I doubt that to be the case in regards to Ethereum"s prediction. There was no much DeFi effect on ethereum. It has its own catalyst although the DeFi hype added some volume but it'll be in the lowest form possible. Don't forget ethereum was picked to be the 'best performancing project for 2020' without DeFi been in the picture as a result of the ETH 2.0 speculated to launch this year. That only saw volume flowing into the ethereum project as investors bought in anticipation of the event.

The project would had still been a good investment even without DeFi coming into the picture. Looking at the recent incident that hit the market. The fall in ethereum wasn't that much reasons been that most traders took profit from their countless DeFi alts been traded and secured that profit in ethereum and bitcoin.

There are still high expectations for Ethereum as the hype towards Ethereum 2.0 hasn't slowed down. The success of the DeFi industry would only profit the Ethereum project more but that of a failure would not automatically means Ethereum will surfer.