Despite the recent downturn, Lee continues to believe that tokenization and AI driven infrastructure will remain major long term growth catalysts for ETH.
According to Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee, increasing oil prices are the main reason Ethereum (ETH) has been under pressure. He noted that the inverse correlation between ETH and oil has now reached its highest level on record.
His comments come as ETH trades near $2,100, reflecting a decline of about 3 percent over the last 24 hours and 12 percent over the past month.
How Oil Prices Are Affecting Ethereum
In a post shared on X on May 18, Lee explained that Ethereum has continued to weaken as oil prices climbed during the past six weeks. He described rising oil prices as the market’s biggest obstacle and said the inverse relationship between ETH and oil had reached an unprecedented level.
Lee believes the takeaway is simple. If oil prices begin to decline, Ethereum could rebound.
Still, he emphasized that the current weakness should be viewed as a short term issue rather than a deeper structural concern. In his opinion, Ethereum’s long term outlook remains tied to the tokenization of real world assets and the growth of agentic AI.
“These structural drivers are in place,” Lee stated.
He added that ETH prices are expected to strengthen further as the market moves through 2026.
The timing of these remarks is significant because Ethereum has been trending lower for weeks. The decline accelerated on May 18 after fresh geopolitical tension emerged when US President Donald Trump warned Iran in a Truth Social post that its “clock is ticking.”
Bitcoin dropped to roughly $76,700 following the statement, marking its lowest level since early May. More than $660 million in leveraged positions were liquidated across the crypto market, with Ethereum accounting for approximately $256 million of those losses, according to CoinGlass data.
Selling pressure intensified on Binance and OKX. Analyst Amr Taha reported that taker sell volume on Binance surpassed $1.1 billion as ETH approached the $2,100 level.
Market Heavily Cleared of Bullish Positions
Liquidation data suggests that much of the bullish leverage has already been wiped out of the market. Market observer CW stated that only around $600 million in highly leveraged ETH long positions remain, while short positions have climbed to $6.3 billion, more than ten times larger than the long side.
The analyst also pointed out that a new CME gap has formed around $2,200. In addition, three unfilled CME gaps now exist between the current ETH price and $3,200, reducing some of the downside technical risk.
Another trader, Crypto Ed, said both Bitcoin and Ethereum have entered what he described as “green box” support zones. However, he still expects another move lower before any lasting recovery begins.
Ethereum also reached a 10 month low against Bitcoin over the weekend. The ETH/BTC trading pair slipped below 0.028, a level not seen since the middle of last year.#crypto#cryptonews https://coinsignals.net https://t.me/coinsignalpublic
