2 Cryptocurrencies Poised to Soar 3,000% or More, According to 1 Top Wall Street Analyst

Despite top cryptocurrencies being down big across the board, the current crypto bear market could be coming to an end soon. That's according to Wall Street strategist Tom Lee, who has already predicted that "crypto spring" is here after a brutal crypto winter.

With that in mind, Tom Lee has set some hyperbullish price targets for both Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) and Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC). As he sees it, they will both experience hypergrowth over the coming decade, and both could be ready to explode in value by 3,000% or more.

Ethereum to $250,000?

Given that Tom Lee is now chairman of Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR), the biggest Ethereum treasury company in the world, it makes sense that he's especially bullish on the prospects of Ethereum. Even amid a crypto bear market, his firm has been steadily hoarding Ethereum and now owns close to 5% of all Ethereum in existence.

If Lee is right, those holdings could soon be worth considerably more than they are today. He's predicting that Ethereum could eventually hit a price of $250,000. Based on its current price of approximately $2,000, that represents a 12,500% return on investment.

Image source: Getty Images.

According to Lee, Ethereum is entering its "ETH 2.0" phase. This is the period of time when Ethereum finally goes mainstream and its blockchain becomes firmly embedded into the IT infrastructure of the modern financial world.

In its "ETH 1.0" phase, Ethereum became a heavyweight player in decentralized finance (DeFi), so this vision of Ethereum becoming the go-to blockchain for Wall Street in its "ETH 2.0" phase is not entirely out of the question. Ethereum has already become a key player in stablecoins and asset tokenization.

Yet, for Ethereum to enjoy those 12,500% gains, there needs to be a major paradigm shift. And, according to Lee, that's exactly what's coming for Ethereum. He compares Ethereum now to Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) before it launched Amazon Web Services (AWS) and to Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) before the current AI boom.

Bitcoin to $2 million?

For Ethereum to reach new stratospheric highs, it's going to need some help from Bitcoin. After all, Bitcoin typically leads the crypto market higher or lower, and Ethereum has historically marched in near lockstep with Bitcoin during both bull and bear markets.

According to DeFi Llama, the 12-month correlation between Bitcoin and Ethereum is a very robust 0.87. This is on a scale from -1 to +1, with 1.0 being a perfect 1:1 price correlation.

So, no surprise here, Tom Lee is also expecting Bitcoin to go on a monster rally of its own. He thinks Bitcoin could eventually hit a price close to $2 million. Based on Bitcoin's current price of $64,000, that's approximately a 3,000% gain in price.

While that might sound like a pie-in-the-sky price forecast, it's actually based on a comparison of Bitcoin vs. gold. As Lee sees it, Bitcoin is "digital gold," so a natural valuation benchmark for Bitcoin should be the total market value of gold.

Right now, the market cap of gold is approximately $28 trillion. That's nearly 28x the current market cap of Bitcoin. So, after a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, it's easy to see how Bitcoin could soar from its current price of $64,000 to a price of $1.8 million. For the sake of argument, let's call this $2 million.

Is this just crypto hype?

At this point, you might be scratching your head. Those are some pretty gaudy price targets, and they may require a willful suspension of disbelief. For good reason, Tom Lee has received plenty of pushback about his ultrabullish price predictions.

Let's be honest here. For Ethereum and Bitcoin to deliver 3,000% gains, it will require a complete remaking of the modern global financial system. Everything will need to run on Ethereum's blockchain rails, everyone will be just as happy to hold "digital gold" as physical gold, and money will flow out of traditional financial assets and into risky, speculative digital assets.

That's a bridge too far to cross for some people, especially given market sentiment for crypto right now. As for me, I still think Bitcoin and Ethereum are splendid long-term investments, but the days of these assets soaring in value, year after year, may already be over.

Dominic Basulto has positions in Amazon, Bitcoin, and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.