Bitmine’s Tom Lee: Crypto may surge once gold and silver cool off

Because the crash on the tenth of October, the crypto market has not seen a robust renewed bullish sentiment. In truth, Bitcoin [BTC] decoupled from gold after the deleveraging occasion and has underperformed it in 2025 and early 2026. 

Whereas gold and silver printed new highs above $5K and $110, Bitcoin dropped to $86k and will retest its latest low of $80.6k if the weak spot persists. 

Ethereum [ETH] additionally remained range-bound between $2.8k and $3.2k since November, retesting $2.8k after the latest BTC dip.  

Commenting on the crypto market’s weak spot, Fundstrat’s founder and head of analysis, Tom Lee, cited the final liquidation cascade and the metals rally as driving the muted value motion.  

“The dear metals’ transfer has sucked alot of oxygen out of the room. So crypto costs aren’t maintaining with fundamentals. However when fundamentals go to the appropriate, costs do comply with.”

Lee, who doubles as chairman of Bitmine Immersion, the world’s largest ETH treasury agency, concluded that, 

“So long as gold and silver rise, there’s FOMO to purchase that as a substitute of BTC. However when gold and silver take a break, that might result in Bitcoin and Ethereum surge afterward.”

Bitmine stakes over half of its ETH holdings

That mentioned, BitMine has staked over half of its holdings of +4 million ETH. Up to now few hours, the agency scooped up a further 20k ETH and staked one other whopping $610 million in ETH (209,540 cash).

This introduced its total staking stash to over 2.2 million ETH, value $6.5 billion, or 52% of its total holdings. 

Supply: X/Lookonchain

Apparently, ETH staking demand hit a file after crossing 30% of the entire ETH provide, with a number of U.S. spot ETH ETFs lined as much as search yield on their holdings. 

However this isn’t the one optimistic basic for ETH that has been climbing greater. Every day transaction counts hit a brand new excessive, whereas the common switch price throughout the chain has fallen to a comparatively low, aggressive degree. 

Will ETH value stay range-bound?

Regardless of ETH’s value lagging, Lee believes it’ll ultimately catch as much as the basics.

On the weekly liquidation map, the important thing ranges to observe forward of the Fed charge resolution had been $2.98K and $2.85K, which had been essential liquidity swimming pools for leveraged shorts and longs, respectively. 

Typically, volatility swings triggered by liquidity grabs all the time push value motion towards these key swimming pools. 

Supply: Coinglass

Closing Ideas

• Fundstrat’s Lee believes the continuing gold and silver growth will proceed to maintain merchants away from crypto.
• BitMine has scaled its staked ETH to 2.2 million, representing 52% of its total holdings.