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Balaji Srinivasan Closes Out $1 Million Bitcoin Bet Early (bloomberg.com) 53

Posted by msmash from the losing-the-battle-to-win-war dept.
Balaji Srinivasan, the former chief technology officer of Coinbase Global, said he closed out what appeared to be a losing bet that Bitcoin would rise to $1 million within 90 days. From a report: Srinivasan said he gave $1 million to two organizations, including Bitcoin Core development team at researcher Chaincode Labs, as well as paying $500,000 to someone who goes by James Medlock on Twitter, and who won the wager. The goal of the bet, Srinivasan reiterated in a Twitter post and a short video Tuesday, was to show that fiat currencies such as the dollar are in trouble, and that those troubles will push Bitcoin's price up. At $28,710, Bitcoin is about 10% up from when Srinivasan accepted the bet on March 17. "The reason that I did that is I wanted to tell you in a provable way that there's something wrong in the economy and the state isn't telling you about it," Srinivasan said in the video, recounting troubles with US banks, sovereign debt and other potential issues. "That is what I am doing at my own expense, I am raising public alarm."
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Balaji Srinivasan Closes Out $1 Million Bitcoin Bet Early More

Balaji Srinivasan Closes Out $1 Million Bitcoin Bet Early

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  • Bitcoin's going up because of Wash Trading (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday May 03, 2023 @04:21PM (#63495318)
    and pump & dump like this. Mostly Wash Trading. Google it, you can find articles and studies proving it. One of the nice things about a public block chain is that it's like shooting fish in a barrel when it comes to finding securities fraud.

  • Bitcoin... measured in USD (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Local ID10T ( 790134 ) <ID10T.L.USER@gmail.com> on Wednesday May 03, 2023 @04:45PM (#63495392) Homepage

    The goal of the bet, Srinivasan reiterated in a Twitter post and a short video Tuesday, was to show that fiat currencies such as the dollar are in trouble, and that those troubles will push Bitcoin's price up.

    As long as you are measuring the value of your crypto currency in terms of US Dollars, the US Dollar is not in trouble. When we start measuring the value of our fiat currency in terms of Bitcoins, then the US Dollar will be in trouble.

    It is the basic concept of currency -the currency is what you value other things in terms of. i.e "a loaf of bread is $5.00"

  • As an economic doomsday evangelist, he's got a general sense of uneasiness, and thinks that a handful of failed banks and a potential recession are enough to drive Bitcoin to a million dollars. He's also in a position to make the bet and pay it off early like it's nothing. What a great little microcosm.

  • Back on March 16, Medlock posted a tweet, “I’ll bet anyone $1 million dollars that the US does not enter hyperinflation.”

    On March 17, Srinivasan responded with, “I will take that bet.” He asked Medlock to buy one Bitcoin. He promised to send $1 million if [bitcoin doesn't reach $1 million] after 90 days.

    That is not a rational bet. That is, even if the US did enter hyperinflation, the dollar would not be devalued that quickly.

    • Incidentally, the only way the US would enter hyperinflation is if the government responds to inflation by printing more money. Most incompetent governments of the world have managed not to do that.
      • He's an idiot.
        A quick perusal of Wikipedia would have made him think twice.

        We think of post WWI Germany having it bad, [wikipedia.org] but goodness things must have been weird in post WWII Hungary.
        I own a 100 million Mark note from December 1920 issued in Berlin, and it is not worth a whole lot even now because it is not that rare.

        • For fun I got a Zimbabwe $1billion note [amazon.com]. Not expensive either, but the only way it would be cooler is if I had gotten it in person.

          • ... $1 billion note ...

            But I want a $100 trillion [banknoteworld.com] note.

            • One thing of note is that's the 2nd re-denomination of the Zimbabwean dollar. The $100tn Zimbabwean dollars (ZWR) note is actually equivalent of $10^27 pre-2006 Zimbabwean dollars (ZWD)

              And for a fun fact, the $500 note of the 3rd re-denomination of the Zimbabwean dollar (ZWL) introduced one year after the $100tn ZWR note is actually worth $500tn ZWRs :-)

          • Cool. I might get one.
            It's a $1 Billion Dollar Banknote that costs $20 to buy, which is kind of funny.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
              One question isn't the $ the symbol for US Dollar and not just for any currency that choses to call itself " something dollar"? In case I'm right the follow up question would be "has there ever been a USD1Bn note printed by the mint ( or its authorised partner)?"
              Note: this is not a needlessly pedantic nit pic

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Shaitan ( 22585 )

                No there hasn't. But the idea of minting a billion dollar coins and depositing them in the government's Fed account was being seriously considered and might well have happened by now if the house hadn't flipped on the last cycle. That is one way to balance the books after out of control spending I suppose.

                • That's not a serious plan, and it wouldn't have balanced the books. American government spending is only "out of control" when the Democrats are in charge it seems.
                  Republicans had no problem with George Bush spending billions invading Iraq (for instance).

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by Shaitan ( 22585 )

                    George Bush spent billions protecting the US oil interests worth far more, democrats blew trillions on essentially nothing.

                    "That's not a serious plan, and it wouldn't have balanced the books."

                    The plan was a joke but they were quite serious about it.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by hawk ( 1151 )

                  > was being seriously considered

                  but not by serious people.

                  It comes from folks who deny basic economics, with their "New Monetary Theory" or some such.

                  >might well have happened by now if the house hadn't flipped on the last cycle.

                  uhm, no.

                  The folks who actually want to do this are in the Dingbat Caucus, far enough out into "Loony Left" that even most seriously liberal democrats don't take it seriously.

                  (yeah, it could come from extreme right nutsos, too, but I don't think that that particular flavor have

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by Shaitan ( 22585 )

                    'the Dingbat Caucus, far enough out into "Loony Left"'

                    Maybe you haven't been paying attention. Everyone right of that is now either been branded a right wing supremacist, extremist, domestic terrorist, misogynist, xenophobic, transphobic, something or been sipping the kool-aid long enough in the echo chamber to be polarized right there with the nuts. The nuts are all that is left of the liberals at the moment... I hesitate to use that word though, there is nothing liberal in their ideology. They voted down

              • $ is the symbol for dollar.
                The dollar was not originally American, it was named after a Spanish currency which was named after the Thaler which was used in parts of the Holy Roman empire.

            • Cool. I might get one.

              It's a $1 Billion Dollar Banknote that costs $20 to buy, which is kind of funny.

              Get the $100 Trillion dollar note instead. Yes that's a thing.

              Also note that the 2008 version of the Zimbabwean Dollar is already post a re-denomination. They already devalued their currency by a factor of 10 trillion at this point. That $10^9 (ZWR) note is worth $10^22 of the original Zimbabwean Dollar (ZWD), a currency which once traded for $1 USD = $1.2 ZWD

      • What does even hyperinflation matter, if your income is indexed to rising prices so your real purchasing power remains constant?

        • Because your income is not indexed to rising prices. Some economists thus applaud inflation, as a way to reduce production expenses simultaneously across the entire country.

          • Why shouldn't income and savings just be indexed to rising prices? How could it be worse than current policy?

            • Well, it could be. That is what Brazil basically did, and it's how they stopped inflation.

        • What does even hyperinflation matter, if your income is indexed to rising prices so your real purchasing power remains constant?

          Because you get paid every week (or month) but the prices rise every day (or hour).
          You'll always be behind

          That's just you as a consumer.
          Saving, investing, business, have it even worse and the economy falls apart.

          • What, technically, stops indexation from being continuous?

            • What, technically, stops indexation from being continuous?

              Time required to do the indexing, I would guess.
              I suppose with advanced enough price scraping you could ignore the seasonal and other adjustments made to the numbers and get something closer.
              Even then, so many prices can change at anytime. Do you base the indexing on the morning rush price? The lunchtime discount? The half hour before closing giveaway prices? Do employers start adjusting the time of day that they pay their employees to save a few dollars?
              That's just regular inflation. Hyperinflation wou

        • What does even hyperinflation matter, if your income is indexed to rising prices

          Because your income is likely to be zero after your employer fires you and invests in fixed assets instead, like land or precious metals.

          The problem with inflation is that it shifts investment away from normal businesses, which may have a 10% annual ROI, toward unproductive assets that may appreciate 1000000%.

          • Why not give everyone a strong basic income (indexed) and access to commons to self-provision if the market fails them?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Shaitan ( 22585 )

        True but not all and the they'd been floating that idea before the house flipped. Crap like that is WHY the house flipped.

        Though it doesn't require printing more money... there is already plenty of money and most of it isn't printed. They just have to do something that triggers a mountain of debt to disappear or releases a bunch of wealth currently tied up to start circulating. Depending on how it is done it might cause short term deflation (or cooling of inflation) but that rubberband will snap back hard.

        • They just have to do something that triggers a mountain of debt to disappear or releases a bunch of wealth currently tied up to start circulating.

          That would be a one-time inflationary event, not hyper-inflation. Not great, but a different thing.

    • That is not a rational bet period. Medlock bets $21K by buying 1 bitcoin, gets paid $1M in 90 days by either the bitcoin raising to $1M or from Srinivasan. There is no way to lose that bet.

  • Good job. An idiot with money, obviously.

  • A month too early? (Score:3)

    by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Wednesday May 03, 2023 @05:17PM (#63495484) Journal

    I'm thinking if there's truth to his bet, we wouldn't see Bitcoin really climb until the Federal Reserve declares it can't pay all of its debt obligations (expected to happen by June 1st.).

    It's always the vote to raise the debt ceiling and the push-back against signing off on it that causes economic turmoil and lack of confidence in the US dollar.

  • He's not a "cryptovangelist", just a misguided cryptobro whose rush to call fire did not result in a crowded theater.

    He didn't "bet". He placed a one-sided non time-due wager on an undefined goal. This article says "by mutual agreement" but there having been no notice of any such wager, nor anyone on the other side other than the magic word "mutual" I guess he agreed with himself. https://www.yahoo.com/entertai... [yahoo.com]

    Also was it one million, or one million AND another $500,000??? https://www.coindesk.com/bu [coindesk.com]

    • It is entirely possible that they agreed to the whole thing just to hype themselves. Regardless, it's worth noticing that Bitcoin is entering another positive hype stage.
  • Lies, bullshit, and changing the rules mid game even after the deck is already stacked.

  • Don't drink and gamble, it's a bad combination. Also trying to rationalize a bet makes you look crazy.

  • There are always fools around to support scams, just different shapes and forms of it including Bitcoin/crypto.

  • Not paywalled info: https://cointelegraph.com/news... [cointelegraph.com]
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/b... [forbes.com]

    Under his view, investors will rush to secure the value of their rapidly-depreciating dollars in Bitcoin, rapidly driving the value of the asset to reach a price of $1 million

    Call me crazy, but surely precious metals are a far better bet for investors than a useless digital currency, prone to insane fluctuations in price?

    11 August, 2021
    BTC, $67,000
    Gold, standard ounce - $1743

    4th May, 2021
    BTC, $29,000
    Gold, standard ounce

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