Ethereum's ether (ETH) may be on the verge of a breakout as institutions begin to realize the blockchain's potential in the same way Silicon Valley embraced artificial intelligence, says Tom Lee, co-founder of Fundstrat and chairman of Ethereum treasury firm Bitmine. "Stablecoins have created the ' ChatGPT moment ' for crypto," Lee said in an interview with CoinDeskTV. The asset class, he said, has demonstrated a simple, viral use case as an alternative for payments that resonates with banks, merchants and consumers. Ethereum, boasting over 50% market share of the almost $250 billion stablecoin supply and a key hub for asset tokenization, could be a chain of choice for many institutions to build or use, Lee said. "Wall Street wants to find a chain that's operating compliantly in the U.S. and they want to find a big one where there's already a lot of real-world assets," Lee said. "That’s why Ethereum is becoming extremely relevant." While bitcoin's narrative as digital gold is still intact, Lee argued, ETH could offer more upside over the next few years for being the network where institutions tokenize financial assets. Fundstrat analysts put $4,000 as a near-term technical target for ETH, while its "fair value" could be around $10,000-$15,000 by the end of this year. "Our belief that Ethereum is dramatically undervalued as a token," Lee said. "So acquiring an asset that can appreciate by 10 times or more is a really good use of a treasury. Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), a former bitcoin (BTC) miner that has pivoted to an Ethereum treasury strategy with Lee joining as chairman, has already made a substantial bet on that thesis. The firm said last week it accumulated over 300,000 ETH exposure including options, worth well over $1 billion at current prices.
