bullish

Tesla

Tom Lee

Elon Musk

<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/tag/tom-lee" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Tom Lee</a>&nbsp;is looking past short-term market noise and laying out a simple thesis for 2026.&nbsp;
If big technology stocks continue to anchor risk markets and the Federal Reserve turns more supportive as the year progresses, he believes both equities and crypto could be setting up for another leg higher.
In a CNBC&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e25brnKdSvk" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">interview</a>&nbsp;released on&nbsp;Dec 26,&nbsp;the Fundstrat co-founder said the recent pullback in digital assets looks less like a broken market and more like a temporary liquidity shock.&nbsp;
He tied his longer-term optimism to Wall Street’s accelerating push to move payments, assets and settlement onto blockchain networks, a shift he sees as especially bullish for Ethereum.
<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/blackrock-shares-2026-shocking-crypto-outlook" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Related: BlackRock shares 2026 shocking crypto outlook</a>
<h2 id="one-of-wall-street-s-earliest-eth-bulls">One of Wall Street’s earliest ETH bulls</h2>
Lee is the co-founder and managing partner at Fundstrat Global Advisors, an independent research firm known for thematic calls across equities and digital assets.&nbsp;
He previously worked on Wall Street in equity strategy roles, and has become a familiar voice for investors looking for simple, narrative-driven macro takes that connect stocks, rates and crypto.
Lee has also been one of the more consistently bullish traditional-market strategists on <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/tag/ethereum" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Ethereum</a>, arguing that tokenization and on-chain settlement give ETH a structural role in the future of finance.&nbsp;
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Beyond research, he is directly exposed to that thesis. Lee serves as chairman of BitMine Immersion Technologies, which in 2024 outlined plans to operate as an Ethereum-focused treasury and infrastructure company, holding ETH on its balance sheet as a long-term strategic asset.&nbsp;
<h2 id="tom-lee-s-2026-nice-list-for-stocks">Tom Lee’s 2026 “nice list” for stocks</h2>
Asked about his top ideas, Lee listed: Nvidia, AMD, Meta, Goldman Sachs and Arista Networks.&nbsp;
On the not-so-nice side, he pointed to names he said weren’t as timely - including CrowdStrike, Costco, Palo Alto Networks, Tesla and Willis Towers Watson&nbsp;- while stressing they weren’t outright “sells.”
His macro reasoning: he still likes tech for 2026, but also expects rate sensitivity and “dovish Fed” expectations to matter, because interest-rate decisions directly influence borrowing costs, valuations and how much risk investors are willing to take across stocks and crypto alike.&nbsp;
He added that a broader mix of sectors could work too, including “financials, industrials, energy, and basic materials.”
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 Tom Lee, Michael J. Saylor and Dan Ives attend BTC, ETH and WLD are Friends on September 16, 2025 in Washington, DC.
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Lee repeatedly framed digital assets not as a separate trade, but as part of the same liquidity cycle driving equities.&nbsp;
He said the October crypto liquidation, which temporarily broke crypto’s correlation with stocks, resembled prior forced deleveraging events and is still working its way through the system.
<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/nearly-1-billion-crypto-wiped-out" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Related: $1 billion wiped out in 1 hour as Bitcoin crashes below $82K</a>
As financial conditions normalize, Lee said he expects Wall Street’s push toward tokenization to directly benefit Ethereum, linking the “future of finance” narrative behind banks, brokers and asset managers to blockchain infrastructure.
<blockquote>
 “Wall Street wants to tokenize everything… and that’s going to bring a lot of efficiencies to Wall Street, but it really brings the use case forward for something like Ethereum,” Lee said.
</blockquote>
In that sense, Lee framed his equity “nice list” and his bullish crypto outlook as two sides of the same trade.
<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/explained/what-is-tokenization-explained" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Related: What is tokenization? Explained</a>
<h2 id="tom-lee-says-crypto-remains-in-recovery-phase">Tom Lee says crypto remains in recovery phase</h2>
Lee said crypto had a strong 2025 “until October 10th,” when a sudden <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/nearly-1-billion-crypto-wiped-out" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">liquidation </a>event caused digital assets to diverge sharply from gold and broader risk markets.&nbsp;
He likened the move to the type of forced deleveraging seen during the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63601213" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">FTX collapse</a> in 2022, not because of a single failure, but because of how quickly leverage unwound and liquidity disappeared.
According to Lee, the key similarity is what followed. In 2022, it took roughly eight weeks for market makers and liquidity providers to stabilize conditions after widespread liquidations.&nbsp;
He argued the October 2025 sell-off appears to be following a comparable timeline, suggesting markets are still in a recovery phase rather than entering a new structural downtrend.
<h2 id="price-targets-for-2026">Price targets for 2026</h2>
On price targets, Lee reiterated his longer-term optimism. He said Ethereum - which he referenced trading around $3,000 during the discussion - “can easily get to 7,000 or 9,000 in early 2026,” driven by tokenization and payments use cases.&nbsp;
He also said Bitcoin remains a genuine store of value, though it is currently suffering from what he described as “gold envy,” as capital has flowed aggressively into precious metals.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading near $92,988 and Ether around $4,109. Gold and silver, by contrast, have outperformed in late 2025, reaching record or near-record levels.&nbsp;
Lee said that divergence strengthens, rather than weakens, his conviction that crypto’s recovery will follow once liquidity conditions normalize.
<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/elon-musk-sends-brutal-words-on-silver-supply-shock" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Related: Elon Musk sends brutal words on silver price surge</a>

Legendary analyst reveals 2026 stock ‘nice list’

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