Tom Lee, the cofounder of Fundstrat, has debunked an assumption that has floated around in the cryptocurrency space about Ethereum (ETH). Lee claims that institutional investors on Wall Street are more concerned about performance and reliability than speed.
Unusual advocacy for Ethereum
In an interview, Lee maintained that Ethereum’s uptime and decentralization make it attractive to large-scale finance. Hence, given that institutions care more about reliability and security than they do about raw speed, Ethereum has an edge among rival blockchains.
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The Fundstrat cofounder explained that even if Ethereum is slower on its base layer, this can be overcome with scaling solutions like layer-2 networks. This will compensate for the cost and speed issues.
EXCLUSIVE – “WALL STREET DOESN’T CARE ABOUT SPEED – THEY WANT ETH”@fundstrat:
“The crypto community abandoned Ethereum… they thought faster was better – that’s why Solana and Sui took off.
But Wall Street wants 100% uptime, not speed – they can build on layer twos.
ETH’s… https://t.co/SZmmg1lSum pic.twitter.com/5TAD5KQcCC
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) August 29, 2025
Lee asserts that big institutional players are not prioritizing blockchain networks on the basis of speed. He acknowledged that Solana and Sui might process transactions faster than Ethereum, but “Wall Street doesn’t care about speed, they want ETH.”
He insisted that these institutional players are more concerned about Ethereum for its long track record, strong developer ecosystem and reliability. Lee believes that it was retail traders who made Solana and Sui relevant as they shifted attention to these chains due to lower fees and high throughput.
Ethereum price outlook shows signs of major cycle
Tom Lee pointed out that although Ethereum has not posted multiple new all-time highs (ATH) since the 2021 bull market, things are looking different now. The leading altcoin has gained over 14% in the last 30 days and managed to find stability above $4,000 for the greater part of this time period.
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However, Ethereum recently hit an ATH of $4,885, as reported by U.Today. Lee maintains that if ETH stays above $4,800, then the market could witness a really big bullish cycle.
As of press time, the Ethereum price was changing hands at $4,353.06, representing a 5.49% decline in the last 24 hours. It previously hit an intraday peak of $4,613.78 before the decline. Volume remains up by 0.07% at $40.48 billion.