Will Bitcoin [BTC] hit $1 million in 90 days? Real Vision CEO predicts…

• Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal believes that Balaji Srinivasan’s bet on Bitcoin hitting $1 million within 90 days is a marketing trick.
• Pal talked about crypto failures such as FTX, U.S. government’s pushbacks against crypto, and Srinivasan’s bet on Bitcoin hitting $1 million within 90 days.

On 20 March, entrepreneur Anthony Pompliano “Pomp” invited Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal to his podcast, where he quizzed the latter on a range of topics surrounding Bitcoin [BTC] and its numerous run-ins with regulatory bodies.

Speaking on “Bitcoin and the 2023 Financial Crisis,” Pal talked about crypto failures such as FTX, U.S. government’s pushbacks against crypto, and former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan’s bet on Bitcoin hitting $1 million within 90 days.

Regarding the recent collapse of the crypto-friendly Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Pomp asked Pal if we should compare its collapse of the crypto exchange FTX in November last year. Pal pointed out that, though it’s true that both institutions made poor investments. However, the crucial difference is that while SVB is a bank, FTX is only a brokerage. While SVB had the right, as a banking institution, to invest in customer funds, FTX had, as a crypto brokerage firm, no right to invest customer funds.

Pal also pointed out that even as banks have been disallowed from engaging in prop trading, FTX was doing essentially that with customer money.

Pomp asked Pal why the United States government was pushing against cryptocurrency. Pal responded that the U.S. government understands cryptocurrency and is acutely aware of the gigantic impact of possible bank runs as a potential result of Bitcoin’s popularity. It is for this reason that the U.S. government is pushing back against mass adoption of cryptocurrency through bringing in a lot of rules and regulations.

The crypto industry has been dealing with multiple failures such as Terra [LUNA], Three Arrows Capital, Celsius, Voyager Digital and FTX since 2022. In addition, hacking attempts have continued to plague crypto platforms. Due to such incidents, customers have lost millions of dollars so far.

Pomp also asked Pal if the U.S. government will use the Reserve to buy Bitcoin to assuage market panic. Pal answered in the negative, saying that unlike the countries in the Middle-East, the U.S. government will not be buying Bitcoin as it is an extremely volatile asset.

Pal also pushed forward his own “theory” that Satoshi Nakamoto is nobody but a state actor, which created Bitcoin as an alternative financial system just in case the mainstream banking system fails; in fact, these bodies already own Bitcoin, Pal proposed.

Can Bitcoin hit $1 million?

Towards the end of the podcast, Pal put worth his views on Balaji Srinivasan’s bet on Bitcoin hitting $1 million within 90 days.

Pal said:

“He’s [Srinivasan] has got 0.0% chance of being right.”

I will take that bet.
You buy 1 BTC.
I will send $1M USD.
This is ~40:1 odds as 1 BTC is worth ~$26k.
The term is 90 days.
All we need is a mutually agreed custodian who will still be there to settle this in the event of digital dollar devaluation.
If someone knows how to do this… https://t.co/tcuBNd679T pic.twitter.com/6Aav9KeJpe

— Balaji (@balajis) March 17, 2023

Srinivasan believes that as traditional currencies enter a period of rapid hyperinflation, the global economy will turn to Bitcoin as digital gold as the new, preferred currency.

Pal said that it is Srinivasan’s marketing trick to spread around the concept of hyper-bitcoinization. He, however, added that it could happen within 12 months but it’s not appropriate to put a date, he cautioned.