Ex-Coinbase Exec Balaji Srinivasan Closes Out $1 Million Bitcoin Bet

Former Chief Technology Officer at Coinbase, Balaji Srinivasan, closed out early a bet that the price of bitcoin would hit $1 million by mid-June amid hyperinflation of the U.S. dollar. Srinivasan paid a total of $1.5 million, more than the initially committed $1 million, with two-thirds of the money donated to two organizations.

Balaji Srinivasan, the ex-chief tech officer of U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase, has closed his million-dollar Bitcoin bet with the pseudonymous Twitter pundit James Medlock. On Tuesday, Srinivasan announced on his website and social media that he has settled the apparently losing bet ahead of time.

Medlock made the bet on March 16 when he tweeted: “I’ll bet anyone $1 million dollars that the U.S. does not enter hyperinflation.” Srinivasan took it on the following day, asking Medlock to buy 1 BTC and promising to send him $1 million if the leading crypto’s price doesn’t reach $1 million within 90 days.

Under a mutual agreement with Medlock, the venture capitalist donated $500,000 to the Bitcoin Core developers at Chaincode Labs and an equal amount of money to Give Directly, a charity supporting people living in poverty in Africa and America. The last third of the $1.5 million in USDC was paid to Medlock who tweeted:

I can finally say it: I settled the bet early with @balajis! Took some time to work out the details but he proceeded in good faith and you can see the receipt of funds on chain in the next tweet. $500k to me (so I get 30% post tax as planned) and 500k to @GiveDirectly

— James Medlock (@jdcmedlock) May 2, 2023

“I just burned a million to tell you they’re printing trillions,” Balaji Srinivasan said in his blog post, warning we are not facing a financial crises but a fiat crisis. In a video address published on Twitter, the angel investor explained that the main reason he did it was to send a signal that:

There is something wrong in the economy and the state isn’t telling you about it.

The tech entrepreneur reiterated the problems in the U.S. banking sector. He took the bet after the failures of Silvergate Bank, Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank, predicting a banking crisis that will fuel a significant devaluation of the U.S. currency.



He highlighted other potential challenges as well such as sovereign defaults, negative developments in the bond, real estate and other markets, rising credit card debt, high energy prices in Europe, the increasing costs of the Ukraine war, and the de-dollarization trend.

I just burned a million to tell you they’re printing trillions. pic.twitter.com/pX5622rjUO

— Balaji (@balajis) May 2, 2023

“God only knows how many days we have until, if and when, a fiat crisis happens … What I do know is that when it does happen, Powell isn’t going to warn you. He is still talking about a soft landing,” Srinivasan said referring to U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and drawing parallels with the behavior of the Fed’s leadership before the 2008 global financial crisis.

This meltdown is likely to be worse than the previous, Balaji Srinivasan believes, as too many things are failing at once, and insists: “So I have sounded the alarm, I’ve done my duty as a citizen. That’s why I burned a million to tell you they are printing trillions.”

Do you agree with Balaji Srinivasan’s warnings about an upcoming deep crisis in the fiat system? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.