One of China's most prominent voices in cryptocurrency mining has made a striking about-face. Jiang Zhuoer, founder of the Chinese mining pool BTC.TOP, has abandoned a strongly bearish posture on the broader digital asset market and is now repositioning his remaining capital into Ethereum — publicly predicting that ETH will outperform Bitcoin before this market cycle concludes. For an industry figure whose identity has been inseparably linked to Bitcoin infrastructure, the move carries a significance that goes well beyond one man's portfolio reallocation.
A Bearish Reversal With Real Money Behind It
Jiang's shift is particularly notable because it follows a period in which he staked a real position on market weakness. He had previously liquidated his Ethereum holdings — selling his ETH — presumably to reduce exposure during a stretch when he expected prices to remain suppressed or decline further. That kind of conviction-driven exit is rarely reversed lightly, especially by someone who has spent years as a fixture in the Chinese crypto mining community, where Bitcoin maximalism and proof-of-work culture run deep.
The reversal suggests that whatever bear case he had constructed has, in his own assessment, backfired. He is now not merely speculating verbally about Ethereum's upside — he intends to deploy what capital he has remaining into ETH. The distinction matters. Predictions are cheap in crypto. Capital allocation is not. When someone who previously sold a position turns around and re-enters it with fresh conviction, markets — and observers — tend to pay attention.
Why This Signal Deserves Scrutiny
Jiang Zhuoer is not a fringe commentator. As founder of BTC.TOP, one of China's recognized large-scale mining operations, he has long operated at the intersection of Bitcoin's physical infrastructure and its financial markets. Mining pool operators occupy a structurally unique position in the ecosystem: they accumulate Bitcoin continuously through block rewards, giving them constant, intimate exposure to the economics of the network. When someone with that vantage point publicly pivots toward Ethereum, the statement carries a different weight than retail enthusiasm or venture-capital positioning.
That said, his track record on this specific call warrants honest appraisal. His prior bearish bet — reflected in selling his ETH — did not play out favorably enough for him to hold the position. The cycle he is now betting on for ETH outperformance is the same cycle in which his earlier bearishness cost him. This is not a disqualifying detail, but it is a relevant one. Confidence rebuilt after a wrong-footed call can reflect genuine recalibration, or it can reflect a sunk-cost psychological pull back toward an asset someone wishes they had held. Distinguishing between the two from the outside is difficult.
The BTC-vs-ETH Debate, Reloaded
The broader argument Jiang is implicitly making — that Ethereum will outperform Bitcoin in the current cycle — is one that resurfaces with regularity in crypto markets and has been argued convincingly on both sides at different points. Bitcoin has benefited enormously from institutional adoption momentum, the approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in major jurisdictions, and its increasingly fixed narrative as digital gold. These structural tailwinds have made BTC the preferred entry point for large allocators who want crypto exposure with the least narrative complexity.
Ethereum's case, by contrast, rests on utility density: the network underpins the majority of decentralized finance activity, stablecoin settlement, tokenized real-world assets, and non-fungible token infrastructure. Its transition to proof-of-stake has also fundamentally altered its supply mechanics, introducing a deflationary pressure mechanism under conditions of high network demand. Proponents argue that these fundamentals have yet to be fully reflected in price relative to Bitcoin, leaving room for ETH to close — or reverse — the performance gap that has widened in Bitcoin's favor during recent cycles.
Jiang appears to be betting on exactly that catch-up thesis. By shifting remaining capital into ETH now, he is essentially arguing that the market has underpriced Ethereum's utility relative to Bitcoin's monetary narrative, and that this cycle will correct that imbalance before it ends.
What This Means for the Market
One prominent figure's portfolio pivot does not determine market outcomes. But Jiang Zhuoer's reversal is a useful data point for a specific reason: it represents a Bitcoin-native operator — someone whose livelihood has been built on BTC's proof-of-work ecosystem — making a public, capital-backed bet on Ethereum's relative outperformance. That crossover signal, when it comes from credible infrastructure insiders rather than generalist traders, tends to reflect genuine shifts in how sophisticated participants are reading the market's next phase. Whether Jiang's call proves correct remains to be seen. But in a cycle where the BTC-versus-ETH performance debate is very much alive, his move adds meaningful weight to the Ethereum side of the ledger — and marks yet another moment where the walls between the two largest crypto ecosystems prove more permeable than tribal loyalties would suggest.
Written by the editorial team — independent journalism powered by Bitcoin News.