Tom Lee, chairman of Bitmine and co-founder of Fundstrat, says the crypto bear market is over. Speaking at Consensus 2026 in Miami, Lee pointed to Bitcoin's recent strength as a historical signal that the market is leaving the downtrend that saw prices drop from $126,000 in October to $60,000 in February.
Bitcoin has posted positive monthly returns in March, April, and is up roughly 5% in May so far. Lee noted that a bear market has never seen three consecutive monthly closes. "If bitcoin closes above $76,000 this month, the bear market is definitively over," he said. The CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index closed April at $76,300, and the asset is now trading just below $80,000.
Lee emphasized that investors remain anchored to the last downturn and are underestimating the rebound. He highlighted bullish technical signals from veteran trader John Bollinger, whose trend models have turned positive on BTC.
Fueling the next bull market are two megatrends: tokenization and AI agents using blockchain rails. Lee argued that AI agents will need to move value autonomously and will rely on blockchain networks and tokenized financial systems. He pointed to stablecoin transaction volumes surpassing Visa payments, and Grayscale's prediction that the $300 trillion securities market will migrate to blockchain rails. "The networks that host a large share of tokenized activity are going to capture the economic value," Lee said.
Lee compared JPMorgan - projected to earn $60 billion with 300,000 employees - to stablecoin issuer Tether and trading giant Jane Street, which generate similar profits with far fewer workers. "Native digital companies using blockchain as settlement eliminate a lot of processes and people," he said. Lee predicts that "in 10 years, half of the largest financial institutions in the world will be native digital."