Bitcoin OG bets surprising sum on BTC hitting $100K before the halving

Blockstream CEO Adam Back, one of the cryptoโ€™s early pioneers, is pretty confident Bitcoin will hit an all-time high of over $100,000 before Bitcoin’s halving in 2024 โ€” and is willing to drop a million wagering on it.

In an Aug. 7 conversation on X (formerly known as Twitter), Back agreed to a bet with pseudonymous X user @Vikingobbitcoin, that Bitcoin would reach $100,000 by March 31, 2024. Vinkingo however said they believe it wonโ€™t happen until 2025.

The origins of the wager. Source: Twitter

The wagered date comes in roughly a month before the halving โ€” which is currently on track for April 26 โ€” as Back believes that the price will โ€œprobablyโ€ reach a new all-time high sooner than the actual date of the halving.

Bets on dramatic increases in the price of Bitcoin have attracted huge sums in the past, such as Balaji Srinivasanโ€™s $1 million 90-day Bitcoin bet in March.

Beckโ€™s also been bullish about Bitcoin in the past, saying in February that Bitcoin could reach $10 million by the sixth halving in 2032.

This time, Back is actually setting down hard-earned funds to back his most recent claim. Unfortunately, it’s a million satoshis, not U.S. dollars. That’s only $290 in current prices (or over $1,000 if Backโ€™s prediction comes true).

Adam Back accepts 1 million satoshi wager. Source: Twitter

A satoshi โ€” โ€œsatโ€ for short โ€” is the smallest divisible unit of Bitcoin, and there are 100 million sats to a single BTC.ย 

Thus, it’s a rather small bet for Back, given his net worth is estimated to be somewhere between $50 and $300 million.

Related: How will Bitcoin halving affect BTC price, and is DeFi dead?

However, in a response to Backโ€™s original post, Jan3 CEO and fellow Bitcoiner Samson Mow said that he too expects a new all-time high for Bitcoin โ€œpre halving, not post.โ€

Despite the small bet, it has attracted some snide replies in the responses โ€” but still reflects a growing bullish trend on the price of Bitcoin among market commentators and analysts ahead of next yearโ€™s halving.

Meanwhile, in a Feb. 24 interview with Cointelegraph, Charles Edwards, the founder of Capriole Investments said that the upcoming halving will see Bitcoin become the โ€œhardest asset in the worldโ€ and predicted that the market is already in the early stages of a new bull cycle.

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