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Former Coinbase CTO Places Big Bet on Bitcoin, Offers 40:1 Odds in Hyperinflation Bet

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Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis), the former CTO of Coinbase and a former general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, is placing a big bet on Bitcoin.

In response to Medlock's tweet offering to bet $1 million that the US will not enter hyperinflation, Srinivasan has offered to take the bet with 40:1 odds in his favor.

The terms of the bet are as follows: Srinivasan will buy 1 BTC, currently worth around $26,000, and if the US does not enter hyperinflation in the next 90 days, Medlock will send Srinivasan $1 million USD. Srinivasan has stated that all that is needed is a mutually agreed custodian to settle the bet in the event of digital dollar devaluation.

Srinivasan has also suggested that if a smart contract can be used to settle the bet on chain, he can send USDC instead. However, if this is not possible, he has challenged Medlock to name a custodian.

Srinivasan expressed his disappointment towards banks in other threads:


Just as in 2008, the bankers lied.

This time, the central bankers, the banks, and the bank regulators have lied to all dollar holders and depositors.

This isn't your typical fractional reserve situation. The problem is that there isn't enough in the banks on a mark-to-market basis to cover withdrawals.

They knew this through all of last year, and communicated it internally in their coded language. It's obvious from the graphs (see below). The central banks, the banks, and the banking regulators all knew a huge crash was coming — the phrase is "unrealized losses" [1,2,3,4,5].

But they never notified you, the depositor. Instead the regulators allowed banks to hide their literal insolvency in footnotes[6], until one guy figured it out[7].

It's Uncle Sam Bankman Fried. Just like SBF used your deposits to buy shitcoins, using accounting tricks to fool himself and others into using the money, so too did the banks.

They all used the deposits to buy the ultimate shitcoin: long-dated US Treasuries. And they all got rekt at the same time, in the same way, because they bought the same asset from the same vendor who devalued it at the same time: the Fed. Specifically, as NYT admitted, banks "binged" on enormous amounts of Treasuries and other long-term bonds in 2021 when the flood of printed money cut off their typical demand for loans, and because they thought the Fed would keep interest rates low forever.[8]. And they had good reason to believe this. Powell said he'd be "patient" on rate hikes as late as Nov 3 2021[9]. Then he got renominated on Nov 22 2021[10], and hiked rates much faster than anyone had expected — which even Yellen[11] and the FDIC[12] admit caused the current banking crisis. Why did Powell delay? Probably for political reasons. Presidents don't like rate hikes[13], especially running into the election year of 2022. And Powell thought he could wait and just be like Paul Volcker[14], who was "firm" and then defeated inflation. But the world isn't an 80s rerun. Hiking from ten years of near zero interest rates in the 2010s was a surprise attack on every dollar holder. Economics isn't politics - the kind of insane flipflops you see in politics don't work when there are actual contracts involved. So anyone who bet on long-term Treasuries got killed in 2021. And now, anyone who bets on short-term Treasuries is going to get killed in 2023. The absolute worse place you can be is to have large amounts of assets locked up in three month treasury bills. The ~5% interest rate offered by big banks (G-SIBs) is a trap. Most fiat bank accounts are now a trap, for those countries whose central bankers followed the Fed. Check my references, I've provided quite a few. If you trust US bankers and US media, ignore me. Otherwise buy Bitcoin and get your coins off exchanges. #Bitsignal

[1]: Fed, Sept 22: https://archive.is/1QA4q

[2]: FDIC Nov 22: https://archive.is/ZBvli

[3]: FDIC Mar 6 23: https://archive.is/yxd1u#selection-2051.175-2051.280…

[4]: Fed Feb 1 23: https://archive.is/nGpgk#selection-5639.361-5639.378…

[5]: Bank CPAs, April 22: https://t.co/OlEnfFqb1N

[6]: Insolvency in a footnote: https://archive.is/0Jww3#selection-811.0-811.40…

[7]: Discovered online: https://archive.is/tfYIc

[8]: Banks bingeing on bonds, but not because they want to Aug 25 2021: https://archive.is/CtW1B

Here are the remaining references, as Twitter has a limit on the number of links in one post. I am moving $2M into USDC for the bet. I will do it with Medlock and one other person, sufficient to prove the point. See my next tweet. Everyone else should just go buy Bitcoin, as it'll be much cheaper for you than locking one up for 90 days. Terms of the bet: ideally someone can set up a smart contract where BTC is worth >$1M in 90 days, then I win. If it's worth less than $1M in 90 days, then the counterparty gets the $1M in USD. HYPERBITCOINIZATION We have to define hyperinflation in BTC vs USD terms because all other fiat currencies can and will be inflated away. That is hyperbitcoinization. This is the moment that the world redenominates on Bitcoin as digital gold, returning to a model much like before the 20th century. What's going to happen is that individuals, then firms, then large funds will buy Bitcoin. Then sovereigns like El Salvador (@nayibbukele) and tiny crypto friendly countries. The big move will be when a US state like Florida or Texas, or a "normal" country like Estonia, Singapore, Saudi, Hungary, or UAE buys BItcoin. And when @narendramodi tells India's central bank to buy Bitcoin, even as a hedge, it's over. Why will it be so fast? Well, hyperinflation happens fast. We've seen digital pandemics (COVID), digital riots (BLM), and digital bank runs (SVB). Everything will happen very fast once people check what I'm saying and see that the Federal Reserve has lied about how much money there is in the banks. All dollar holders get destroyed. The thing is, people are still tuned to an analog world where things get gradually worse rather than all at once. But there isn't much forewarning for a digital event — it's 1 and then it's 0. Just like the bank runs, except this is the central bank. There are however two sources of forewarning. First is the chart of the long-term depreciation of USD vs BTC, from less than $1 USD per BTC to $25k USD per BTC. Much of the smart money has been voting against the dollar since the financial crisis. The end is a digital drop off a cliff, almost invisible on the chart — but highly visible in the world. This tweet is the second forewarning. It'll be ignored and mocked by people who still trust the US establishment, even after the last few years. Who can't imagine that the US banks and media could be lying to them to this extent. But they are. Just as they did in 2008, and over the last ten years. The digital devaluation of the dollar is coming and it's going to be intense.

[9]: Patient on hikes Nov 3 2021: https://archive.is/thPOu

[10]: Renominated Nov 22 2021: https://archive.is/NWb25

[11]: Yellen admits not a tech issue: https://archive.is/8xzPO#selection-2467.421-2467.502…

[12]: FDIC admits rate rises rekt banks: https://archive.is/yxd1u#selection-2043.19-2047.150…

[13]: Presidents don't like hikes: https://archive.is/Aiayr#selection-7099.213-7099.330…

[14]: https://archive.is/ZM2YK

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