Tom Lee said in a media interview last November that BTC would set a new high in January 2026, while ETH, described as his largest holding, would climb to $7,000 to $9,000. By the end of January, the market had moved the other way. BTC broke below the $80,000 level on the last day of the month and at one point slipped under $75,000. ETH performed even worse, losing $3,000 and then falling below $2,300.
After that setback, Lee did not add a new short-term forecast in the source material. The only targets still referenced are his remaining year-end 2026 projections: BTC at no less than $200,000 and ETH at $12,000.
The four-year cycle thesis failed to show up in January
Lee’s earlier view was based on historical crypto market cycles. Under the traditional Bitcoin four-year cycle framework, the start of this year was expected to bring another leg higher. Still, many analysts had already argued last year that the four-year cycle thesis might no longer hold.
Based on the outcome so far, the source says it is now hard to expect a meaningful short-term rally across crypto. Another part of Lee’s thesis centered on a possible ETH “super cycle��� tied to the rollout of a tokenized economy. That idea has also lost momentum, with the U.S. CLARITY Act facing resistance and the expected path to adoption looking much more distant.
Several pressures hit the market at once
The report says the main trigger behind the weekend sell-off was the worsening Iran situation. At the same time, the arrival of a new Fed chair, a U.S. government shutdown, and the continued fallout from Binance’s “10/11 incident” were described as factors that added pressure to the market.
According to the source, crypto is now dealing with two linked problems: a lack of fresh narrative support and its treatment by traditional markets as a U.S. dollar risk asset. Liquidity has also stayed weak since last year’s “10/11 incident.” In that setting, once broader markets turn unstable, investors tend to sell crypto first. That leaves the sector in a reactive position, with price action closely tied to moves in the wider risk market.