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Bitcoin OG bets surprising sum on BTC hitting $100K before the halving

Adam Back has joined a growing roster of market commentators who are bullish on the price of Bitcoin ahead of next year’s halving event.

Blockstream CEO Adam Back, one of the crypto’s early pioneers, is pretty confident Bitcoin will hit an all-time high of over $100,000 before Bitcoin's halving in 2024 — and is willing to drop a million wagering on it.

In an Aug. 7 conversation on X (formerly known as Twitter), Back agreed to a bet with pseudonymous X user @Vikingobbitcoin that Bitcoin would reach $100,000 by March 31, 2024. Vinkingo said they believe it won’t happen until 2025.

The origins of the wager. Source: X

The wagered date comes in roughly a month before the halving — which is currently on track for April 26 — as Back believes that the price will “probably” reach a new all-time high sooner than the actual date of the halving.

Bets on dramatic increases in the price of Bitcoin have attracted huge sums in the past, such as Balaji Srinivasan’s $1 million 90-day Bitcoin bet in March.

Beck’s also been bullish about Bitcoin in the past, saying in February that Bitcoin could reach $10 million by the sixth halving in 2032.

This time, Back is actually setting down hard-earned funds to back his most recent claim. Unfortunately, it’s a million satoshis, not U.S. dollars. That’s only $290 in current prices (or over $1,000 if Back’s prediction comes true).

Adam Back accepts 1 million satoshi wager. Source: Twitter

A satoshi — “sat” for short — is the smallest divisible unit of Bitcoin, and there are 100 million sats to a single BTC. 

Thus, it’s a rather small bet for Back, given his net worth is estimated to be somewhere between $50 and $300 million.

Related: How will Bitcoin halving affect BTC price, and is DeFi dead?

However, in a response to Back’s original post, Jan3 CEO and fellow Bitcoiner Samson Mow said that he too expects a new all-time high for Bitcoin “pre halving, not post.”

Despite the small bet, it has attracted some snide replies in the responses — but still reflects a growing bullish trend on the price of Bitcoin among market commentators and analysts ahead of next year’s halving.

Meanwhile, in a Feb. 24 interview with Cointelegraph, Charles Edwards, the founder of Capriole Investments, said that the upcoming halving will see Bitcoin become the “hardest asset in the world” and predicted that the market is already in the early stages of a new bull cycle.

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Ex-Coinbase Exec Balaji Srinivasan Closes Out $1 Million Bitcoin Bet

Ex-Coinbase Exec Balaji Srinivasan Closes Out  Million Bitcoin BetFormer Chief Technology Officer at Coinbase, Balaji Srinivasan, closed out early a bet that the price of bitcoin would hit $1 million by mid-June amid hyperinflation of the U.S. dollar. Srinivasan paid a total of $1.5 million, more than the initially committed $1 million, with two-thirds of the money donated to two organizations. Former Coinbase […]

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Balaji pays out his crazy $1M Bitcoin bet, 97% under price target

The former Coinbase exec settled the high profile wager 45 days ahead of time but remains convinced that a “fiat crisis” is inevitable.

A $1 million Bitcoin (BTC) price bet has been closed out 97% under its target price, with its backer Balaji Srinivasan choosing instead to donate a total of $1.5 million to three different entities as a settlement.

On May 2, Srinivasan, the former chief technology officer at Coinbase, said the bet had been “closed out by mutual agreement” 45 days ahead of time.

As a settlement, Srinivasan paid pseudonymous Twitter user and self-titled “hyperinflation doubter” James Medlock $500,000, donated $500,000 to Bitcoin Core developers and gave an additional $500,000 to the non-profit charity Give Directly.

“I settled the bet ahead of time and donated even more than I had committed,” Srinivasan tweeted.

“I’m not in the habit of publicly burning a million bucks,” Srinivasan added, explaining the reason for closing out the wager around $970,000 below his target price of a $1 million per Bitcoin was because he believes “in the public good” and citizens can no longer “rely on the public sector […] to tell us when something's wrong.”

“I spent my own money to send a provably costly signal that there’s something wrong with the economy, and that it's not going to be a ‘soft landing’ like Powell promises — but something much worse.”

Despite giving away a total of $1.5 million, Srinivasan remains convinced the American economy will eventually reach a state of hyperinflation. Under his view, investors will rush to secure the value of their rapidly-depreciating dollars in Bitcoin, rapidly driving the value of the asset to reach a price of $1 million.

The high-profile wager was initiated on March 17 following a disagreement between Srinivasan and pseudonymous Twitter user James Medlock. Medlock initially tweeted that he would bet someone $1 million that the U.S. dollar would not enter any state of hyperinflation.

Related: How can Bitcoin hold $28K amid the banking crisis?

The conditions of the bet stipulated that if Bitcoin’s price failed to reach $1 million by June 17, Medlock would receive $1 million in the dollar-pegged stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) as well as an additional 1 BTC. On the contrary, if the price of an individual Bitcoin were to be valued at $1 million by the same date, then Balaji could keep the 1 BTC and the $1 million in USDC.

Bitcoin is currently trading for just over $28,700 and has a market capitalization of $556 billion according to Cointelegraph data.

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