{"id":78217,"date":"2023-05-03T12:48:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T09:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=78217"},"modified":"2025-09-11T03:46:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T00:46:37","slug":"balaji-srinivasan-loses-1-million-bet-on-fiat-economy-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/balaji-srinivasan-loses-1-million-bet-on-fiat-economy-collapse\/","title":{"rendered":"Balaji Srinivasan loses $1 million bet on fiat economy collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Balaji Srinivasan prematurely acknowledged his defeat in the wager about Bitcoin reaching $1 million by June 17. The former Coinbase CTO said the move was to signal the government\u2019s \u201cprinting press\u201d of trillions of dollars.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I JUST BURNED A MILLION TO TELL YOU THEY&#8217;RE PRINTING TRILLIONS<\/p>\n<p>The million dollar bet is now closed out by mutual agreement. I made $1M+ in provable on-chain donations, which you can verify by clicking the links below:<\/p>\n<p>1) $500k to Bitcoin Core development via Chaincode:\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/J9nwxZAAhD\">pic.twitter.com\/J9nwxZAAhD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Balaji (@balajis) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/balajis\/status\/1653451860488130565?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 2, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Srinivasan donated the amount he lost, providing on-chain proofs.<\/p>\n<p>The expert sent $500,000 in USDC to Bitcoin Core developers, the Give Directly organization, and the bet&#8217;s opponent \u2014 economist James Medlock.<\/p>\n<p>The bet was cancelled by mutual agreement. <\/p>\n<p>The dispute stemmed from Medlock&#8217;s doubts about the United States&#8217; economy moving into a hyperinflationary state, to which Srinivasan disagreed,<a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/expert-questions-the-odds-of-former-coinbase-ctos-bet-that-bitcoin-will-reach-1m\"> proposing a bet<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Under the terms, if Bitcoin did not reach $1 million by June 17, Medlock would win $1 million and receive his stake in 1 BTC. Similarly, if by that date or earlier the first cryptocurrency reached the threshold, Srinivasan would be entitled to win 1 BTC and the return of $1 million.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the loss, the former Coinbase CTO expressed confidence that the United States is in the midst of a \u201cfiat crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He explained the decision to concede as an effort to prove that the situation remains dire, which would push people to \u201cflee into cryptocurrency.\u201d This would lead to the so-called \u201chyper-bitcoinisation\u201d, he noted in March.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>\u00abI paid up in advance and donated even more than I had planned. I spent my own money to send a signal that something is wrong with the economy, and this will not be a &#8216;soft landing&#8217;, as promised by the chair of the <span data-descr=\"U.S. Federal Reserve System\" class=\"old_tooltip\">Fed<\/span>, Jerome Powell, but something much worse\u00bb,<\/em> Srinivasan explained.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The expert noted that society is losing trust in a government that hides that something is wrong.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>\u00abMany things are collapsing at once\u00bb<\/em>, he warned.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The economist and author of \u201cThe Bitcoin Standard\u201d, Saifedean Ammous<a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/author-of-the-bitcoin-standard-rejects-forecast-of-btc-approaching-1-million\"> did not back<\/a> the forecast that the first cryptocurrency would reach $1 million by mid-June.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, analysts from ARK Invest forecast that the prices of digital gold <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/ark-invest-bitcoin-price-to-exceed-1-million-by-2030\">will exceed $1 million<\/a> by 2030.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan prematurely conceded his defeat in the bet on Bitcoin reaching $1 million by June 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18,1224,1138],"class_list":["post-78217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bitcoin","tag-macroeconomics","tag-opinions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"83","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78219,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78217\/revisions\/78219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}