Tom Lee Says Crypto Is A 'Huge Winner' As Banks Move Toward Tech-Style Valuations, While Dan Ives Calls AI A 'Two-Horse Race'
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BMNR’s Chairman Tom Lee said financial firms will start trading like tech stocks as AI and blockchain reshape their industry.
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Wedbush’s Dan Ives stuck to AI, calling the AI race a “two-horse race” between the U.S. and China.
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The comments followed Fundstrat’s stock list update last month, which added JP Morgan as a buy.
Bitmine Immersion Technologies Inc. (BMNR) Chairman Tom Lee said big banks should be valued more like tech companies as AI and blockchain alter the industry. He dubbed crypto a “huge winner.” Wedbush’s Dan Ives, on the same panel, called the artificial intelligence (AI) contest a “two-horse race.”
In a panel discussion at the Future Proof conference, Lee said banks are not ready for a world where robots pay for things themselves in tiny automatic payments, facilitated by AI agents, because the industry cannot easily check who is sending those instructions.
Lee Calls Crypto A Winner
Big financial firms should be valued like tech companies because AI and robots will move much of finance onto blockchains, Lee said.
The financial industry is not designed to deal with robots, Lee said, “and robots make tiny payments and increase the risk of fraud. He also said that firms do not know who is giving a robot its instructions. “So there’s a real innovation taking place in the financial services world, actually, a lot of it is going to be built on blockchain.” That’s why he expects much of the new financial infrastructure to be built on blockchains, which he said makes crypto a “huge winner” eventually. The best financial firms will turn into tech stocks, and their price-to-earnings multiples should be rising as such, Lee said.
The Two Horse Race
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, who was also present on the podcast, was asked about Lee’s comments. Instead of talking about crypto directly, he pointed to the wider AI buildout, still in the early days as companies build out data centers, with utility and energy firms among the biggest winners. He then called the global race to build AI infrastructure a “two-horse race” between the U.S. and China.
Fundstrat’s Stock Picks
The comments came about a month after Fundstrat updated its stock picks last week. The firm added JP Morgan to its core buy list and put Robinhood (HOOD), Galaxy Digital (GLXY), and Riot Platforms (RIOT) on the list as its bottom five picks, cautious on crypto-sensitive stocks over the short term. However, the firm explained that it did not mean a traditional buy or sell rating. Lee has remained bullish in the long term on the cryptocurrency industry.
BMNR’s stock closed over 8% on Friday, tracking a rally in Ethereum (ETH). Bitmine, in fact, is the largest corporate treasury holder of Ethereum in the world. On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment around BMNR remained in ‘neutral’ territory, with chatter rising to ‘normal’ from ‘low’ levels over the past 24 hours.
Ethereum’s (ETH) price was trading at $2,639, up over 5% over the last day. On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment around Ethereum remained in the ‘bearish’ territory, accompanied by ‘low’ chatter levels over the last 24 hours.
Read also: Arthur Hayes Says Crypto Didn’t Need ‘Nonsense’ CLARITY Act – Just A Rate Hike, Bitcoin Tops $81K
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Anushka Basu has no position in any of the stocks mentioned in this article. StockTwits’ news team content is for informational purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. For more, see our editorial policy. This article was originally published on StockTwits.
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