Ethereum (ETH) is nearing a potentially decisive technical breakout, according to BitMine Chairman and Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee. In his latest update, Lee highlighted that ETH is only about 3.5% away from breaking above the upper boundary of the Ichimoku Cloud on the daily chart. Ethereum was trading around $1,906, with the upper cloud band acting as major resistance. A sustained move above it would be ETH's first breakout above the Ichimoku Cloud since October 9, 2025, which technical analysts view as a signal of trend reversal or the start of a new uptrend.
Lee reiterated his long-term bullish thesis for Ethereum. He previously said he expected the ETH/BTC pair to strengthen in the second half of 2026, and now points to the ratio rising at 0.02994. "We are encouraged to see the ETH/BTC ratio at 0.02994 and rising," Lee said. He believes the next ETH tailwind could be larger than the ICO boom of 2017-2018 and the NFT/decentralized application explosion of 2020-2021. Markets are beginning to recognize Ethereum's growing role in tokenization and agentic-AI applications, he argued.
Lee has also said Ethereum could become the future settlement layer of finance, with tokenized stocks, bonds, funds and real-world assets creating demand for Ethereum-based infrastructure. BitMine reported on Aug. 17 that it held 5.8 million ETH, or 4.8% of Ethereum's total supply of 120.7 million ETH, valued at roughly $11 billion at an ETH price of $1,893. The company added another 9,926 ETH during the preceding week.
This is not investment advice.
