MW Bitcoin's rare technical action points to a crypto bull market, says Fundstrat's Tom Lee
By Barbara Kollmeyer
Ethereum will see even strong gains by year end, says the strategist
Fundstrat's Tom Lee says cryptos are emerging from a bear market.
While stock markets dazzled investors in April, largely neglected cryptocurrencies seem ready to fight for the limelight in May.
Bitcoin pushed past the psychologically significant level of $80,000 this week, with some pointing to progress on a long-stalled crypto bill. The No. 1 crypto ended lower on Wednesday after six straight days of gains.
Our call of the day is from the co-founder and head of research at Fundstrat, Tom Lee, who sees the start of a budding crypto bull market, citing recent technical action.
Lee noted that alongside tech, crypto has been an outperformer since the Iran war began, with a 17.5% advance for bitcoin (BTCUSD) and 15.4% gains for Ethereum (ETHUSD).
At the Milken Conference in Los Angeles this week, the strategist said the message from meetings with crypto exchanges was that client behavior is changing. "They're starting to go long crypto. The institutional buyers are coming in."
He shared his chart showing three straight winning months for bitcoin, which he called "sign of bitcoin spring." That refers to the start of a recovery phase after a bearish period for the crypto.
"Bitcoin's never been up three consecutive months in the middle of a bear market, so it actually in fact marks the start of a bull market," he said.
According to Dow Jones Market Data, bitcoin has gained two straight months and is on pace for its third, yet remains down 35% from its all-time intraday high of $126,272 on Oct. 6, 2025.
Lee also pointed to a Wednesday post on X from Bollinger Capital Management president and founder John Bollinger, best known for inventing the Bollinger Bands technical tools. Bollinger said his "trend model for bitcoin turned positive," and his Tactica program is now "fully invested" in it.
Lee is particularly bullish on Ethereum, which is down around 52% from an August 2025 all-time intraday high of $4,955.23. Note, Lee is chairman of Ethereum treasury company BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR).
Ethereum itself is off 21% this year, versus a 6% fall for bitcoin. Based on how Ethereum has performed after bear markets - gaining slowly in the beginning, but then picking up speed - the crypto will probably see even stronger gains by the end of this year, said Lee.
Magnificent 7 stocks MAGS, software IGV and Ethereum are Fundstrat's top picks and Lee says the bottom is in for all three. In late February, Lee predicted that stocks and cryptocurrencies were in the final weeks of pullbacks, setting the stage for a strong March and even better April.
Lee also has made some wrongheaded and bold calls on crypto, such as a forecast that bitcoin could "easily get to $200,000" by the end of 2025, and top $1 million in a few years. His long-run view is that Ethereum will reach $250,000.
Read: Tokenization is coming to Wall Street as J.P. Morgan takes another step toward making Treasurys move like crypto
The markets
U.S. stock futures (ES00) (YM00) (NQ00) are flat and oil prices (CL.1) (BRN00) are lower.
Key asset performance Last 5d 1m YTD 1y S&P 500 7365.12 3.21% 8.59% 7.59% 30.79% Nasdaq Composite 25,838.94 4.72% 14.15% 11.17% 45.67% 10-year Treasury 4.336 -3.90 5.50 16.40 -4.50 Gold 4745.5 2.36% -0.94% 9.54% 43.35% Oil 92.39 -12.35% -5.70% 60.93% 53.29% Data: MarketWatch. Treasury yields change expressed in basis points
The buzz
Iran was still reviewing a U.S. proposal to end the war.
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DoorDash stock $(DASH)$ is soaring as Wall Street ignored mixed results and focused on higher average order values.
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Arm $(ARM)$ stock is dropping after the U.K. chip designer's forecast-beating results were met with some profit taking.
Two funds invested in private credit run by Blue Owl Capital are cutting dividends, and one of them sold half its stake in SpaceX earlier this year.
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-Barbara Kollmeyer
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May 07, 2026 06:56 ET (10:56 GMT)
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