Billion-dollar crypto investor doubles down on bitcoin, questions Ethereum’s upside

James Wo, the founder and chief executive of crypto investment firm DFG, says bitcoin remains the dominant institutional asset in crypto — and ether is unlikely to reach the same status anytime soon.

Speaking to CoinDesk at the Proof of Talk conference in Paris, Wo rejected Bitmine Immersion Technologies Chairman Tom Lee’s big prediction that ether would hit $250,000, arguing that Ethereum lacks the same consensus and institutional recognition that have formed around bitcoin.

“I totally disagree with him,” Wo said.

“Bitcoin has a very strong consensus. If you talk to everyone who is an early backer… they believe in bitcoin. Now, beyond the early backing of bitcoin, all the people in crypto, and also traditional finance people, are trying to recognize bitcoin as a safe haven or asset class. I don’t think Ethereum is there yet.”

Ether was trading around $1,775 as of time of writing, while bitcoin was near $63,000.

Wo argued that ether’s fundamental valuation remains heavily dependent on the localized application layer running directly on top of the network to capture fee value. With modern Layer-2 networks now diverting transactional volume and capturing fee utility independently, Wo explains that the network’s value accrual has been structurally different.

“The value of ether has been more diversified or decentralized,” Wo noted.

“The Ethereum token as a whole is not going to capture a lot of value. Onchain activity is not as big as people expected… I don’t think Ethereum will even hit an all-time high. I think bitcoin will perform well, but not Ethereum,” he claimed.

Not everyone agrees that Ethereum’s value accrual problem is permanent, however.

In February, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin reignited debate within the community after suggesting that Layer-2 networks, which have long been seen as the primary scaling solution, may “no longer make sense” as Ethereum becomes faster and cheaper. The discussion reflects broader questions about whether future upgrades could allow more economic activity to accrue directly to the Ethereum base layer.

‘What is bitcoin?’

Wo’s view, however, reflects the perspective of an investor who has spent more than a decade deploying capital across digital assets, that started with bitcoin.

After studying mathematics at university, Wo began watching classmates trade bitcoin during the 2014 bear market. He later entered the sector with $20 million in initial capital from his mother, who, at the time, managed an established enterprise and private equity firm in China.

“At the beginning, I don’t think she trusted me,” Wo recalled. “What is bitcoin? She has no idea.” But she gave him the money regardless and said, “Okay, so I’m going to support you anyway.”

He deployed that initial capital into bitcoin during the market lows of late 2014 and 2015. As the 2016 bull market developed, he diversified DFG’s balance sheet into alternative layer-1 protocols, becoming an early venture participant in ecosystems including Solana, Polkadot and Near.

He also directed early-stage corporate investments into consumer applications and Web3 infrastructure, including an early $10 million allocation into Circle’s USDC stablecoin project in January 2018.

Those investments helped transform DFG from a bitcoin-focused investment vehicle into one of crypto’s larger venture investors. Today, the firm manages more than 100 portfolio entities with over $1 billion in total assets under management.

Bitcoin’s new all-time high

While Wo remains cautious on ether, his multi-year outlook for bitcoin is constructive. He frames the asset as a superior liquid investment compared with regional real estate and traditional equity markets.

“I firmly believe this is going to outperform the Chinese stock market and also the U.S. stock market,” Wo stated. “Bitcoin in any aspect you can think of from the investment angle—liquidity is the best in the world.”

Wo expects bitcoin could undergo a near-term correction before reaching new highs later in the cycle.

“If it goes down 50% as a correction… the bottom should be around $60,000 to $62,000,” Wo calculated, adding that only an extreme geopolitical black swan event would push the asset lower.

Looking further out, he expects bitcoin to reach new records in the coming years.

“At the peak, we have somehow like $125,000… I believe we will see an all-time high in 2027 or 2028.”