Despite the recent market crash, both Tom Lee and Arthur Hayes are sticking to their predictions that Ethereum will reach $10,000 this year, while historical data suggests that $5,000 is a more realistic target.

Both Tom Lee, CEO of BitMine, and Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, insist on their predictions that Ethereum ($ETH ) will reach $10,000 this year, despite the recent crash in the cryptocurrency market and the approaching end of 2025.

He told me during an interview on the Bankless podcast on Tuesday, in response to a question about his expectations for Ethereum's price by the end of the year:

"I expect it to be between $10,000 and $12,000."

Hayes, who participated in the same episode, reiterated that he will stick to his prediction that the price of Ethereum will reach $10,000 by the end of the year.

With Ethereum trading at $4,129 at the time of publication, reaching the $10,000 level means an increase of approximately 142%, a target that Hayes and Lee say is still achievable even according to conservative estimates for the rest of the year.

Lee: Ethereum has been in a "foundational phase" since 2021.

He clarified to me that such a rise would not be a price bubble, as Ethereum has remained in a relatively tight trading range since it reached its all-time high of $4,878 in 2021.

"Ethereum has been in a foundational phase for four years, and now it has broken out of its price range, so for me, this is not an excessive peak, but rather a new price discovery phase," he said.

It is noted that Ethereum briefly regained the peaks of 2021 last August before falling back below them and has not retested them since.

The price of Ethereum has risen by 57.14% over the past 12 months. Source: CoinMarketCap

Lee added:

"I think there are a lot of fundamental developments that will happen next year. I don't think we are at the peak yet, but it will certainly be an important and possibly happy phase."

Both Lee and Hayes have been predicting a significant rise in Ethereum's price since the beginning of the year.

Historical data tells a different story: $5,000 is closer to reality.

Their predictions come after the big crash last Friday, which saw over $19 billion in open positions liquidated and a widespread drop in cryptocurrency prices.

Before the crash, Ethereum was trading near $4,350, while it is now around $4,129 at the time of publication.

However, historical data shows that the target price by the end of the year may be closer to $5,000, which is about half of what Lee and Hayes expect.

According to CoinGlass data, Ethereum has recorded an average yield of 21.36% since 2016 during the fourth quarter of each year.

Ethereum has achieved an average quarterly yield of 21.36% in the fourth quarter since 2016. Source: CoinGlass

Based on this average, the price could rise from its current level to around $5,000 by the end of the year, which aligns with more conservative forecasts like James Harris, CEO of Tesseract, who sees Ethereum reaching around $6,500.

In contrast, other analysts see Ethereum approaching new historical highs. Michaël van de Poppe, founder of MN Capital, stated that the drop on Sunday pushed the ETH/BTC pair to 0.032, describing it as a "perfect buying zone."

Van de Poppe wrote in a post on platform X on Tuesday:

"We need a higher low, and then we will shoot for new highs."

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