Terms of Bitcoin dispute to rise to a million dollars

The bet was concluded on March 17, 2023, when a user nicknamed jdcmedlock told his Twitter followers that he was willing to bet a whole million dollars against someone that the US dollar would not enter a state of hyperinflation in the foreseeable future. Former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, who is known for his good attitude towards digital assets, responded to the call.

Former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan

The terms of the bet stipulated that if the price of Bitcoin did not reach a million dollars by June 17, jdcmedlock would receive a million in USD Coin Stablecoin (USDC) as well as an additional 1 BTC he bought for the bet. If Bitcoin is worth more than a million dollars by the same day, Balaji will be able to keep both the bitcoin and a million dollars in USDC, Cointelegraph reported.


It's worth noting that even the most active cryptocurrency enthusiasts have questioned the prospects of such a rise. Yes, the US economy is not in a good place right now due to high base interest rates and regular bank crashes, but that doesn't mean anything. However, detractors for several years have been regularly talking about the alleged readiness of the dollar to lose the role of the world's main fiat currency, but this has never happened.

Therefore, experts agree that Balaji simply wants to promote his name and popularize Bitcoin at the same time. And because he also sells books, such an initiative to promote his own brand still made sense.

Cryptocurrency market growth

Their betting period was 90 days from inception – that is, until 17 June 2023. Most interestingly, Balaji was confident in his actions and claimed that rapid inflation in the US economy would indeed lead to an unprecedented jump in the value of BTC. This week at the Consensus 2023 conference he once again reiterated his point of view.


Although to be fair, it should be noted that doubts in Balaji's quotes the day before were noticeable. Specifically, he then stated that his prediction could take as much as 900 days or as long as 90 months to materialise.

Why has the Bitcoin controversy been dropped?

A few days had passed since the conference, after which Srinivasan suddenly announced an early termination of the bet not in his favour. However, he noted on Twitter that the dispute was decided to end “by mutual consent” – that is, the ex-CTO of Coinbase had agreed with jdcmedlock in advance.

“I burned a million to make you understand – they are printing trillions,” was the title of Srinivasan’s lengthy social media post. He implies that the betting itself is a message about the incompetence of the US Fed, which the former Coinbase executive wants to spread. Here’s his quote, which Decrypt cites.

Why did I do this? Well, I’m not a trader, I’m not John McAfee, and I’m not in the habit of publicly burning a million quid. I did it because I believe in the public good, but alas, we can no longer rely on the public sector to tell us when something goes wrong.

Yellen knew the 2008 crisis was coming but did not warn of the danger. Bernanke told us on 10 April 2008 it would be a “mild recession”, but 158 days later the world economy collapsed. And today Powell continues to argue that we could still have a “soft landing” of the economy. So I have spent my own money to send the message that something is wrong with the economy, and that it will not be a “soft landing” as Powell promises, but something much worse.

In the long term, the US economy will slide into hyperinflation, Balaji believes. In such an environment, he says, Bitcoin’s total market capitalisation would reach nearly $20 trillion. Recall, now the capitalization of the main cryptocurrency barely exceeds the $555 billion mark.

Separately, we note that Balaji's prediction need not come true. Yes, an investor may lose a few million dollars for the sake of his own PR campaign, but he - just like ordinary people - is still prone to make mistakes. Therefore, it is definitely not worth believing the former Coinbase representative solely because of his fortune.

BTC capitalisation of all time

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More importantly, BTC is trading in the $28,000 zone. And that’s about 3,300 per cent below Srinivasan’s original projected target.

Srinivasan’s target on a 1-week chart scale

The author of the controversy shared his view of what’s happening on Twitter. Here is the relevant video message. If the video doesn’t play, use a VPN.

What’s the bottom line of this whole story? The jdcmedlock received half a million dollars, another million went to donations from Bitcoin Core and the charity Give Directly. Overall, Srinivasan’s bet didn’t play out, with it being obvious to most people that such a radical prediction was unlikely to become a reality in just a few weeks.

But the former head of Coinbase insists that there is a real economic disaster ahead, compared to which the crisis in 2008 will seem like a minor correction of the markets. However, Balaji himself notes that it may take several decades.


In our view, this is a logical outcome. Balaji initiated the closing argument early on, since a million-dollar Bitcoin doesn't even smell like it anytime soon. Well, he probably got enough attention from the world media to consider the action a success.

All in all, the controversy that ended doesn't change much. Yes, authorities of different countries can indeed print trillions and have been doing it for a long time. At the same time, Bitcoin, along with other popular cryptocurrencies, remain decentralised and independent of officials. And since these facts are no secret, the prospect of spending considerable sums for Balaji looks dubious. However, given his much bigger fortune, which may exceed a billion dollars, that's not a problem for him.

What do you think about it? Share your opinion in our cryptochat. There we will talk about other topics that affect the world of digital assets in one way or another.

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