Tom Lee and Jordi Visser Agree: Ethereum is the Future of AI

Fundstrat co founder Tom Lee believes the AI investment cycle is far from over. He argues that the next phase of growth will move away from hardware and toward crypto payment rails designed for software agents. According to Lee, traditional banking systems cannot support these automated agents because they require human trust, proof of funds, and complex tax reporting. Instead, he expects machine commerce to settle directly on blockchains like Ethereum.

Veteran investor Jordi Visser offers a more cautious view, suggesting that the era of massive gains in the AI sector has ended. While Visser expects more modest annual returns compared to the explosive growth seen in the past, he agrees with Lee on the destination. Both experts point to Ethereum as the network best positioned to handle the flow of payments as AI agents begin to transact with one another.

Tom Lee has a significant personal stake in this outcome, as he chairs a company that holds nearly 5 million ETH. His firm is transparent about its reliance on the future value of the asset. However, the reality of agent to agent commerce currently lags behind the hype. Current data shows that speculative trading on AI tokens is significantly higher than the actual volume of transactions processed by AI agents themselves.

Investors are now watching to see if machine payments will become a daily reality before the companies betting on that future face pressure to produce results. While projects like the Virtuals Protocol work on the infrastructure for agent wallets, the industry is still waiting for clear signs of adoption. The convergence of AI and crypto remains a high stakes experiment for the Ethereum network.