Key elements of Chamath’s forecast did occur in the years after mid‑2022, though with some nuance.

1. Sri Lanka as the leading case
   Sri Lanka suffered a full‑blown crisis in 2022: inflation around 60%, a collapse in foreign reserves, severe shortages of fuel, food, medicine and power, mass protests, and a sovereign default when the government suspended payment on most foreign debt in April 2022. (congress.gov) This is the baseline he was pointing to.

2. Ghana: “Sri Lanka‑style” crisis and default
   After the podcast, Ghana entered its worst economic crisis in decades, with inflation exceeding 50% in late 2022–early 2023. (reuters.com) In December 2022 the government announced a suspension of payments on most categories of external debt (Eurobonds, commercial loans, and most bilateral debt), pending restructuring—effectively a sovereign default. (citinewsroom.com) Ratings agency S&P promptly downgraded Ghana to “selective default.” (myjoyonline.com) Ghana then entered an IMF program and multi‑year debt restructuring. (reuters.com) This closely matches Chamath’s claim that “as goes Sri Lanka, so goes Ghana,” including rampant inflation and a sovereign default.

3. Pakistan: severe crisis with food and energy stress, but default narrowly avoided
   Pakistan experienced a prolonged economic crisis from 2022–2024, marked by a balance‑of‑payments crunch, sharp currency depreciation, and surging prices of food, gas and oil. Inflation reached about 38% in May 2023, with food inflation near 45–50%, and the country faced acute food insecurity after devastating 2022 floods. (en.wikipedia.org) Protests and unrest centered on basic staples, including large‑scale demonstrations over wheat prices in Gilgit‑Baltistan in 2023–24, and deadly crowd crushes at ration/flour distribution points that killed and injured people seeking subsidized food—clear signs of extreme stress around food access. (en.wikipedia.org)

Pakistan came close to default but ultimately avoided a formal sovereign default through successive IMF bailouts and rollovers from other creditors; by 2024–25, reports explicitly describe Pakistan as having “recovered from a near default” thanks to a $3 billion IMF program followed by a larger package. (apnews.com) So the crisis aspects Chamath mentioned—energy and food insecurity, rampant inflation, and social unrest—materialized, but the sovereign default part did not, at least up to late 2025.

4. “A whole bunch of countries” and a broader wave of distress
   Beyond Ghana and Pakistan, multilateral data support his broader thesis that Sri Lanka’s default was an early signal of wider debt trouble among low‑ and middle‑income countries. The IMF and World Bank noted by 2022 that about 60% of low‑income countries were already in or at high risk of debt distress, warning that more countries were likely to seek debt relief. (worldbank.org) A World Bank report later summarized that in the three years up to 2022 there were 18 sovereign defaults in 10 developing countries, and reiterated that roughly 60% of low‑income countries were at high risk of, or already in, distress. (worldbank.org) This is consistent with Chamath’s expectation of a broader wave of “sovereign defaults” and crises across frontier and emerging markets following Sri Lanka.

Assessment

• Accurate: Ghana did suffer a Sri Lanka‑style crisis with very high inflation, severe macro stress, and a sovereign default. Multiple other developing countries also entered debt distress or default, aligning with his “whole bunch of countries” framing. (theghanareport.com) Pakistan experienced intense food and energy insecurity, very high inflation, and civil unrest tied to basic goods, fitting much of the pattern he described. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Not fully accurate: Pakistan, singled out by name, did not actually default on its sovereign debt (it narrowly avoided doing so via IMF support).

Given that his core directional claim—Sri Lanka’s collapse foreshadowing similar crises in Ghana, Pakistan, and many other developing countries, with rampant inflation, food/energy stress, and a wave of sovereign defaults across the group—has largely played out, even though Pakistan’s specific outcome stopped short of default, the prediction is best classified overall as right rather than wrong or inconclusive.