According to BitMine chairman and co-founder of Fundstrat, Tom Lee, Bitcoin and Ethereum (ETH) price could see a sharp rally in the fourth quarter.
Speaking this week on CNBC, Lee said easing monetary policy in the United States will play a key role.
He pointed to rising liquidity, soft stance across global central banks and strong seasonal trends as the main drivers behind the expected price surge.
He noted that Bitcoin and Ethereum could become one of the standout digital assets for the remainder of the year.
This outlook, he explained, is also supported by the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates for the first time in 2025.
Meanwhile, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin addressed growing concerns over the expanding staking exit queue, which had stretched to 45 days.
His comments followed criticism from Michael Marcantonio, head of DeFi at Galaxy Digital, who called the delay “troubling” on X and compared it to Solana’s two-day unstaking period.
Tom Lee’s Ethereum (ETH) Price Prediction Targets 62,000
Tom Lee’s monster move Ethereum price prediction was based on the Wyckoff model and carried a bullish target of $62,000.
Lee began by highlighting Wyckoff’s concept of “bases,” noting that Ethereum had gone through long periods of consolidation since 2018.
He explained the principle that “the bigger the base, the bigger the breakout,” pointing to Ethereum’s surge from $90 to $4,866 between 2020 and 2021 after it broke out of its earlier base.
He then shifted to Ethereum’s value relative to Bitcoin. The long-term average ratio stood at 0.0479, while the current level was lower at 0.0403.
At its peak in 2021, the ratio reached 0.0807. Lee argued that Ethereum should not only recover to its historical average but also revisit its all-time high and potentially surpass it.
Using Fundstrat’s year-end Bitcoin target of $250,000, Lee estimated that Ethereum could trade between $12,000 and $22,000 if the ratio recovered.
However, he stressed that this was only part of the picture.
When considering Ethereum’s potential to replace traditional payment rails and banking infrastructure, Lee projected an implied valuation of $60,000 per token.
This, he explained, would set the Ethereum-to-Bitcoin ratio at about 0.25, which ultimately supported his $62,000 target.
Vitalik Buterin Defends Long Staking Queue
While defending Ethereum’s 43-day unstaking queue, Buterin took a more ideological stance. He likened the process to a soldier leaving the army, arguing that staking was a solemn responsibility to protect the chain.
The Ethereum founder added that some difficulty in exiting was necessary, noting that “an army cannot hold together if any percent of it can suddenly leave at any time.”
Even with the debate, the security of Ethereum remained strong. The network is supported by more than one million active validators and has 35.6 million ETH staked, accounting for nearly 30% of the total supply.
According to Buterin, the current staking queue design might not be perfect, but reducing the constants could risk making the network “much less trustworthy” for nodes that are not constantly reliable and online.
While the exit queue eased in recent days, it has still remained elevated at 2.5 million ETH, with most of it linked to the recent Swissborg-Kiln exploit.
Meanwhile, the entry queue climbed to 512,000 ETH, marking a two-year high and reflecting stronger institutional accumulation.