In a tweet that sparked intense interaction in the crypto world, investor and billionaire Balaji Srinivasan, a former partner at Coinbase, bet that the value of Bitcoin will reach one million dollars in just 90 days, due to the US economy entering a phase of hyperinflation, and warned that the world will witness huge changes due to the depreciation of the dollar.

Balaji confirmed that he will pay a million dollars if he loses the bet with the well-known economist James Medlock, and Bitcoin has not reached this price within the next 90 days.

I will take that bet.
You buy 1 BTC.
I will send $1M USD.
This is ~40:1 odds as 1 BTC is worth ~$26k.
The term is 90 days.
All we need is a mutually agreed custodian who will still be there to settle this in the event of digital dollar devaluation.
If someone knows how to do this... https://t.co/hhPr522PQu pic.twitter.com/6Aav9KeJpe

— Balaji (@balajis) March 17, 2023

How did the bet start?

The well-known American economist James Medlock wrote a post on Twitter, saying: "I bet anyone with a million dollars that the United States will not get into hyperinflation."

Billionaire Balaji Srinivasan replied: "I'm going to take this bet. I buy 1 bitcoin and I will send a million dollars if the price of one bitcoin does not reach that million within 90 days."

Yes. Just moving money for the bet. We can do it via smart contract, but for simplicity old-fashioned escrow may work.

The escrow person would need one BTC address and one ETH address (for the USDC). The assets would sit on chain for 90 days.

If BTC < $1M in 90 days after...

— Balaji (@balajis) March 18, 2023

James Medlock polled readers in a subsequent tweet asking if he should accept the bet or not. 83% of those who voted said yes.

Over the past weeks, there have been many fears that the US economy is entering a state of hyperinflation with the collapse of 3 banks, most notably Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which was a lender to emerging technology companies, in addition to Silvergate, a lender of cryptocurrencies in the United States.

Billionaire Balaji defended cryptocurrencies, stressing that they are not the reason for the collapse of some US banks, stressing that inflation will occur and its result will be the price of Bitcoin to one million dollars.


The U.S. Banking Crisis

According to billionaire Balaji – in a series of tweets about betting – the US banking sector will lose the confidence of a large segment of customers after the collapse of the three banks, and this will lead to a major disaster soon because there is not enough liquidity in banks to cover withdrawals, noting that many banks have bought US Treasury bonds whose value decreases whenever the Fed raises interest rates, so banks lose with time.

In Balaji's view, he said in his blog post, "Central bankers lied to depositors, that they knew the crisis since last year, and that a huge collapse was on the way, but they did not say so; they even allowed the banks to hide their bankruptcy."

Buy Bitcoin for fear of inflation

In his tweets, the billionaire Balaji likened what bankers in the United States did to what the head of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange "FTX" Sam Bankman Fried did, as both use accounting tricks to deceive people, and stressed that American banks use Americans' savings to buy long-term US Treasury bonds, and bought everyone from the US Federal Reserve, which later reduced its value.

He pointed out that the solution to hedge against hyperinflation will be through the purchase of Bitcoin, which is currently being done by some US states such as Florida and Texas, in addition to countries such as Singapore, which will make the price of Bitcoin reach one million dollars in the near future.