Defi Pioneer Coughs Up $50k After Making A Pretty Bad Bet On Ether

Ethereum OG Kain Warwick, the founder of Infinex and Synthetix, missed the mark by about $20,000.

Crypto executive Kain Warwick is set to pay up $50,000 after betting that Ether would hit $25,000 in 2025, joining one of many market participants who overestimated the speed of Ether’s recovery after its dip in October.

Ether (ETH) ended Dec. 31 trading at roughly $2,980, around 13.7% lower than where it started at the beginning of the year, according to CoinMarketCap.

Part of it was due to a $19 billion crypto market liquidation on Oct. 10 that triggered a downtrend, pushing Ether as low as $2,767 before it slowly crept upward again.

The bet came from an exchange between Warwick and Multicoin managing partner Kyle Samani in November. Samani doubted the chances that Ether (ETH) could recover and hit $25,000 by the end of the year.

Warwick disagreed, making a bet at 10:1 odds that it had a chance.

“Time to pay up,” Samani said in an X post directed at Warwick on Wednesday.

Warwick, like many others, had high hopes for Ether last year, given surging institutional adoption and moves toward real world asset tokenization.

Speaking to Cointelegraph on Friday, Warwick toned down his new Ether price target for 2026 in light of the recent loss, with 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,” Warwick said.

Source: CoinTelegraph