Andrew Kang Rebuts Tom Lee’s Ethereum Bull Case, Pointing to Stagnant Fees and Cross-Chain Drift

Kang says stagnant fee accrual plus absent institutional buying undercut the core pillars of Lee’s thesis.

Overview

Mechanism Capital founder Andrew Kang publicly criticized Tom Lee’s Ethereum thesis on X, calling it financially illiterate.
He argued Ethereum fees remain near 2020 levels despite massive growth in tokenized assets and stablecoin use.
Kang attributed the fee stagnation to cheaper transactions after upgrades, migration of activity to Solana, Arbitrum and Tempo, and low-velocity tokenized assets.
He dismissed the “digital oil” analogy as misguided and rejected claims that banks will buy and stake ETH, noting no major institution has announced balance‑sheet purchases.
He concluded ETH may remain in a multi‑year trading range without structural changes that drive durable fee capture, with recent attempts to break resistance failing.