Balaji Srinivasan, Former CTO, Coinbase

Balaji S. Srinivasan is currently angel investing. Formerly the CTO of Coinbase and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, he was also the cofounder of Earn.com (acquired by Coinbase), Counsyl (acquired by Myriad), Teleport (acquired by Topia), and Coin Center.

Prior to joining Coinbase, Dr. Srinivasan was CEO at Earn.com, which was acquired by Coinbase. Before taking the CEO role at Earn.com, he was a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Prior to joining Andreessen Horowitz, he was the cofounder and CTO of Counsyl, where he won a Wall Street Journal Innovation Award for Medicine and was named to the MIT TR35.

Dr. Srinivasan holds a BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical Engineering and an MS in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University. He also teaches the occasional class at Stanford, including an online MOOC in 2013 which reached 250,000+ students worldwide.

2023

With 97% of the $1 million Bitcoin price bet being closed out below target, backer Balaji Srinivasan decided to settle by donating a total of $1.5 million to three separate organizations. According to Srinivasan, the wager was “closed out by mutual agreement” 45 days in advance on May 2.

In exchange, Srinivasan sent $500,000 to James Medlock, a self-described “hyperinflation doubter” on Twitter, a pseudonymous account, $500,000 to the developers of Bitcoin Core, and an extra $500,000 to Give Directly, a nonprofit organization.

Even after paying a total of $1.5 million, Srinivasan is still of the belief that the US economy would eventually experience hyperinflation. According to his theory, investors would scramble to lock in the value of their quickly declining dollars in Bitcoin, pushing the asset’s value to $1 million very quickly.

Latest news about Balaji Srinivasan

• Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Culture and Information has confirmed the blockage of Coinbase’s website due to a breach of the national Digital Assets Law. This has sparked discussions about the country’s regulatory environment for cryptocurrencies and digital exchanges. The country’s cautious yet proactive approach to shaping its digital asset regulatory framework aims to balance innovation with financial security.
• Coinbase’s research highlights the evolution of tokenization in the financial world, from representing ownership of tangible assets to digitizing financial assets like sovereign bonds and money market funds. However, challenges remain, particularly around infrastructure and jurisdictional boundaries. The Federal Reserve’s rate hikes and the crypto market sell-off in 2022 have rekindled interest in blockchain’s core value. Successful mainstream integration depends on consolidation efforts in financial verticals, jurisdictional limits, and technology stacks.

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