Saylor shrugs off concern about Bitcoin’s volatility and said crypto critics are behind the curve. He said he’s also put his own money into the digital asset, amassing a personal holding worth more than $1 billion.
“If you go back 10 years, how many people agreed that Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon would own the world?” he said. “Who were the last people to embrace this? Senior members of the establishment.”
Raise Debt
Saylor’s appetite to acquire Bitcoin didn’t stop after the company’s first purchase. When the majority of MicroStrategy’s cash reserves were exhausted, Saylor raised a $650 million corporate bond and used it to buy more.
Saylor said he’d rather issue debt against future cash flow now than save up to buy Bitcoin in five years, when he thinks it’ll be pricier.
In February, the company raised another $1.05 billion in a bonds-for-Bitcoin offering, and on March 5 it announced yet more purchases. On Friday, Saylor tweeted that MicroStrategy bought 262 additional Bitcoins for $15 million in cash, bringing the total to about 91,326. The firm’s shares closed down 2.5% to $784 in New York.
The move has resulted in MicroStrategy becoming a dual-purpose company: part software maker, part Bitcoin investor. While the firm has been transparent about this change in regulatory disclosures, juggling two distinct goals isn’t something that investors are accustomed to.
“If you’re a hedge fund and you want to make that kind of a concentrated bet, you’re entitled to do that,” Lichtenfeld said, but “as a software company to make this kind of a bet is completely irresponsible.”
‘Critical Point’
Saylor said the company has been upfront with investors throughout. When MicroStrategy increased its Bitcoin holding, it held a Dutch auction to give shareholders time to sell their stock.
“Everybody had plenty of time to digest the news and decide whether they’re on or off,” Saylor said.
With all the attention he’s attracted, Saylor wants to do more than just defend a radical investment strategy. He’s become something of a global Bitcoin ambassador in recent months, appearing regularly on crypto podcasts and YouTube shows advocating for digital-asset investments.
“This is a really critical point in human history,” he said. “We’ll build a better world on it once people understand it. We’re still very early. This will be the decade.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.