- Tom Lee forecasted Ethereum at $12K–$15K while Kang calls the thesis delusional.
- Kang argues ETH fees remain flat despite massive growth in stablecoin and RWA adoption.
- Competitors like Solana, Arbitrum, and Tether’s new chains are capturing on-chain activity.
Andrew Kang, co-founder of Mechanism Capital, has launched a severe critique of Fundstrat’s Tom Lee following the latter’s bullish projections for Ethereum (ETH).
At Korea Blockchain Week 2025, Lee drew headlines with a bold forecast, i.e., Bitcoin could surge to $200,000–$250,000 by year-end, while Ethereum could rise to $10,000–$12,000, with potential upside toward $15,000 under favorable macro conditions.
A Deeply Flawed Thesis
But Kang sees Lee’s thesis as deeply flawed. In a lengthy commentary shared on X, Kang called Lee’s Ethereum arguments as one of the “most retarded combinations of financially illiterate arguments I’ve seen from a well known analyst I’ve seen in a while.”
He further accused Lee of providing “unprecedented amounts of exit liquidity” to crypto natives and even entities like the Ethereum Foundation and its co-founders, comparing the situation to the Celsius network’s collapse in 2021–2022.
Breaking Down Kang’s Critique
Lee argued that growth in stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets (RWA) would drive Ethereum network fees. Lee also compared Ethereum to “digital oil.” Kang dismissed the analogy as misleading, pointing out that oil prices, adjusted for inflation, have traded in a range for over a century.
Kang countered that despite a 100–1000x increase in stablecoin and RWA volumes since 2020, Ethereum fee revenue has remained largely flat due to network upgrades, migration of activity to other chains, and the inherently low transaction velocity of many tokenized assets.
Kang also said that no major bank has purchased ETH for its balance sheet, adding that banks don’t buy stock in custodians they use either.
Related: Ethereum (ETH) Price Prediction: ETH Slips Below Key Support
Lee also floated the speculation that Ethereum could one day be worth as much as all financial infrastructure firms combined. Kang dismissed this as “pure delusion” and a “fundamental misunderstanding of value accrual.”
However, Kang agreed with Lee that ETH technical analysis has value but accused the BitMine Chairman of using it selectively to confirm biases.
He described Ethereum’s chart as being locked in a multi-year range similar to crude oil, with recent failures to break resistance suggesting bearish momentum.
Related: Ethereum Fusaka Upgrade Slated for Dec 3 With Scaling Boosts
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