Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee: Tokenization and AI Agents Drive Next Cycle
Tom Lee, Chairman of Bitmine and co-founder of Fundstrat, stated that artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency are converging, with tokenization and Agentic AI potentially becoming the two main drivers of the next crypto cycle.
He mentioned that BlackRock expects more assets to be tokenized, and financial settlement infrastructure is increasingly being built on crypto networks. Some fintech companies, like Revolut, have begun to build related businesses on Ethereum. AI is shaping the digital economy, while crypto provides the necessary digital currency and blockchain foundation for this system.
Lee repeatedly tied the same argument to Ethereum: Wall Street aims to tokenize government bonds, securities, and funds. AI agents require identity, programmable currency, and permissionless settlement networks, while smart contracts enable agents to price, place orders, and make instant payments autonomously. He cited a16z's concept of "AI and crypto unification," indicating that agents must use money, and blockchain is more suitable than traditional accounts for machine-to-machine settlement.
Bitmine has transformed from a Bitcoin mining company into one of the largest Ethereum treasuries in the public market, continuously buying and staking most of its holdings weekly, aiming for a circulation of around 5%. The company positions ETH as the settlement layer for tokenization and the agent economy, rather than merely a price asset, and in the chairman's letter, specifically mentioned BlackRock's BUIDL and JPMorgan's related tokenization products as evidence of institutional construction already underway.
In market mechanisms, buyers are incorporating the "settlement layer narrative" into the valuation of ETH spot, staking funds, and BMNR shareholders, while sellers are still pricing altcoins based on the Bitcoin halving clock. Funds are flowing from traditional asset tokenization pilots and agent payment experiments into Ethereum block space and staking yields. Beneficiaries are treasury companies that have hoarded ETH and are receiving staking flows, while those unable to turn throughput into a settlement necessity face pressure in the public chain narrative. The event-driven aspect comes from Lee rewriting the main variable of the next cycle from halving to tokenization and agency.
Source: Public Information
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Lee has been narrating the ten-year cycle at Fundstrat, and after transforming Bitmine into an Ethereum treasury in June 2025, he personally shifted the "next main line" from halving to tokenization and agency. Along the way, he first invested in AI identity cross-targets like Eightco, then converted mining cash flows into continuous ETH purchases, and used the chairman's letter to highlight BlackRock, JPMorgan, and Robinhood Chain as already operational sites rather than distant visions. This aligns with his consistent stance at WebX, Bankless, and Consensus: ETH is the operating system, not an altcoin.
Capital mobilization occurs in three layers: issuing shares in the public market and using existing cash to buy ETH, staking for daily cash flow, and then employing "5% alchemy" to create an irreversible position based on supply share. The motivation is that once tokenized settlement and agent payments genuinely move to Ethereum, treasury holdings will benefit from price, staking, and narrative premiums simultaneously; if the wrong chain is chosen, the high correlation between BMNR and ETH will lead to mutual losses. Strategically, the aim is to make the company a leveraged certificate for ETH rather than mining Bitcoin again.
Similar cases include Strategy transforming into a Bitcoin spot leverage, BlackRock using BUIDL to move money market funds on-chain, and protocols like Virtuals first establishing agents as payable entities. The industry position is transitioning from a speculative cycle to an infrastructure cycle: expansion continues, control has not yet fallen to a single clearinghouse, but the narrative has shifted from "who rises fastest" to "who can serve as the settlement layer for Wall Street and machines."
Structural judgment pertains to technological substitution. Corresponding to banks' end-of-day netting and manual compliance, these are being replaced by tokenized ledgers and automated agent execution; pricing power is shifting from the Bitcoin halving clock to those who control compliant tokenization quotas and agent wallet standards. The mechanism is: when machines start paying each other, they won't open bank accounts, only adjust smart contracts, thus the rent of the settlement layer migrates from bank card networks to public chain validators and treasury holders.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
The fuel for the next cycle is often not the slogan of the previous cycle.
If machines need to pay, it will rewrite who deserves to be currency.
The treasury is not buying coins, but positions for future settlement rights.