The worst and best part of Tom Lee’s predictions: they’re too early

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It’s certainly possible to be in crypto for the tech.

In fact, being in it for the tech — I mean, really in it for the tech; digital nation states on blockchain rails, smart cities, and the tokenization of all things — is the most effective path to alpha bull status.

John McAfee: big tech guy. Michael Saylor: huge on the tech. Same with Tim Draper, Marc Andreessen, Brian Armstrong and Balaji Srinivasan. And who’s been more bullish than them?

Fundstrat’s Tom Lee. That’s who.

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Lee has, as of 9:08 p.m. yesterday, called the ETH bottom — to happen right about now.

Lee has actually been bullish longer than almost anyone still active today.

As far as I can tell, his first public predictions for crypto came in mid-2017. Bitcoin’s price had more than doubled in the first six months of the year, to $2,500, leading Lee to call bitcoin’s future price on at least 10 different occasions in the 10 months ending May 2018.

His first prediction actually came true. “Cryptocurrencies are cannibalizing demand for gold,” Lee wrote to Fundstrat clients eight years ago, in 2017, when bitcoin was at $2,607. “Bitcoin is arguably becoming a scarcer store of value. Investors need to identify strategies to leverage this potential rise in cryptocurrencies.”

Base case: bitcoin would reach $20,000 by 2022. Nearly 10x.

Bull case: $55,000 by 2022. A 22x in five years.

This handy graphic of bitcoin scarcity was included in Lee’s note.

Lee was exactly right. Bitcoin crossed $55,000 for the first time in February 2021, a little earlier than expected, and topped out nine months later beyond $69,000.

What makes things complicated is that Lee kept making predictions after that first banger.

Some were ultimately correct, but too low or too early; others didn’t eventuate in the way he envisioned (like the rally around CoinDesk’s Consensus 2018 conference that never came, or that bitcoin never reached $25,000 in 2018, as predicted multiple times in the first half of the year).

Still, there were a few other gems. In January 2018, he said that bitcoin could reach $125,000 by 2022 (which it did, only three years after the fact).

At the end of 2020, he foretold bitcoin trading between $100,000 and $150,000 by the start of 2025, which, all things considered, wasn’t too far off.

But if the worst criticism of Lee’s calls are that they’re too early, then you’ll dig his most recent ones: $200,000 to $250,000 possible in 2025 (from three weeks ago) and more than $1 million in the next few years.

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