Tom Lee, Arthur Hayes double down on $10K Ether this year

BitMine chair Tom Lee and BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes are holding strong on their prediction that Ether will hit $10,000 this year, despite a recent crypto crash, and there being less than three months left on the clock.

“For Ethereum, somewhere between [$10,000] and $12,000,”  Lee said on the Bankless podcast on Tuesday, when asked where he sees the cryptocurrency’s price going by the end of this year.

Hayes, who also appeared on the same podcast episode, said he is “going to stay consistent” with his $10,000 prediction by the end of the year.

With Ether (ETH) trading at $4,129 at the time of publication, an increase to $10,000 would represent a gain of roughly 142%, a target that both Hayes and Lee believe is within reach, even as a conservative estimate, for the remainder of the year.

Ethereum has been “basing” since 2021, says Lee

Lee emphasized that a significant rally like this wouldn’t signal excessive market froth, either, as Ether has largely been consolidating within a range since hitting an all-time high of $4,878 in 2021. “Ethereum’s basically been basing for four years now, just broke out of the range, so to me, it wouldn’t be a blow off top, but rather seeking essentially price discovery at a new level,” Lee said. 

Ether only briefly reclaimed the 2021 highs in August this year, before retracing and not revisiting the level since. 

Ether is up 57.14% over the past 12 months. Source: CoinMarketCap

“I think there would be a lot of fundamental things happening next year,” Lee said, adding, “I don’t think it’s the top, but I’m sure it is a big level, it may be a big level but a happy level.” 

Both Hayes and Lee have been forecasting a significant rise in Ether’s price since the beginning of this year. 

Historical data tells a different story: $5,000 on the cards

Their predictions followed Friday’s market crash, which saw over $19 billion in liquidations across the crypto market and a broad decline in cryptocurrency prices. 

Ether, which had been trading near $4,350 prior to the crash, is now at $4,129 at the time of publication.

Related: ETH down 6.7% after crypto ‘Black Friday,’ showing more resilience than alts

However, Historical data suggests that Ether’s year-end target may be around half the level Hayes and Lee are forecasting. 

Oct. 1 marked the start of the fourth quarter, a period that has historically delivered average returns of 21.36% for Ether since 2016, according to CoinGlass.

Ether has seen an average return of 21.36% in Q4 since 2016. Source: CoinGlass

A similar gain from its current price would bring the asset closer to the $5,000 mark by the end of this year. This falls closer to the more conservative forecasts of other analysts, such as Tesseract CEO James Harris, who expects it to reach around $6,500.

Other analysts are mulling the possibility of Ether reaching new all-time highs soon. MN Capital founder Michael van de Poppe said that Sunday’s drop saw the ETH/BTC pair plunge to 0.032, which was an “ideal zone for buys.” 

Van de Poppe wrote in a Tuesday X post, “It needs a higher low and then we’re off toward new highs.”

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