Ethereum Set to Thrive in AI-Driven Economy: Tom Lee and Jordi Visser Weigh In
Two prominent analysts, Tom Lee and Jordi Visser, have turned bullish on Ethereum due to its potential role in an AI-driven economy. According to them, Ethereum is best positioned to absorb value generated by autonomous agents and automated settlement processes.
Tom Lee's thesis focuses on observable network flow metrics and supply dynamics. He believes that artificial intelligence (AI) agents require a programmable settlement currency with no sovereign counterparty risk, which ETH fulfills due to its dual function as both gas token and collateral asset.
Lee also projects that the combination of reduced issuance rates after The Merge and sustained transactional volume driven by AI agents can turn ETH into a net deflationary asset for prolonged periods. He expects institutional flows through spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in 2024 to contribute to buying pressure.
Jordi Visser, on the other hand, has formulated a thesis of crypto asset market capitalization reordering, which he calls the 'AI Flippening'. He argues that AI will cause a shift in value hierarchy between Bitcoin and Ethereum due to the autonomous agent economy's demand for a programmable settlement layer.
Visser structures his reasoning on three pillars: the settlement of payments in stablecoins, verifiable identity and reputation for non-human agents, and a displacement of institutional trust toward verifiable code. He expects this migration of value to favor decentralized protocols governed by open-source code, with ETH as the base asset backing.
Both analysts agree that AI agents will use public and permissionless networks, discarding enterprise solutions with controlled validators. On-chain data collected from early 2025 to mid-2026 supports several of these assumptions, including the growth in gas consumption by autonomous agent frameworks and ETH burning metrics correlated with peaks in agent activity.
The total value of financial instruments represented on Ethereum and its L2 extensions exceeded $22 billion in the second quarter of 2026, an increase of nearly 300% since the beginning of 2025. Asset managers such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and WisdomTree have publicly documented their participation in issuing tokenized funds.