Former Coinbase Official Balaji Srinivasan Closes Out $1 Million Bitcoin Bet Early

(Bloomberg) — Balaji Srinivasan, the former chief technology officer of Coinbase Global Inc., said he closed out what appeared to be a losing bet that Bitcoin would rise to $1 million within 90 days.

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Srinivasan said he gave $1 million to two organizations, including Bitcoin Core development team at researcher Chaincode Labs, as well as paying $500,000 to someone who goes by James Medlock on Twitter, and who won the wager.

The goal of the bet, Srinivasan reiterated in a Twitter post and a short video Tuesday, was to show that fiat currencies such as the dollar are in trouble, and that those troubles will push Bitcoin’s price up. At $28,710, Bitcoin is about 10% up from when Srinivasan accepted the bet on March 17.

It wasn’t immediately clear what were the terms of the wager. Medlock and Srinivasan didn’t return requests for comment.

“The reason that I did that is I wanted to tell you in a provable way that there’s something wrong in the economy and the state isn’t telling you about it,” Srinivasan said in the video, recounting troubles with US banks, sovereign debt and other potential issues. “That is what I am doing at my own expense, I am raising public alarm.”

Back on March 16, Medlock posted a tweet, “I’ll bet anyone $1 million dollars that the US does not enter hyperinflation.”

On March 17, Srinivasan responded with, “I will take that bet.” He asked Medlock to buy one Bitcoin. He promised to send $1 million if he loses after 90 days.

“This is one of those tweets that just popped into my head and I sent it in 10 seconds without thinking about it. Wild to think how different my life would be if I had never clicked ‘tweet,’” Medlock said on Twitter Tuesday.

Chaincode Labs thanked Srinivasan over Twitter for the contribution.