This
173. 6:14is a baby boomer
174. 6:17or older passing away, it's inherited by
175. 6:19a millennial.
176. 6:21That allocation goes from bonds to
177. 6:24equities and crypto. Massive massive
178. 6:26inflows.
179. 6:28A lot of it's going to come out of
180. 6:29private equity and private debt. At
181. 6:30least 12 trillion. So, consider that a
182. 6:34massive buying power.
183. 6:36And of course, I think this is
184. 6:37explaining why we're having a huge huge
185. 6:40outperformance. I mean, staggering
186. 6:42outperformance.
187. 6:43The third thing
188. 6:45>> [clears throat]
189. 6:45>> that's happening
190. 6:47this cycle
191. 6:48>> [snorts]
192. 6:48>> that didn't happen in past cycles are
193. 6:50the digital asset treasuries.
194. 6:54You're wondering what role can they
195. 6:55play? Well, foremost
196. 6:57the Dats
197. 6:58are the friend of crypto in a bull
198. 7:00market.
199. 7:01Okay?
200. 7:02In this bear market, people wondered
201. 7:05do Dats make sense? By the way, Bitmain
202. 7:07is a digital asset treasury.
203. 7:09And that's because in this bear market
204. 7:12only four digital asset treasuries
205. 7:15are trading above their net asset value.
206. 7:19However, including Bitmain. But, in this
207. 7:21next bull market
208. 7:24I think all these Dats are going to
209. 7:25recover.
210. 7:26And they're going to start buying
211. 7:27crypto.
212. 7:30In a bull market, that means they're
213. 7:31going to support the underlying
214. 7:33blockchain.
215. 7:34Why is that?
216. 7:36Well, cuz they take out supply.
217. 7:39>> [clears throat]
218. 7:40>> The Ethereum Dats own 7% of crypto
219. 7:42supply today.
220. 7:44Bitcoin owns the Bitcoin dots own 6 and
221. 7:461/2%.
222. 7:48The Solana dots 3%. But look at hyper
223. 7:50liquid. I mean, it's been a very
224. 7:52successful chain and project, but
225. 7:55part of it is the hyper liquid dot owns
226. 7:5814% of the supply.
227. 8:00When you take out supply,
228. 8:02take it out of the market, and then you
229. 8:04have a bull market, guess what? The
230. 8:06price is going to go up a lot more. And
231. 8:10the Ethereum dots own the largest of the
232. 8:13big three.
233. 8:147% of the supply.
234. 8:16That's
235. 8:18that's not, you know, in the last bull
236. 8:20market, that didn't exist. That's why if
237. 8:22you think about what's the upside for
238. 8:24ETH,
239. 8:25I think you're underestimating how much
240. 8:27it can move. And lastly,
241. 8:30there's a new story.
242. 8:32You can see it out in this
243. 8:34conference
244. 8:35in the exhibitors, crypto is an
245. 8:37important downstream AI story.
246. 8:40So, AI is of course a mega trend.
247. 8:43But everyone thinks it's just about
248. 8:45semis and memory and bottlenecks, but
249. 8:47that's not true. As the semis
250. 8:50and the memory have corrected, the
251. 8:53downstream stocks have outperformed.
252. 8:56Mag 7, software, and crypto.
253. 9:00Uh A16Z Mark Andreessen and there I know
254. 9:03your next panel has someone from A16Z.
255. 9:06They consider agentic payments the grand
256. 9:08unification of AI and crypto because AI
257. 9:12agents
258. 9:14are going to carry money.
259. 9:16They might carry a Visa card in their
260. 9:18wallet, but most likely they're going to
261. 9:19carry a crypto wallet. And we know
262. 9:23non-humans are becoming the dominant
263. 9:26source of traffic. In fact, today
264. 9:28they're also the largest consumers of
265. 9:30crypto of compute tokens in AI. Is other
266. 9:33agents.
267. 9:35And we have to be careful because agents
268. 9:37can now bypass captcha. We can't even
269. 9:40tell who's who.
270. 9:41So we going to need to keep humans in
271. 9:44the loop.
272. 9:45This is where crypto and finality and
273. 9:48smart contracts and enforcement all come
274. 9:51into play.
275. 9:53So again,
276. 9:54>> [clears throat]
277. 9:54>> I don't think you're bullish enough.
278. 9:56This is the biggest crypto cycle ahead.
279. 9:59And I just want to emphasize that. So
280. 10:02whatever you thought your upside would
281. 10:04be or if you're doubtful we're in a
282. 10:06cycle because you've
283. 10:09sat through the last 12 months and it's
284. 10:11been pretty tough.
285. 10:12We can see it here. This conference has
286. 10:14so much
287. 10:16crypto energy.
288. 10:18That was [snorts] also true at KBW last
289. 10:19week and it's a big change from what
290. 10:21we've been experiencing.
291. 10:24So the last point I want to make is
292. 10:28let's say that you're bullish on ETH and
293. 10:30I think you should be. You should be
294. 10:31bullish on the L1s.
295. 10:34I had dinner uh in Taiwan recently with
296. 10:38some of the people I met 10 years ago
297. 10:40when I first started researching
298. 10:42Bitcoin.
299. 10:43So imagine 10 years ago Bitcoin was
300. 10:45under a thousand.
301. 10:48And Bitcoin's now 80,000 today. So these
302. 10:51venture capitalists
303. 10:53when I had dinner with them, I expected
304. 10:55them to be
305. 10:57like living in private jets because at a
306. 11:00minimum if Bitcoin was an 80 times
307. 11:02return, their ventures
308. 11:04could be a hundred or a thousand times.
309. 11:07But here's what they said.
310. 11:10They said that their venture returns
311. 11:12have been okay, but they wish they just
312. 11:13bought Bitcoin.
313. 11:15Okay.
314. 11:16And that's what I'm telling you now.
315. 11:19You want to have the maximum exposure to
316. 11:22Bitcoin and Ethereum and even Solana in
317. 11:25this cycle. I think the L1s are going to
318. 11:28capture a lot of the value. But there is
319. 11:31a way to outperform the L1,
320. 11:34which is buying the digital asset
321. 11:35treasury. And Bitmain is positioned to
322. 11:38outperform
323. 11:39this cycle.
324. 11:41I want to make that point really clear.
325. 11:45So,
326. 11:46uh here's three ways we're doing it.
327. 11:49The first is Bitmain maintains the
328. 11:51maximum exposure to Ethereum in this
329. 11:55bull market cycle.
330. 11:57Okay?
331. 11:59Here's Ethereum's price.
332. 12:01It's been consolidating for 5 years.
333. 12:04You know, the longer the base, the
334. 12:06bigger the breakout.
335. 12:08The last time Ethereum consolidated,
336. 12:11it had a 227x.
337. 12:13And then the
338. 12:14the prior time to that, 54x.
339. 12:18I think, given tokenization, AI,
340. 12:22everything I talked about, the DATs and
341. 12:24the wealth transfer,
342. 12:26it's a 25x minimum. Okay?
343. 12:30Well, what does that mean for Bitmain's
344. 12:31share price? The The stock is currently
345. 12:3326.
346. 12:36And Bitmain is
347. 12:3790% correlated to Ethereum.
348. 12:41Well,
349. 12:42if Ethereum gets to 22,000, which I
350. 12:44think's the low target,
351. 12:46Bitmain's share price goes from 26 to
352. 12:48300 to 500. That's a massive move.
353. 12:53Uh
354. 12:54if Ethereum gets to 62,000, Bitmain's
355. 12:56share price is 1,200 to 1,500.
356. 12:59But, you can see we're really focused on
357. 13:01making sure Bitmain's share price
358. 13:03has maximum exposure to Ethereum.
359. 13:07Okay?
360. 13:08The second thing is,
361. 13:10we wanted to get to 5% of the supply.
362. 13:14That's a hard cap.
363. 13:16We're not going to be accumulating past
364. 13:185%.
365. 13:19Okay?
366. 13:20Because people don't want to think we're
367. 13:22diluting shareholders, which we have not
368. 13:24been.
369. 13:25Okay?
370. 13:26Because in our first year, look at all
371. 13:28we of what we've accomplished. Bitmain's
372. 13:30only been around for 15 months
373. 13:33and already we we've broken ground,
374. 13:35created a lot of firsts.
375. 13:37But let me walk through few of them.
376. 13:40The first is we reached 6 million ETH.
377. 13:43That's 4.9% of the supply.
378. 13:47I want to focus your eyes on the bottom.
379. 13:50Bitmain is also been added to the
380. 13:52Russell 1000 index.
381. 13:55That's the US large cap index.
382. 13:58There's only six crypto stocks
383. 14:01in the Russell 1000. We're
384. 14:04the only Ethereum play.
385. 14:07That means when large institutions and
386. 14:09hedge funds say they want to get crypto
387. 14:11exposure,
388. 14:13there's only one stock they're going to
389. 14:14buy, which is Bitmain.
390. 14:16But we said we have a 5% hard cap.
391. 14:21We're not going to own more than 5% of
392. 14:23Ethereum. That's something that Vitalik
393. 14:25kind of asked us to do, to stop at five.
394. 14:28Justin Drake, the foundation.
395. 14:31We're going to stop at 5%. So, where do
396. 14:33we sit relative to that 5%?
397. 14:37Well, this is our accumulation of ETH
398. 14:39over the past 15 months, okay?
399. 14:42And you can see we're currently at 6
400. 14:44million.
401. 14:46That took us
402. 14:47little over a year.
403. 14:49We thought this would take five years.
404. 14:50It took us little over a year.
405. 14:52More importantly, we did this all in the
406. 14:55middle of a bear market, okay?
407. 14:58So, we bought ETH
408. 15:01while no one wanted to buy it. We were
409. 15:03glad to buy it cheaply. We bought a lot
410. 15:04at 1500.
411. 15:06But it's in the middle of a bear market,
412. 15:08and now we're going to stop. We only
413. 15:10need to get another 100,000 ETH
414. 15:13to get to 5%, okay? But we're going to
415. 15:15stop there.
416. 15:17The reason we're going to stop there
417. 15:20is this chart.
418. 15:24We did all this buying in a bear market.
419. 15:27Okay?
420. 15:29So,
421. 15:30in fact, I kind of think we helped set a
422. 15:32floor for ETH. We protected the downside
423. 15:34for ETH because we were buying. But now,
424. 15:37we're done stacking
425. 15:39in front of a 25x move.
426. 15:42So, if we have a 5% hard cap,
427. 15:45that means we're going to outperform ETH
428. 15:47on the way up, right? Cuz you don't have
429. 15:49to worry about us trying to raise
430. 15:51capital. We're done.
431. 15:54Now, we're designed to outperform
432. 15:56Ethereum. That's what we started the
433. 15:57company to do,
434. 15:59and I can show you that we've done that
435. 16:01because last year,
436. 16:03we started Bitmain on June 30th,
437. 16:06and the
438. 16:07from June 30th to December, Ethereum was
439. 16:09up 22%.
440. 16:11Bitmain gained 500%.
441. 16:1448,000 basis points of outperformance.
442. 16:18This year, in a crypto bear market,
443. 16:20Bitmain is up 3%
444. 16:23while Ethereum's down 9%. We
445. 16:26outperformed by 1,200 basis points in a
446. 16:28bear market.
447. 16:31And in total, you can see we delivered
448. 16:32for shareholders, 40 or 53,000
449. 16:36500 basis points of outperformance. Now,
450. 16:38keep in mind, there's a bull market
451. 16:40starting.
452. 16:42It's probably going to look a lot more
453. 16:43like 2025.
454. 16:46There's other things we've done.
455. 16:48We bought back stock to protect
456. 16:50shareholders.
457. 16:52In fact, we did the largest crypto
458. 16:53buyback ever in history.
459. 16:56But here's what's interesting. This is
460. 16:57Bitmain's share price this year.
461. 17:01As you know, we employ Tom DeMark.
462. 17:04We decided our stock got too cheap right
463. 17:06here.
464. 17:07>> [snorts]
465. 17:07>> July 14th. We commenced
466. 17:10our buybacks. We did it for about a
467. 17:12month, spent $350 million. You
468. 17:16You can see we helped protect the stock
469. 17:18on the downside.
470. 17:19And as soon as we stopped,
471. 17:21by the way, the stock went up even more.
472. 17:23That's what buybacks are supposed to do,
473. 17:25protect shareholders.
474. 17:28We also set a benchmark price for
475. 17:30Ethereum credit.
476. 17:32Okay?
477. 17:34We issued BMNP, a perpetual preferred,
478. 17:37at $80.
479. 17:39It's gone straight to 99. In fact, today
480. 17:42it's at 100. Okay?
481. 17:45Here's the thing.
482. 17:47It's a preferred stock. It's like a
483. 17:49bond. Well, guess what? In this From the
484. 17:52time we issued BMNP, long-term
485. 17:54treasuries fell 8%.
486. 17:57Investment-grade bonds fell six,
487. 18:00high-yield bonds fell three.
488. 18:02Our preferred went up 24%. We are even
489. 18:05the best-performing bond in the world.
490. 18:08Okay? If that doesn't tell you that a
491. 18:11bond holders like owning BMNP,
492. 18:14BMNR shareholders should be happy owning
493. 18:16BMNR.
494. 18:19And we have the lowest cost of funding.
495. 18:22BMNP yields 9 and 1/2%. I think that's
496. 18:25too high, but as you can see, compared
497. 18:27to
498. 18:29Bitcoin preferreds, which are around 12,
499. 18:31and Solana preferreds, which are around
500. 18:3315. By the way, I like both of them. I'm
501. 18:36a fan of Bitcoin and Solana. Crypto is
502. 18:38not uh
503. 18:40winner take only all.
504. 18:42And lastly, we're going to leverage our
505. 18:44scale.
506. 18:46We have Maven.
507. 18:48It's our staking operation. It's
508. 18:50generating a million dollars a day in
509. 18:51staking rewards. We have Eight Co.
510. 18:55>> [snorts]
511. 18:55>> It owns a big stake in Opening Eye. That
512. 18:57stake has already jumped in value, and
513. 18:59it owns the World token.
514. 19:02And it's undervalued. And of course, we
515. 19:03have a huge stake in Beast. And lastly,
516. 19:06which I think is the next financial
517. 19:07services company,
518. 19:08but
519. 19:10what I want to just leave you with is
520. 19:11the big money not in the buying and the
521. 19:13selling, but in the waiting. From the
522. 19:15great Charlie Munger.
523. 19:18He is the original hoddle, okay? So,
524. 19:20just to conclude,
525. 19:22this is the biggest crypto bull market
526. 19:24and you're not bullish enough. Thank
527. 19:25you.