Balaji is an infamous character in the crypto space. He's a founder, a GP (general partner) at Andreesen Horowitz and most notably; the former CTO of Coinbase.
Balaji made a name for himself by calling out certain things and being a generally well known person on Crypto Twitter. He was early to call out Covid as being a virus from China and said many things that - at the time - were swatted by the public & news outlets. Now 3 years later, news outlets are actually saying the same things that he was saying in the early days of COVID.
Recently, he's made waves by making another call: Bitcoin is going to reach $1 Million per BTC in the next 90 days.
The absurdity of this timeline is what is catching all the eyeballs and making Balaji the most talked about person in crypto, yet again.
Some people think Balaji has completely lost his mind. Others think that he could be onto something. His Tweeting tirade has made me wonder if its a bit of both. In this post, I'll unpack what he's been saying lately and my thoughts on the whole situation.
Is Balaji Srinivasan Crazy?
Balaji has been making a lot of noise about his $1M bet that BTC will go the $1M.
In reality, the bet is more about hyperinflation than anything else - he's betting that the collapse of banks is going to lead to the printing of trillions of dollars. There is a huge debt gap in the banking system and to fill it, he thinks the central bank will print tons and tons of money and enter us into this state of hyperinflation.
If that happens, the world is going to be a lot more grim than it is today. Others like @taskmaster4450 are skeptical - he often cites that he's more worried about rampant deflation than inflation.
I land somewhere in the middle. Regardless, all of this has people asking if Balaji is crazy. When you read some of the tweets he's been firing off, it does look slightly manic. The only problem with that argument is that he's also a super smart, well spoken guy. He's not just tweeting stuff out of his ass either, all of his tweets have incredible citations leading to real data, charts and articles:
You can see the aggression in this tweet. When you look at others, you also see some level of "craziness" to it all. The question is: does it look crazy because of the content or because of the person writing it?
The citations have me leaning more toward it just seeming crazy because of the content and not that Balaji has actually lost it.
Hyperinflation
Do you buy into the idea that the USD could be hyperinflated? I personally don't buy into it. I think - yes - inflation is super high and I think we'll feel high inflation for a helluva lot longer than most people are willing to admit.
The FED printed more $$ during the COVID crisis than the prior 200 years of printing. It's nuts.
That kind of printing can't go without consequences. The consequences of the rate hikes is being felt now whether you're a massive hedge fund, top bank or just an average joe trying to buy some goods or get a loan for a house.
Hyperbitcoinization
Hyperbitcoinization is the idea that Bitcoin will be rapidly become the world's reserve currency and replace the USD.
Do I believe in this? I've flipped to both sides numerous times in my almost decade career in the crypto industry.
I love Bitcoin. I think there is a huge use case for Bitcoin as a store of value and a way to "bank outside of the system". I think it's use case is becoming readily transparent to everyone - even the largest financial players in TradFi - and this excites me.
At the same time, I don't necessarily buy into the idea that BTC will be the world's reserve currency... I would love it if that happened and I think everyone reading this post would love that as well, but I just have a hard time envisioning it.
Instead, I've often said that I believe Bitcoin will flip Gold from a Market Cap perspective. From there, I think BTC will continue to gain adoption and the volatility of BTC will start to drop (it already has dropped over the years - becoming less volatile and "a bit" more predictable).
Conclusion
Is Balaji Crazy?
Are we going to see hyperinflation?
Are we going to see hyperbitcoinization?
Is BTC going to be $1M in the next 90 days?
No
No
No
No
Those are my answers to the above. I land somewhere in the middle of pragmatism and optimism. I don't buy into the maxi talk of hyperbitcoinization but I do believe BTC will be one of the largest asset classes in the world and serve as "digital gold" of the future. I believe in unbanking a % of your net worth by being in crypto but I also still believe in TradFi markets to a degree.
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This is a crazy remark but has some depth of truth in it. You are right when you said he is smart and not speaking out from his ass.
Definitely some level of truth behind it all
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Yes, there is.
Its a big NO, it feels like this man (Balaji) go insane and lost his mind completely.
Really? Interesting take!
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I believe he has a reason for saying that but the truth is what if this man is right? we should position ourselves better because btc bullish is inevitable
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Who actually believes that? The world's reserve currency has to be "an official currency" and Bitcoin is nothing but official. It will probably be the future outlaws' reserve currency as many of us will fall into this category as the world gradually slides on the tracks of becoming an open jail...
Definitely not.
Smart? That's for sure!
Hahahaha
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He has to be this level of crazy to get all the eyeballs and ears he managed to get into his argument. He is a marketing genius who spent 1 million in bet to get all the attention needed.
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Marketing genius indeed
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BTC at $1M in 90 day is No No!!, Although Balaji is not a man that just talk without solid chart, with that I don't think he's crazy. Maybe he's trying to pass a message that BTC will be more bullish in 90 days, but construct the sentence in a way that will caught many people attention.
Yes BTC will be more bullish in next 90 days but I don't see it going to $1M.
I believe he has a reason for saying that but the truth is what if this man is right? we should position ourselves better because btc bullish is inevitable
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It's always great to see people who are passionate and dedicated to their beliefs, and it seems like Balaji Srinivasan is one of those individuals. Even though some may disagree with his ideas, it's important to remember that everyone has the right to their own opinion and should be able to express it freely. Balaji's enthusiasm for Bitcoin and his prediction of it reaching $1 million per BTC in the next 90 days may seem far-fetched and crazy to some, but it's important to keep an open mind and consider different perspectives. There is always .001% percent it might happened LOL. The world of crypto is constantly evolving and it's exciting to see individuals like Balaji pushing the boundaries and thinking outside the box. So keep on exploring and sharing your ideas, you never know where it may lead!
It might looks crazy base on his tweet,but from the other way round, he definitely a smart person who I think his thinking ahead of time and other people
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if BTC goes to 1mil in 90 days most of the world will not care, there will be bigger problems, and not sure what would you be able to buy with $1mil.
but it is an interesting question, if $ hyperinflates what will the average people use for store of value? from my noob point if $ goes i am not sure EUR will hold. swiss frank? Ruble or Yuan?
i was a kid when we had daily inflation peak at 62%, with an inflation rate of 2.03% in 1 hour. The inflation rate in January 1994, converted to annual levels, reached 116,545,906,563,330 percent (116.546 trillion percent, or 1.16 × 1014 percent). when you have to write the inflation number like this 1.16 × 1014 you can be pretty sure shit is not great 😂
everyone in the country turned to a black gray economy and started using Deutsche Mark as official/unofficial trading currency. And if you were payed in Dinar the main thing was try to exchange it on the street for Marks. Fun times.
if something like that happened on a global market, BTC sounds as an interesting option, but not sure the world is ready to adopt in in 85 days :)
And if it goes to a mil in 90 days, we will stop comparing it to a $. it will be 1 BTC is 1 BTC, or maybe X amount of eggs :)
Hype is wht seems to drive the markets, these days. One must use good judgement before investing or pulling out of anything, just because some so and so blabbers something does not always mean it's true. Sentiments should be based on rationale, not hype...
I'm in agreement with all of this. I don't see BTC becoming the world's reserve currency, but it could become a viable alternative currency--many years down the road. For that to happen, the speculation on pricing has to end. Whether that will actually happen is anyone's guess.
On Balaji, his thinking is sound, but his timeline is off. BTC could reach $1 million, but not by June.
Well.. He's not really crazy. That's all relative. For him it is a rounding error. Kind of like me betting $1000 that it is going to $1,000,000 in 90 days.
I mean it's not like McAfee betting he would eat his own dick or anything...
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