Foreign media reported that James Wo, founder of DFG, a crypto investment firm managing over $1 billion in assets, recently said at the Proof of Talk conference in Paris that he remains bullish on Bitcoin’s performance over the next several cycles, but is more cautious about Ethereum’s upside potential.
Institutional consensus for Bitcoin is stronger.
Wo told CoinDesk that Bitcoin has already achieved broader consensus between the crypto industry and traditional finance. According to him, the market is gradually viewing Bitcoin as a safe-haven asset and an independent asset class, whereas Ethereum has not yet reached this position.
He also countered market analyst Tom Lee’s prediction of a significant rise in ETH, arguing that Ethereum lacks the same level of institutional recognition as Bitcoin and therefore struggles to replicate Bitcoin’s pricing logic.
Layer 2 diverts value from the mainnet
Wo believes that the valuation of Ethereum tokens still depends on the mainnet’s ability to absorb on-chain activity and transaction fees, but Layer 2 networks have consistently diverted transaction volume in recent years and are capturing fee value within their own ecosystems, weakening ETH’s direct capture of overall activity.
Based on this assessment, he believes that Ethereum tokens may not receive strong enough price support from ecosystem growth and suggests that ETH might not even surpass its all-time high.
Bitcoin targets $125,000
Reports show that Wo began paying attention to Bitcoin during the 2014 bear market and subsequently entered the market with an initial $20 million provided by his family, acquiring Bitcoin during the lows from late 2014 to 2015. Since then, DFG has expanded into ecosystems such as Solana, Polkadot, and Near, and has participated in early-stage investments in Circle.
According to reports, DFG currently manages over 100 portfolio entities, with total assets under management exceeding $1 billion. Although Wo remains cautious about ETH, he believes Bitcoin still has the potential to reach a new all-time high in the coming years, possibly in 2027 or 2028, with a peak of around $125,000.
Additional context: The report also noted that earlier this year, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin reignited community discussion by suggesting that as the network becomes faster and cheaper, the necessity of Layer 2 as the primary scaling solution may diminish—while debates over mainnet value capture continue.