On Friday, Balaji Srinivasan, a man who wields considerable influence in the tech and crypto worlds, made a jaw-dropping bet: $2 million that bitcoin would skyrocket from the mid-$20,000 range to $1 million per coin within 90 days. With this wager setting tongues wagging, the question on the lips of everyone outside the Silicon Valley club is: who exactly is Balaji Srinivasan?
Srinivasan, or @balajis, as he’s known on Twitter, has a resume that could be a model for the tech and crypto industries. He’s an angel investor, tech founder and bestselling author of The Network State (in which he argues that technology will usher in the end of the nation-state era). His experience spans from being the CTO of Coinbase and a general partner at venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, to cofounding several companies that were later acquired. Srinivasan is hailed as a polymath, with degrees in electrical and chemical engineering from Stanford University, who has a penchant for seeing the forest for the trees.
And, boy, he spares no detail in describing those woods. His podcast appearances regularly clock in at over three hours each as he holds court on everything from prime numbers to trends in longevity research (if you’ve got eight, yes eight, hours to spare, you can hear what he has to say about those topics on the Lex Fridman podcast).
The bitcoin-will-hit-$1-million-by-mid-June prediction is a wild one, and it’s hard not to dismiss it as hyperbole from a longtime crypto booster. On Twitter, Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz tried to up the ante to a $50 million wager. Moskovitz deleted the tweet, but while it was up Srinivasan encouraged Moskovitz to bet against him by buying treasuries instead.
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In other quarters, Srinivasan’s bet has sparked a backlash, with critics accusing him of being the latest tech bro urging bank runs — fiddling as the financial system burns.“The Fed mismanagement crashed the system,” Srinivasan tweeted. “And now they’re going to print trillions. A stealth devaluation of the dollar.”
It’s a dire prediction, but not one that’s without precedent. Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey sounded the alarm about hyperinflation in October 2021, warning that it’s “going to change everything.” Dorsey, of course, famously parted ways with Twitter to focus his efforts building around bitcoin and is a staunch advocate for the digital currency. And while inflation has plagued Americans, it’s not the Weimar kind, where buying a loaf of bread takes a wheelbarrow’s worth of greenbacks.
Moreover, some have questioned whether Srinivasan really has anything to lose in making the bet.
He’s known to own a considerable amount of bitcoin, leading some to speculate that even a modest gain in the currency’s price could more than offset his loss on the wager. Efforts to reach Srinivasan for this story were unsuccessful.
With such an outlandish prediction, it’s easy to dismiss Srinivasan as a fool or a charlatan. After the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, it’s easier than ever to scoff at the kings and queens of Sand Hill Road. But, most of the other royals occupying that patch of Palo Alto would kill to swap their own track records or reputations with his. He’s the man behind the “idea maze” concept, a framework that venture capitalist Ben Horowitz called required reading for budding entrepreneurs.
Since Srinivasan made the bet Friday, bitcoin’s value has gone up a bit, from $26,000 to $28,000 on Monday. Just $972,000 more to go.
