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The former Chief Technology Officer of Coinbase, Balaji Srinivasan, has settled a high-profile wager involving $1M 45 days ahead of time but maintains that a “fiat crisis” is imminent.
The highly publicized bet between Srinivasan and pseudonymous Twitter user James Medlock regarding the future price of Bitcoin has been settled for a total of $1.5 million. The original wager was initiated on March 17, when Medlock tweeted that he would bet someone $1 million that the U.S. dollar would not enter any state of hyperinflation.
Srinivasan disagreed with Medlock’s prediction and proposed a bet that Bitcoin’s price would reach $1 million by June 17.
The terms of the bet stated that if Bitcoin’s price failed to reach $1 million by the agreed-upon date, Medlock would receive $1 million in the dollar-pegged stablecoin USD Coin, as well as an additional 1 BTC. On the other hand, if Bitcoin’s price did reach $1 million by June 17, Srinivasan would keep the 1 BTC and the $1 million in USDC.
However, on May 2, Srinivasan announced that the bet had been “closed out by mutual agreement” 45 days ahead of schedule. Instead of paying out the agreed-upon amount to Medlock, Srinivasan chose to donate a total of $1.5 million to three different entities as a settlement.
The settlement included a $500,000 payment to Medlock, $500,000 in donations to Bitcoin Core developers, and an additional $500,000 donation to the non-profit charity Give Directly.
Despite giving away a total of $1.5 million, Srinivasan remains convinced that the American economy will eventually reach a state of hyperinflation. Under his view, investors will flock to Bitcoin to secure the value of their rapidly depreciating dollars, rapidly driving up the price of the asset to reach $1 million.
In a tweet about the wager, Srinivasan mentioned that he “burned” a million to tell the public that a trillion was in the print.
“I spent my own money to send a provably costly signal that there’s something wrong with the economy, and that it’s not going to be a ‘soft landing’ like Powell promises — but something much worse.”
While the bet between Srinivasan and Medlock garnered significant attention, it is important to note that predicting the future price of cryptocurrencies is notoriously difficult. Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, is currently trading at just over $28,700 with a market capitalization of $556 billion.