Foreign media commentators believe that Tom Lee's target of $250,000 for ETH still faces significant constraints given current on-chain and market data. Based on the current circulating supply, this price would push the Ethereum network's valuation to approximately $30 trillion, a size approaching the global gold reserves and exceeding the US Treasury market.
Supply is still growing
The article states that the current circulating supply of Ethereum is approximately 121.75 million, with an annualized growth rate of about 0.82%. After the Dencun upgrade in 2024, more transaction fee activities shifted to the lower-cost Layer 2, resulting in a significant decrease in on-chain burning, with an annual burning of approximately 29,000 ETH, while the annual issuance is approximately 1.03 million ETH.
This means that Ethereum is not currently the deflationary asset portrayed in earlier market narratives. If the price of ETH rises to $250,000, at this growth rate, the nominal value corresponding to the annual increase in issuance would reach approximately $250 billion. The article argues that supply expansion itself may not be a decisive obstacle, but for the price to increase 50-fold, demand must bear the main driving force.
Bitcoin needs to rise to a higher level in tandem.
The article focuses on the ETH/BTC ratio. Historically, this ratio has never consistently exceeded 0.15, and the 2017 high was only briefly touched. Based on the Bitcoin price of approximately $63,872 listed in the article, an ETH price of $250,000 would correspond to an ETH/BTC ratio of approximately 3.91, far exceeding the historical range.
The article argues that if ETH rises to $250,000 without significantly deviating from its historical price range, Bitcoin's price would need to rise in tandem to between $1.67 million and $2.94 million. In other words, this prediction either requires a significant upward move in both BTC and ETH, or a historic revaluation of the ETH/BTC relationship.
The claims of corporate validators do not align with the current situation.
Tom Lee also mentioned that the Ethereum Foundation's holdings have dropped to approximately 0.1%, while entities such as Bitmine and SharpLink collectively control about 7% of the circulating ETH. The article cites data showing that 32 publicly traded companies and government entities collectively hold approximately 7.43 million ETH, representing about 6.16% of the total supply, with Bitmine holding approximately 5.42 million and SharpLink holding approximately 869,000.
However, the article points out that holding ETH and running a validator are not the same thing. The validator operators are the ones truly responsible for network verification and earning staking rewards. Currently, approximately 39.25 million ETH are staked, with Lido accounting for about 19.4%, followed by Binance, ether.fi, Coinbase, and Figment. Based on this structure, there is still a significant gap between the size of a company's treasury holdings and its actual validator weight.
The article argues that to support the $250,000 ETH target, Ethereum needs not only to absorb unprecedented global financial flows, but also to burn more tokens than it was issued, significantly restore the ETH/BTC ratio, and ensure that corporate holdings truly translate into a higher proportion of validators. Based on current data, these conditions have not yet simultaneously materialized.
