Tom Lee Says VC Friends Regret Not Buying Bitcoin (BTC), Up Roughly 80x in a Decade
Key Takeaways
- •Tom Lee, co-founder and chief investment officer of Fundstrat Global Advisors, said his venture capital industry contacts regret not purchasing Bitcoin.
- •Bitcoin has risen roughly 80-fold over the past decade, meaning a purchase made around 2016 would be worth about 80 times its original value.
- •Lee's reasoning rested on the GENIUS Act, the US statute enacted in July 2025 that requires covered stablecoin issuers to hold reserves in eligible liquid assets.
- •The decade of returns Lee referenced accumulated largely before the GENIUS Act established the first comprehensive federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins in the United States.
- •In the same remarks, Lee described stablecoins as "really digital money."
Tom Lee Says VC Friends Regret Not Buying Bitcoin (BTC), Up Roughly 80x in a Decade
COINOTAG — October 20, 2026 (Updated 07:17 UTC)
Tom Lee, co-founder and chief investment officer of the research firm Fundstrat Global Advisors, said that his friends in the venture capital industry regret not buying Bitcoin (BTC), an asset that has climbed roughly 80-fold over the past decade.
The remarks arrive roughly 15 months after the GENIUS Act's July 2025 enactment, and the decade of returns Lee referenced predates it: a purchase made around 2016 would have compounded through years in which the United States had no comprehensive federal framework for payment stablecoins. That juxtaposition — long-run performance accumulated largely outside federal stablecoin rules, followed by the arrival of a formal regulatory perimeter — is the frame Lee used to explain the regret he described among his venture capital contacts.
According to COINOTAG, Lee's reasoning rested on the GENIUS Act, the United States statute enacted in July 2025 that requires covered issuers to hold reserves in eligible liquid assets. In the same remarks, he described stablecoins as "really digital money."
Background
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Bitcoin (BTC) is the first and largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Launched in January 2009 by the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto, it has been widely cited among the best-performing assets of the past decade. A gain of roughly 80x means an investment made ten years ago would be worth about 80 times its original value.
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The GENIUS Act — the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act — was signed into law in July 2025, establishing the first comprehensive federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins in the United States. The statute requires covered issuers to back their tokens with eligible liquid reserves.
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Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to maintain a stable value, most commonly pegged to the U.S. dollar, and are widely used for trading, payments and settlement within the digital asset ecosystem.
This article was first published on COINOTAG: https://en.coinotag.com/tom-lee-vc-friends-regret-bitcoin-80x-decade
