It seems to me that Tom Lee was selected to single-handedly save Ethereum.

Michael Saylor called Tom Lee the most influential public figure in Ethereum's ecosystem:

- "Tom Lee has emerged as probably the most visible influential spokesperson. Capital flows because it trusts Tom Lee."

They need a captured cryptocurrency "competitor" to Bitcoin, just to divert attention.

I've researched Tom Lee and he's a very interesting character.

He was a Chief Equity Strategist at J.P. Morgan for 15 years (from 1999 to 2014).

Since June 2025, when Tom Lee was appointed Chairman of the Board of BitMine Immersion Technologies (ETH Treasury), ETH outperformed BTC. Correlation isn’t causation, but narratives + product pipelines (ETH ETFs, staking wrappers, tokenized treasuries on Ethereum Virtual Machine rails) lined up. He's surfing policy utility.

No one really believes ETH is decentralized or secure, so they are trying to market it as an "institutional innovation asset" to keep it alive (for now).

ETH was in the dumpster in April this year, sitting at $1500, so something had to be done.