Former Coinbase CTO’s $1M Bitcoin bet has zero chance of happening: Raoul Pal

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The co-founder of Real Vision, Raoul Pal, poured cold water on the likelihood of Bitcoin hitting $1 million in the next 90 days.

Pal told Anthony Pomplino that Balaji Srinivasan’s $1 million Bitcoin bet has zero chance of happening. However, he said the concepts underlying the bet, namely the impact of hyperinflation on asset prices, are — in his view — still valid.

Bitcoin to $1 million

On March 16, Twitter user James Medlock put out an open bet “that the US does not enter hyperinflation.” Disagreeing with Medlock, the former Coinbase CTO Srinivasan accepted the bet.

Under the terms of the bet — should Bitcoin fail to reach $1 million by June 17 — Medlock stands to win $1 million and have his 1 BTC collateral returned. Likewise, if Bitcoin hits $1 million or more by the deadline, Srinivasan will win 1 BTC and have $1 million returned.

Triggered by a spate of banking insolvencies and regulatory seizures in recent weeks, fears of a banking crisis have spread.

On March 9, “crypto bank” Silvergate closed its operations due to liquidity issues. The following day, authorities seized Silicon Valley Bank after a run on deposits deleted the company’s reserves. By March 12, New York regulators took control of Signature Bank.

The failures prompted the Fed to announce its Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) – intended to provide banking liquidity through loans up to the par value of assets held.

Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang implied the BTFP is simply another word for quantitative easing, i.e., a central bank pivot that will see money flood capital markets, usually resulting in upward pressure on asset prices and inflation.

Pal says Balaji bet is a marketing exercise

Since the banking crisis took hold, Bitcoin has undergone a 40% increase in price. Pal attributed this to the growing realization of banking fragility — pushing investors to parallel alternatives such as cryptocurrency.

On the correlation between the Fed balance sheet and Bitcoin, Pal pointed out that BTC spikes higher when the balance sheet increases on quantitative easing and pulls back in times of quantitative tightening. With that, he expects Bitcoin and crypto to “be shockingly strong” off the back of the BTFP.

Commenting on Srinivasan’s bet, Pal played down the likelihood of Bitcoin hitting $1 million in the next 90 days. Nonetheless, he said he “gets” what Srinivasan is doing in bringing awareness to Bitcoin and the broader macro picture.

“He’s got zero point zero chance of being right, but what he’s doing is spending a million bucks, two million bucks, on marketing what is an important concept.”

The Real Vision co-founder said $50,000 is coming faster than people expect and will “probably” happen this year or within the next 12 months.