Balaji Srinivasan, the former CTO of Coinbase, asserted that he had closed out what appears to have been a losing bet that Bitcoin would reach $1 million within 90 days.
Balaji Srinivasan tweeted a brief video along with the statement, “I just burned a million to tell you they’re printing trillions. The million-dollar wager has now closed off by mutual agreement.”
“I settled the bet ahead of time and donated even more than I had committed ($1.5 million vs. $1 million)” he added.
Including the Bitcoin Core development team at researcher Chaincode Labs, Srinivasan claimed he gave $500,000 to each of the two organizations. He also claimed to have given another $500,000 to Twitter user James Medlock, who had won the bet.
The goal of the bet was to show that fiat currencies like the dollar are having problems and that these problems would push the price of Bitcoin up, as stated by Srinivasan in a Twitter post and a small video.
“I’ll bet anyone 1 million dollars that the US does not enter hyperinflation,” tweeted Medlock on March 16.
Later, Srinivasan responded, “I’ll take that bet.” Medlock was instructed to purchase one Bitcoin by him. After ninety days, Srinivasan will send $1 million if the bet is lost.
As things developed, Balaji Srinivasan’s rival Medlock presented a backup plan: donating the $1 million straight to charity.
