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