Kain Warwick, crypto executive and founder of Synthetix and Infinex, is set to pay $50,000 after betting Ether would hit $25,000 in 2025, joining one of many market participants who overestimated the speed of Ether’s recovery following its October plunge.
Ether (ETH) ended December 31 at around $2,980, about 13.7% lower than at the start of the year, according to CoinMarketCap.
This was in part due to a $19 billion crypto market sell-off on October 10 that sparked a downtrend, pushing Ether as high as $2,767 before slowly climbing back up again.
The bet arose from an exchange between Warwick and Multicoin managing partner Kyle Samani in November. Samani doubted the chances that Ether (ETH) could recover and reach $25,000 by the end of the year.
Warwick disagreed, betting at odds of 10 to 1 that he had a chance.
“It’s time to pay,” Samani said in an X message to Warwick on Wednesday.
Warwick, like many others, had high hopes for Ether last year, given growing institutional adoption and the move toward tokenization of real-world assets.
Speaking to Cointelegraph on Friday, Warwick toned down his new Ether price target for 2026 in light of the recent loss, with a “miserable $10,000.”
“Akkkkktually (Actually), ETH is up 50% from when we made our bet. I just needed another clean 8x to win,” Warwick said.
Other analysts were leaning around $10,000
Just weeks before Warwick doubled down on Ether, BitMine President Tom Lee speculated that the cryptocurrency could end the year at around $10,000.
“For Ethereum, $10,000 to $12,000,” Lee said on the Bankless podcast on October 13.
Meanwhile, Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, who also appeared on the same podcast episode, said he is “going to stay consistent” with his prediction of $10,000 by the end of the year.
Although the price has not reached this level, Ethereum has reached further milestones in 2025.
Ethereum saw two major upgrades in 2025, Pectra in May and Fusaka in December. The Ethereum Foundation said Fusaka brings Ethereum closer to providing “near instantaneous transactions.”
On Thursday, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said Ethereum needs to do more to achieve its mission to “(build) the world computer that serves as the central infrastructure piece for a freer and more open Internet.”
