Crypto executive Kain Warwick is set to pay $50,000 after betting that Ether would reach $25,000 in 2025, joining a long list of market participants who overestimated the speed of the cryptocurrency’s recovery following its October dip.
Ether closed out 2025 at roughly $2,980, about 13.7% lower than its price at the start of the year, according to CoinMarketCap. The decline was partly fueled by a $19 billion crypto market liquidation on Oct. 10, which sent Ether as low as $2,767 before it gradually recovered.
The wager originated from a November exchange between Warwick and Multicoin managing partner Kyle Samani. Samani expressed skepticism that Ether could rebound to $25,000 by year-end, while Warwick disagreed and placed the bet at 10:1 odds.
“Time to pay up,” Samani wrote in an X post directed at Warwick on Wednesday.
Warwick, like many others, had high expectations for Ether last year, buoyed by surging institutional adoption and momentum in real-world asset tokenization.
Speaking to Cointelegraph on Friday, Warwick lowered his Ether price target for 2026 in light of his recent loss, settling on a “measly $10,000.”
“Akkkkktually [Actually] ETH is up 50% from when we made our bet. Just needed another clean 8x for me to win,” he added.
Analysts were eyeing similar levels
Weeks before Warwick doubled down on Ether, BitMine chair Tom Lee projected the cryptocurrency could end the year around $10,000.
“For Ethereum, somewhere between [$10,000] and $12,000,” Lee said on the Bankless podcast on Oct. 13.
BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes, who appeared on the same episode, echoed the figure, saying he would “stay consistent” with a $10,000 prediction by year-end.
Ethereum hits other milestones in 2025
While Ether didn’t reach those targets, it achieved several important milestones last year. Ethereum underwent two major network upgrades — Pectra in May and Fusaka in December. The Ethereum Foundation said Fusaka brings the network closer to providing “near-instant transactions.”
On Thursday, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin emphasized that more work remains to fulfill Ethereum’s mission of “[building] the world computer that serves as a central infrastructure piece of a more free and open internet.”
