Kain Warwick Pays $50K After Losing 2025 ETH $25K Price Bet
Kain Warwick, the founder of Infinex and Synthetix, will pay $50,000 after losing a wager that Ether (ETH) would reach $25,000 in 2025, missing the target by about $20,000 amid a slower-than-expected rebound following October’s decline.
ETH closed on Dec. 31 at approximately $2,980, about 13.7% below where it began the year, according to CoinMarketCap.
A $19 billion cryptocurrency market liquidation on Oct. 10 contributed to the subsequent downturn, sending ETH to a low of $2,767 before a gradual recovery.
The bet stemmed from a November exchange between Warwick and Multicoin managing partner Kyle Samani, who questioned whether ETH could climb to $25,000 by year-end. Warwick took the other side at 10:1 odds. “Time to pay up,” Samani said in an X post to Warwick on Wednesday.
Ether is down 2.18% over the past 30 days. Source: CoinMarketCap
Warwick, like other market participants, anticipated support for ETH from increasing institutional involvement and real-world asset tokenization. On Friday, following the loss, he lowered his 2026 ETH price objective to 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.
Other forecasts clustered near $10K
Weeks before Warwick doubled down on ETH, BitMine chair Tom Lee projected the asset could finish the year around $10,000. “For Ethereum, somewhere between [$10,000] and $12,000,” Lee said on the Bankless podcast on Oct. 13.
Separately, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes, appearing on the same episode, said he would “stay consistent” with his $10,000 year-end outlook.
While ETH didn’t reach those levels, Ethereum recorded other milestones in 2025. The network implemented two major upgrades: Pectra in May and Fusaka in December. The Ethereum Foundation said Fusaka moves the protocol closer to delivering “near-instant transactions.”
On Thursday, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the network must do more to fulfill its mission of “[building] the world computer that serves as a central infrastructure piece of a more free and open internet.”
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