Will Balaji actually take anyone up on his 1BTC for $1M 90-day bet?
52
250
1K
resolved May 2
Resolved
YES

Not 100% sure about what these terms cash out to, but will Balaji actually enter this bet with anyone?

https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1636797265317867520

This resolves entirely on whether he publicly credibly seems to have agreed to this bet. It doesn't matter whether he later reneges on it, or disputes the original terms after the fact, or resolves it honestly. It just needs to be clear that he and at least one counterparty have made an agreement substantially similar to the terms of this bet.

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bought Ṁ20,000 of YES
bought Ṁ50 of NO

It is even more ridiculous at this point, around half the time has passed. So shouldn't it be 45 days bet now?

Seems like this is closely related to the substantially more liquid market: https://manifold.markets/chrisjbillington/will-the-1m-vs-1btc-bet-between-jam

At time of this writing, this market is at 91% and the linked is at 60% -- implying a 31% chance that the Medlock thing falls through but he makes this bet with someone else. This seems high to me, so I'm selling here and buying there.

bought Ṁ10 of NO

https://twitter.com/moskov/status/1637639520727494656 Balaji turned down a bet with 50x time the stake

predicted NO

in rat-speak, my "prior" for "why is balaji doing this" is basically 100% "?????" at this point. manic episode? is he leveraged long for >>1M and trying to pump?

It is an absolutely horrible trade in financial terms. Instead of making this bet, you could just buy spend the 1m he's betting to buy 35 BTC, and if he's right it would be worth 35m, not just 1m!

I think the most rational view is to see it as spending 1m of Twitter marketing spend :)

bought Ṁ2,000 of YES

I think this market should already resolve YES based on the tweet above? Both parties have accepted the bet and are now just working out the logistical details to execute the bet.

predicted YES

@jack We’ll give it some time. Gonna wait at least until both funds are confirmed to be in escrow

bought Ṁ25 of NO

@LarsDoucet How would the market resolve if they go ahead with the backup plan described here: https://twitter.com/jdcmedlock/status/1639359402737295361?

predicted YES

@NamesAreHard That would still count if it goes through because it's substantially similar and both parties seem like they'd be happy with it (Medlock was gonna give most of the money away anyways). And besides, based on the initial wording of the market as written, I think this might already qualify to resolve YES:

"This resolves entirely on whether he publicly credibly seems to have agreed to this bet. It doesn't matter whether he later reneges on it, or disputes the original terms after the fact, or resolves it honestly. It just needs to be clear that he and at least one counterparty have made an agreement substantially similar to the terms of this bet."

But I will hold out a little longer -- say one more week, to see if we get some really clear-cut clarity and avoid having to split hairs.

If the money winds up in escrow on both sides, it's a definite YES for sure regardless of what happens after.

If he chickens out on a technicality, I think it still resolves YES because this was just about whether he "credibly seems to have agreed to the bet."

It would resolve NO only if when I go through and evaluate the communications from Balaji it looks like he never actually agreed to the bet, which honestly seems pretty unlikely at this point.

sold Ṁ97 of NO

@LarsDoucet Thank you for clarifying and I fully agree, I was "NO" here just because of arbitraging the other market and asked to be sure of the differences between the two.

predicted NO

@LarsDoucet if the money goes to charity either way, nothing is at stake and it is therefore not a bet.

predicted YES

@AndrewHebb Hard disagree, people make bets like this all the time with the money going to charity and we still call them bets. As long as Balaji agrees to cough up the dough to somebody, and Medlock has say over where it goes, that counts in my eyes.

predicted NO

@LarsDoucet people make bets like this all the time, but it's not the bet they made. Donating money to charity is not the same thing as gambling.

predicted YES

@AndrewHebb This is a purely semantic discussion. You’re welcome to maintain your own private definition, I’m making clear which ones I’m using as the market creator.