Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee believes Ethereum has become the key decentralized component of the second wave of artificial intelligence, as investors redirect capital away from the overheated semiconductor sector. Lee highlighted two reasons for Ethereum's importance: its role as a decentralized settlement layer for AI agents and its ability to provide verifiable compute and data provenance through smart contracts. He argued that as AI systems increasingly interact autonomously, Ethereum's trustless infrastructure will be essential for coordinating economic activity between machines.