Bitcoin has grown in value by more than a third over the last 10 days, prompting predictions of a record-breaking crypto rally over the coming months.
The world’s leading cryptocurrency reached its highest price in 2023 on Monday morning, reaching above $28,000 having started the year below $17,000.
It remains a long way off the all-time high it hit in November 2021 of close to $69,000, though crises within the traditional financial sector have seen optimism return to the crypto market.
Former Coinbase chief technology officer Balaji Srinivasan expressed his positivity for bitcoin’s near-term price trajectory by placing a $2 million bet that 1 BTC will hit $1 million in the next 90 days.
The wager was made on Twitter after user James Medlock wrote that he would “bet anyone $1 million that the US does not enter hyperinflation”.
Mr Srinivasan took up the offer, proposing the terms that if he loses then he will send Mr Medlock 1 BTC and $1 million of the stablecoin USD Coin, which is pegged to the US dollar. If he wins, then he keeps the bitcoin and the stablecoin.
“You buy 1 BTC. I will send $1M USD,” the former Coinbase exec tweeted. “This is ~40:1 odds as 1 BTC is worth ~$26k. The term is 90 days.”
Mr Srinivasan said he believed that the meteoric price rise would come as a result of hyperinflation of the US dollar.
“The central bank, the banks, and the bank regulators have bankrupted all of us,” he wrote. “They hid their insolvency from you, the depositors. And they’re about to print $2T to hyperinflate the dollar. In the digital age this will happen very quickly. So buy bitcoin *now* and get your coins off exchanges. “
Previous bets have been made by high-profile figures about bitcoin hitting the $1 million mark, with the late cyber security pioneer John McAfee saying in 2017 that he thought it would happen by 2020.
“If not, I will eat my d**k on national television,” he tweeted.
In July 2020, when bitcoin was around $10,000, he said: “I never believed bitcoin would hit $1 mil. It’s absurd. It’s an old, tired, worthless coin. I just wanted to eat my d**k on TV. Wait for it.”
He was arrested later that year and died in a Spanish prison cell in June 2021 before he had a chance to fulfil the bet.
