Tom Lee used a Hong Kong conference to argue that Ethereum could be near a cyclical turning point, pointing to historical market analogues and basic on-chain cost data that he believes suggests the sell-off has reached exhaustion.
Speaking at the 3rd Futu Expo 2026 in Hong Kong on March 13-14, Lee said Bitmine advisor Tom DeMark identified a striking resemblance between Ethereum’s recent price action and two major declines in the S&P 500: the 1987 crash and the 2011 selloff. Lee described the pattern as unusually tight.
Is Ethereum at the bottom?
“Tom DeMark, he’s a legendary market watcher, and he gave us analysis that says that Ethereum, over the last few months, especially since October, really reflects what happened to the S&P 500 in 2011 and what happened to the S&P 500 in 1987,” Lee said. “If you were involved in the US markets, both periods marked significant declines in the S&P. Well, according to him, there is a 93% correlation between what Ethereum is doing today and what the S&P did in 1987.”
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This comparison plays an important role in Lee’s argument. If the 1987 analog holds, he said, Ethereum would have already reached its lowest level on March 7. If the 2011 comparison is the best, the market is currently at its lowest level. In both cases, Lee’s conclusion was the same: “So, using his analysis, we believe we are at the bottom or now coming out of the crypto winter.” »
He did not let the matter rest solely on the symmetry of the cards. Lee also highlighted Ethereum’s realized price, the on-chain metric that estimates the average acquisition cost of coins based on their last movement on the blockchain. According to him, that figure now stands at $2,241 for ETH, giving investors a way to judge how underwater the average holder has become.
Lee said the trend off previous lows is telling. In 2022, Ethereum fell to a 39% discount from realized price. In 2025, the discount reached 21% before ETH increased. “Right now we’re at 22%,” he said, adding that the market is now in roughly the same area where last year’s reversal began. “So we are at the level where, in 2025, Ethereum started to rise.”
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In other words, Lee’s thesis is that Ethereum does not need a blank macro context or a new narrative cycle to stabilize; it just needs to revisit the type of wearer’s pain that has historically marked exhaustion. According to him, this threshold is already there.
TOM LEE:
THE BOTTOM OF ETHEREUM IS IN ‼️Bitmine x TOM DEMARK compared ETH to previous S&P 500 crash recoveries.
The structure now closely matches that of 1987 and 2011, two major cycle troughs.
🔹 93% correlation with 1987
🔹 Matches the low of 2011
🔹 Realized price: $2,241
🔹ETH ~22%… pic.twitter.com/62TZscjChe-BMNR Bullz (@BMNRBullz) March 19, 2026
He also tried to move away from the immediate pullback and re-anchor ETH over a longer time horizon. “Before you lose hope, keep in mind that over the past 10 years, Ethereum has outperformed every other asset class over the past decade,” Lee said. “Over the past 10 years, Ethereum has returned 49,000%. That means almost 490 times your money.”
Lee compared that to Bitcoin’s 11,000% gain over the same period and even Nvidia, which he called “the best stock in the United States,” saying it returned 65 times investors’ money.
At press time, ETH was trading at $2,147.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
