SaylorCorpus

Michael Saylor - The Bitcoin Crash & The Future Of Crypto | Part 1/2

London Real · 2022-09-25 · 43m · View on YouTube →

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we went from investing 250 million in

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Bitcoin to 425 million in Bitcoin to

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eventually a billion in Bitcoin to 2

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billion in Bitcoin to just slightly less

0:12

than 4 billion you said there are

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decades when nothing happens and there

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are weeks when Bitcoin happens so every

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decade there's some profound Paradigm

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Shift it's such an out of the blue idea

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that no one can conceive of why you

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would even want it what you've got is a

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lot of people questioning all their

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premises and Rising through that chaos

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is a new idea what if I can encrypt

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energy what if I can encrypt money such

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that nobody on Earth no government can

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debase it no Corporation can steal it I

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don't trust anybody I'm going to create

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a shared immutable Ledger

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Incorruptible Immortal transcendental

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Ledger if I can transfer a million

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dollars of value from me to you without

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an intermediary that means I have

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transcended the political realm you said

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Brian I like Bitcoin because it has low

1:10

aspirations the idea of Bitcoin was how

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do I create a protocol that's fair and

1:15

Equitable that I give as a gift to the

1:17

world that no one can control

1:20

if you're going to do it and you

1:22

understand thermodynamics and if you

1:24

have any sense of genetics or biology or

1:27

physics you realize you need to be very

1:29

humble in your aspirations how do we

1:33

give the gift of property rights freedom

1:36

and sovereignty and empowerment to

1:39

everybody on the planet the best idea 30

1:42

years ago was YouTube or Google Maps

1:45

Twitter Facebook or email I think the

1:49

best idea for the next 30 Years is

1:50

digital energy

1:52

everybody can own their stuff

1:55

and nobody can take it away

1:56

[Music]

2:12

the world is changing

2:15

inspiration is everywhere

2:23

it has never been so easy to connect

2:23

share and bring people together

2:27

we're learning from others and finding

2:30

the best in ourselves

2:32

[Music]

2:36

challenging our beliefs

2:39

sharing our vulnerability

2:43

overcoming our fears

2:51

transforming ourselves so we can

2:51

transform the world

2:57

how far can we go

2:57

this is London real I am Brian Rose my

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guest today is

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[Music]

3:10

guest today is Michael Saylor the

3:12

American entrepreneur technologist

3:13

author and Bitcoin evangelist you

3:16

recently became executive chairman of

3:18

microstrategy having spent the last 33

3:20

years as CEO with your change of

3:22

position allowing you to focus even more

3:24

on long-term Bitcoin strategy you are

3:27

the author of The New York Times

3:27

best-selling book The Mobile wave how

3:29

mobile intelligence will change

3:31

everything which correctly predicted the

3:32

sharp rise in technology Giants Amazon

3:34

Apple Facebook and Google while

3:36

highlighting the impact of mobile and

3:38

social networks on global economic

3:40

development you previously described

3:42

Bitcoin as the Apex property of the

3:43

human race and over the past two years

3:45

you pursued a massive Investment Drive

3:47

that has seen microstrategy purchase

3:49

over 129 000 Bitcoin as The Unofficial

3:52

spokesman for the Bitcoin movement and

3:54

the most famous maximalist of them all

3:56

you believe that Bitcoin represents the

3:58

digital transformation of money property

4:00

currency energy and matter Michael

4:02

welcome back to London reel hey thanks

4:06

for having me Brian hey it's great

4:07

having you back here I want to quote you

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and I don't think you said this probably

4:11

in the last couple months but you said

4:13

there are decades when nothing happens

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and there are weeks when Bitcoin happens

4:17

and it's been 14 months since we spoke

4:20

but it feels like it's been years and

4:23

years and years with everything that's

4:25

happened since we talked and I kind of

4:27

wanted to maybe get your thoughts on

4:30

kind of the year in review and the

4:31

things that stick out in your mind and I

4:33

don't know where to start you know do we

4:35

start with Celsius and Voyager going

4:37

bankrupt do we start with the failure of

4:39

UST do we start with Bitcoin going to 68

4:42

000 and back to 20 do we start with the

4:44

East merge or recent statements by Gary

4:46

Gensler or the SEC saying bitcoin's a

4:49

commodity and everything else is a

4:50

security I don't know what's the

4:52

Highlight for you in the past year

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I I think that the Highlight the past

4:58

year is the institutional adoption of

5:01

Bitcoin and the mature maturation of the

5:04

asset class along with the education of

5:07

millions and millions of people as to

5:10

why they might want digital property

5:13

what is a digital commodity and and uh

5:16

what's its place in the macro economy

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now to be clear I still think we're very

5:20

early

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but uh you know that phrase you know

5:24

other decades when nothing happens and

5:27

you know weeks when decades happen it

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really refers to Paradigm shifts and uh

5:33

and uh you know if you think about the

5:35

Paradigm Shift when automobiles arrived

5:38

you know there's a famous snapshot in

5:40

New York City where you know there's

5:41

just a bunch of horse and Buggies and

5:44

ten years later it's all cars

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and in that 10 years you adopted it and

5:49

if you

5:50

I remember you know standing once on uh

5:53

the pantheon

5:55

and uh you know are on the Acropolis and

5:58

I'm I'm uh like taking a photo and about

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to post it and I think to myself what's

6:03

different about this and I think well

6:05

last time I was here maybe a decade ago

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I had no smartphone I had no iPhone

6:10

there was no Facebook there was no

6:13

Instagram you couldn't post it there

6:15

were no you know digital photography

6:17

didn't exist

6:18

so a decade goes by and you're like you

6:21

know you're trying to remember yeah you

6:23

remember back in college I went to

6:25

college

6:26

we didn't have laptops

6:29

you know yeah so when I was in college

6:31

were no laptops and I you know I thought

6:33

well what if I'd had a spreadsheet when

6:34

I was doing engineering

6:37

you know I went with an HP HP 15c

6:40

calculator and we had notebooks and we

6:43

wrote down 20 pages of calculations in a

6:46

notebook with the calculator you know

6:48

and I remember seeing people saying well

6:49

you got a calculator we use slide rules

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you know and you fast forward a decade

6:54

and people have laptops you fast forward

6:55

another decade you know they have

6:58

internet you fast forward another decade

7:01

they've got YouTube and simulations and

7:04

now you're starting to question whether

7:05

or not you didn't even needed to go to

7:07

college at all maybe you could have just

7:09

sat at home so every decade there's some

7:12

profound paradigm shift and and uh the

7:17

thing that that hits you about a

7:19

paradigm shift is it's such an out of

7:21

the blue idea that no one can conceive

7:23

of why you would even want it

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so you know it took a while before

7:28

people thought maybe radio waves have a

7:31

place right or maybe electricity has a

7:35

place in the world and and uh you know

7:37

why would I want a railroad but I think

7:40

now we're we're starting this Paradigm

7:42

Shift of digital energy and why would I

7:45

want to move a block of a billion

7:48

dollars of something from point A to

7:52

point B through cyberspace in a split

7:55

second with instant final settlement

7:58

right uh initially if you roll the clock

8:01

back a decade we didn't have it every

8:03

financial crisis we've had right and

8:06

history of the world and we've had 10

8:08

000 of them there have been 10 000

8:10

currency collapses from the lydians to

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the Athenians to the Spartans to the

8:14

Romans to the venetians you know to the

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Brits multiple times to the

8:18

carthaginians you know you could just go

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on in the Persians and go on and on and

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on and on and and uh the history is full

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of examples of an Empire Rises someone

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meant the currency uh the successors or

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the children of the Conqueror debase the

8:38

currency the grandchildren to base it

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more the great grandchildren forget how

8:42

they actually got the power they spend

8:45

everything go wacky crazy pretty soon

8:48

the economy collapses you can't pay your

8:50

soldiers they all defect and The

8:53

Barbarians come over the gate and they

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take everything including your debased

8:58

gold they melt it down they purify it

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they meant their own coin and the cycle

9:02

starts again that's literally start

9:04

that's literally taking place ten

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thousand times you know when Von

9:08

schliemann dug up ancient Troy he dug up

9:12

like 19 ancient Choice he found 19

9:16

cities buried under each City everybody

9:18

said good place to build a city they

9:20

would build it they would rise over a

9:22

couple hundred years they would Crash

9:24

and Burn 200 years ago by someone else

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comes along and says well good place to

9:29

build a city we do it again we do it

9:30

again we do it again

9:32

that's the history of money and that's

9:35

the history of Economics Along Comes

9:38

Satoshi and you know and we've got the

9:41

white paper and you know January 3rd

9:44

2009 we we launched this little monetary

9:47

virus or the or this idea virus and it

9:51

kind of uh Burns very very uh low level

9:54

for a while and people aren't sure of it

9:56

it's a gimmicky thing and it gets bigger

9:58

and bigger and bigger and waiting for

10:00

why would you need it

10:02

and uh you know you had to be a

10:05

Visionary to kind of need it or get it

10:07

if you lived in Argentina and your

10:10

currency collapsed

10:11

and you remember the currency collapsing

10:13

or if you lived in uh North Korea or if

10:16

you lived in Africa and your currency

10:18

collapsed and you watched your family

10:20

get wiped out then maybe you get it but

10:23

you know that wasn't the mainstream

10:25

right the Western world is not run by by

10:28

people that lost their family's life

10:30

savings in Africa or South America so it

10:35

was um

10:36

it was an interesting idea but it was a

10:39

fringe idea until uh 2020 and in 2020

10:42

the monetary inflation rate tripled in

10:45

the U.S and what we saw was in the

10:49

world's best economies you're losing 15

10:51

to 20 percent of your economic value in

10:54

the currency every year and the second

10:56

tier economies you're losing 30 or more

10:59

like the Japanese yen is down 24 against

11:03

the dollar in the last 12 months right

11:05

and in the tertiary economies you're

11:08

losing 50 60 70 percent of the value in

11:11

the currency and that's where you get a

11:12

Sri Lanka where literally the entire

11:14

government collapses or where you what

11:17

you're seeing going on in Africa and

11:19

Zimbabwe right now or or famously in

11:22

Lebanon where people have been breaking

11:24

into Banks taking people Hostage to get

11:26

their own money back right the bank

11:29

robbers are robbing banks and their

11:31

demand is give me my own money back

11:33

because the government stole the money

11:35

and the banks froze it devalued it and

11:38

they're going to give it back to you

11:39

over the next 17 years devaluing it 20 a

11:43

year while they trickle it out to you so

11:46

here we are we're in uh this great uh

11:49

reset if you will people are questioning

11:53

currency they're questioning uh their

11:56

political thoughts they're questioning

11:58

stores of value

12:00

and um and uh every conventional model

12:04

the 60 40 Bond model it's broken

12:07

bonds for example are down 20 percent in

12:11

the same year where stocks are down 20

12:13

percent okay so that never happened for

12:16

20 years so why does that happen because

12:18

when you drive interest rates to zero if

12:20

you can't drive interest rates negative

12:21

then there's no way to get bonds to go

12:24

up so what we've got is the 60 40 models

12:28

are broken conventional ideas like oh

12:32

I'm just going to store my value by

12:33

buying property that's kind of broken in

12:36

a lot of places people are losing faith

12:38

in just investing in property when you

12:41

see the gyrations of of this property

12:44

the conventional idea I'm going to buy s

12:46

p index stocks well the uh the s p is

12:51

slightly up NASDAQ is flat over the last

12:53

two years it blasted up and then it

12:56

blasted down

12:58

so what you've got is a lot of people

13:01

questioning all their premises and uh

13:05

and Rising through that chaos is a new

13:09

idea and the new idea is what if I can

13:12

what if I can encrypt energy what if I

13:15

can encrypt money such that nobody on

13:18

Earth no government can debase it no

13:20

Corporation can steal it I don't trust

13:23

anybody people you know people don't

13:26

trust governments right we're we're in

13:28

an all-time low in public Trust of

13:29

Institutions it doesn't matter what

13:32

government uh and they don't trust

13:34

companies and why for good reason

13:36

because companies are influenced by

13:38

governments right right if if you're in

13:40

America you know you're certainly not

13:42

going to trust the company in China and

13:43

if you're in China you're certainly not

13:44

going to trust a company in America and

13:46

then you know a lot of people that don't

13:48

trust domestic companies the Europeans

13:50

and the Australians don't trust American

13:53

companies either so there's a lot of

13:55

lack of trust

13:57

so if I can't trust that then what can I

13:59

trust where am I going to put my money

14:01

you know I'm going to do a a slight

14:04

detour here Brian but this is very

14:06

interesting uh that I want to share with

14:08

your listeners which is I track

14:11

I track the financial Market since we

14:14

embarked on our Bitcoin strategy

14:16

so here is here is what's happened since

14:21

August 10th 2020 when we adopted Bitcoin

14:24

as a treasury Reserve asset

14:26

Bitcoin is up 65 percent

14:30

microstrategy stock and microstrategies

14:33

bought three point not almost four

14:36

billion dollars not quite but nearly

14:38

four billion dollars of Bitcoin

14:40

microstrategy stock is up 66 so we are

14:44

we are tracking slightly ahead of

14:46

Bitcoin the s p is up 14 the NASDAQ is

14:50

up four percent

14:52

whoa four percent all of big Tech is up

14:55

four percent gold

14:57

gold is down eighteen percent and you

15:00

know bonds the ultra safe bonds

15:02

long-term bonds down eighteen percent so

15:05

in terms of asset classes the crazy

15:09

volatile Bitcoin is the best performing

15:12

of all those major assets and then you

15:15

can say to yourself well I'm just going

15:17

to invest in stocks okay let's look at

15:19

big Tech

15:20

Google's up 37 Apple's up 32 Microsoft's

15:25

up 16 Amazon is down 22 Facebook is down

15:29

45 and Netflix is down 52 percent okay

15:35

microstrategy little micro strategy no

15:37

one ever heard of up 66 percent would

15:40

you have guessed that a mid-sized

15:42

software company low growth mid-size

15:45

software company nobody ever heard of

15:46

would outperform Google in the last two

15:49

years by a factor of two

15:51

and you know so last point I made we

15:55

compete against companies 100 times as

15:57

big as us Oracle 100 times clearer than

15:59

us they're up 25 IBM's up three percent

16:02

sales force is down 23 sap is down 47

16:07

percent

16:08

okay so what is the lesson of that the

16:13

lesson is we're in the middle of chaos

16:15

there is no place to hide your choices

16:19

you could buy gold but gold is dead

16:22

metal and it's just getting ground into

16:24

the dirt right I can seize your gold

16:27

gold is the half-life of money and gold

16:29

is 35 years and you can't put gold on 8

16:32

billion iPhones so the problem is

16:35

there's no Tech and gold and it was a

16:38

good idea in the 19th century and it's

16:40

centralized governments can seize it and

16:42

the gold miners keep debasing it they

16:44

keep mining more gold right and the best

16:47

year you get two percent more in the

16:48

worst year someone seizes a bunch of

16:50

gold dumping on the market you get more

16:52

than two percent so people are looking

16:54

for Safe Haven what's it going to be

16:56

property in Africa property in Venezuela

16:59

you can't have a property in North Korea

17:01

property in Argentina a business a

17:04

business where a business in Argentina

17:06

where the currency collapses what go to

17:09

your cash flows of the currency that you

17:11

generate the cash flows are collapses

17:12

and value so

17:15

I think here's the here's the big idea

17:18

really big idea everybody in the world

17:20

has to decide where they're going to

17:22

locate their family

17:25

they have to physically they have to

17:27

decide where they're going to locate

17:30

their uh themself in cyberspace their

17:34

mind

17:36

are you going to watch Facebook all day

17:38

long you're going to read Twitter are

17:39

you going to be on YouTube you know

17:41

you're going to go to rumble are you

17:43

going to look at Instagram right where

17:45

is your mind right um and then the third

17:48

question is where is your business are

17:51

you gonna run a yoga studio in Miami how

17:54

about our Yoga Studio in New York how

17:56

about you know are you going to run a

17:58

farm in Zimbabwe a ranch in Argentina

18:01

are you going to buy a company that has

18:04

business interest in China how about uh

18:07

owning a bunch of businesses in Ukraine

18:09

or Russia right so where is your p l

18:13

right and and the and the fourth big

18:16

idea is where is your balance sheet

18:19

okay you uh you're a podcaster on

18:22

YouTube okay well you better make sure

18:24

that you comply with YouTube platform

18:26

requirements otherwise they turn off

18:28

your podcast and and and they crimp your

18:31

business that's where you generate your

18:34

revenue and you generate your cost but

18:36

now where are you gonna save your money

18:38

are you gonna save it in U.S sovereign

18:41

debt are you going to actually store it

18:42

in Gold are you going to buy land where

18:45

in California in Ukraine and Russia

18:47

where

18:49

and Florida right are you going to buy s

18:52

p index stocks are you going to buy

18:55

Bitcoin are you going to buy art

18:59

they were conventional answers to all

19:03

these questions Brian and and they kind

19:06

of worked for you know there was an

19:08

answer to this question before 1914.

19:10

there's an answer to this question

19:12

between 19 uh between Bretton Woods in

19:15

1971. there's an answer to this question

19:18

from 1971 to the year 2020.

19:22

in 2020 it's like oh the answer 60 40

19:24

Bond portfolio by the s p index and like

19:27

a portfolio of Diversified bonds and

19:29

you're good okay there was an answer the

19:32

answer kind of got confusing after 2020.

19:35

the answer got confusing for a lot of

19:38

businesses for a lot of people and so

19:42

highlight of the year the highlight of

19:44

the year is people were stunned from

19:47

March of 2020 to March of 2021 and from

19:50

March of 21 through the middle of 2022

19:53

they're all starting to get their

19:55

bearings and they're and they're like

19:56

well I guess why does Bitcoin a digital

19:59

commodity is that do I have to deal with

20:02

that well now now Fidelity's talking

20:05

about rolling out the 34 million retail

20:07

accounts you've got the government

20:09

embracing crypto assets saying we better

20:12

figure it out Congress senators getting

20:14

educated on it

20:16

the cftc the SEC getting educated on it

20:20

you know a big institutional investors

20:23

starting to

20:25

take uh Bitcoin positions you know the

20:29

media now you know now you've got

20:30

Bloomberg covering crypto you've got

20:33

CNBC covering crypto you know you've got

20:37

an entire world media analyst

20:40

politicians financiers and they're all

20:43

starting to figure this out

20:46

but I still say we're early right this

20:50

Paradigm Shift takes a decade and maybe

20:52

the first decade was the Embers of a

20:55

flame flickering from 2009 to 2020 and

21:00

then from 2020 we started pouring

21:04

gasoline on that flame

21:06

right get the gasoline the U.S is we

21:08

triple the inflation rate triple it uh

21:12

monetary inflation but forget about that

21:15

maybe you're a blue blood living on the

21:17

Upper East Side with a trust fund and

21:18

you just don't see why you need it the

21:21

gasoline in Sri Lanka is everybody lost

21:23

everything overnight the gasoline in

21:26

Lebanon is the bank Frozen freezes their

21:28

doors and you lose all your money

21:30

the gasoline in Argentina is the peso

21:33

goes from 20 pesos to the dollar to 280

21:36

pesos to the dollar in four years

21:38

right the gasoline in Ukraine is is oops

21:42

there's a war banks are you know there's

21:44

a limit to how much money you can

21:45

withdraw and the gasoline in Russia is

21:48

okay I get you know the stuff you

21:50

thought you owned in Europe you don't

21:52

own that anymore we're taking that from

21:54

you know taking your gold taking your

21:55

bonds taking your Yachts taking your

21:57

Villas so there's a lot of people with a

22:01

2x4 at the head

22:02

and they're all stunned and they're all

22:04

trying to figure it out and there is

22:06

this um colorful debate a political

22:10

debate immediate debate you know a

22:12

debate on YouTube a debater on Twitter

22:14

what's the solution and the only thing

22:17

we can all agree on is we probably need

22:21

to look at some new ideas because the

22:23

old ideas just don't work anymore and

22:27

there's there's no there's no

22:29

intellectually honest person

22:31

that would say yeah everything I

22:34

believed in 2019 or 2018 it's all still

22:37

true I haven't changed any of my

22:39

opinions about anything I mean

22:42

everybody's had a place in their life

22:44

where they've you know been uh they've

22:48

been Jarred and stunned and now they're

22:51

trying to make sense of it so the

22:52

question is

22:54

how do we move forward and you know to

22:56

summarize on bitcoin I think Bitcoin is

22:59

uh it's very volatile it's getting uh

23:01

it's getting jerked around all risk

23:04

assets are getting jerked around if you

23:07

look at um

23:09

you know if you look at one of the more

23:12

interesting things right that the

23:15

two-year you know the the two-year

23:18

treasury was 16 basis points a year ago

23:23

and it's currently like

23:27

3.9 percent

23:29

we went from 16 basis points to

23:32

390 basis points on short-term money the

23:37

mortgage rate on a 30-year mortgage you

23:41

know has gone from 2.7 percent to six

23:44

percent in 12 months

23:46

right the yield curve is inverted you

23:49

get paid higher interest on a two-year

23:52

loan to the federal government than on a

23:54

30-year loan the 30-year loan is 350

23:57

basis points so a summary of all this

24:00

it's it's this we had an unprecedented

24:04

expansion of the money supply in March

24:07

of 2020 where we just pegged interest

24:10

rates to zero and the banker said we're

24:12

going to keep interest rates at zero for

24:14

the next four years I mean they

24:16

literally implied they said Not until

24:17

2024 where we raise interest rates okay

24:20

well that's one panic and now we've got

24:23

the other extreme which is the fastest

24:25

tightening of the money supply like one

24:29

of those oh crap moments oops I think we

24:31

overdid it on one side now we ever did

24:34

it on the other side

24:36

and what you see is risk assets they're

24:38

all getting hammered down

24:40

Bitcoin included but but look all

24:43

Financial assets bonds Hammer 20 NASDAQ

24:47

hammered 30 s p gold hammered silver

24:51

hammered uh and Bitcoin hammered but on

24:55

the other hand tangible assets

25:00

natural gas food

25:03

any type of energy they're all shooting

25:06

up and I think people are going through

25:08

this moment where they're like I guess

25:10

I'm gonna freeze the death or starve to

25:12

death unless I have some of that

25:13

tangible commodity stuff and the

25:16

financial stuff I guess I'll trade it

25:18

and meanwhile the the politicians you

25:22

know they they uh play with the little

25:25

knobs uh attempting to do good

25:28

and uh and it turns out that it's very

25:31

difficult for Humanity for any any human

25:33

being to actually make adjustments fast

25:37

enough and intricately enough so that

25:41

they could do good without probably

25:43

doing more harm than good and that's

25:45

where we find ourselves right now

25:47

yeah and um I grew up on the the U.S

25:50

yield curve because when I went from MIT

25:53

where we both graduated I went straight

25:54

to Wall Street and I was I was trading

25:56

fixed income derivatives so I grew up on

25:59

three percent overnight rates six

26:01

percent long rates I traded a swap book

26:03

they traded as a premium on top of that

26:04

for interbank rates and it pretty much

26:07

stayed around there for the next 10

26:09

years okay it's a couple times we had a

26:11

flat curve I think the bond yield got up

26:13

to eight percent maybe but you know

26:16

there wasn't QE back then and it all it

26:18

behaved like it traditionally behaved

26:19

what you just said boggles my mind that

26:22

a two-year note could go from 16 bips to

26:24

two 398 that's just you know the beauty

26:28

of the fish it's 15 weeks that's crazy I

26:30

mean 15 weeks and and this it's such a

26:32

massive market for people that don't

26:34

know it's it's so big and that's why it

26:36

usually doesn't move much and it's it

26:39

can still you know move markets

26:42

um and now it's all over the place like

26:44

you said we used to believe that the FED

26:46

had some control over the economy now

26:48

it's not obvious that they have any

26:49

control or that what they do helps the

26:52

economy and yeah it's a good point if

26:55

you go back to MIT right now and take an

26:56

economics class and raise your hand and

26:59

say is that really true what's in this

27:01

textbook that's five years ago your

27:04

professor can he look at you with a

27:06

straight face and say yes I don't know

27:08

be worth of us us doing that maybe to go

27:10

back to Sloan school and say do you

27:12

really think that's true and would they

27:14

have a discussion about Bitcoin I don't

27:15

know maybe they would

27:17

um Michael I think it's people it's

27:18

important for people to hear your

27:19

background because you said you know

27:21

Bitcoin was you know created kind of out

27:24

of the financial crisis in 08 and you

27:26

might not have cared about it unless you

27:27

had faced a currency collapse if you

27:30

hadn't have watched what happened in

27:32

March of 2020 would you would you we be

27:34

hit sitting here talking about Bitcoin

27:36

would you have 130 000 on your balance

27:38

sheet if that had never happened would

27:40

you have noticed it

27:42

no right like uh I well here's what what

27:46

I would do I sort of notice that some

27:48

techie thing that's interesting and it's

27:50

in the category of do I want to invest

27:52

in some startup or some Instagram

27:55

competitor or SnapChat or Uber or

27:58

Bitcoin or or Airbnb or you know we work

28:03

it's just another thing that may or may

28:05

not work that I'm not paying that much

28:07

attention to I think that um if you live

28:10

I I did have a business in Argentina and

28:14

I watched a currency collapse in

28:16

Argentina where we lost nearly

28:17

everything like we lost all of our

28:20

profits for a decade overnight we had

28:22

all our money in a bank and the bank and

28:25

it was in dollars it was an American

28:27

Bank in Argentina really and uh the

28:30

American Bank sealed itself the

28:33

government sent an edict to the bank the

28:35

bank converted our Dollars into Pesos at

28:38

one dollar per peso and then the next

28:40

day devalued the peso ten for one and we

28:43

lost 90 of our money in one day and uh

28:46

in an American Bank holding in dollars

28:48

and and luckily for us it was a small

28:51

part of our business so it's kind of

28:53

like someone just chopped one of your

28:55

fingers off

28:57

but they didn't chop your head off now

29:00

if you'd lived in Argentina and you had

29:01

100 of your business or your assets in

29:03

Argentina on that same day you didn't

29:05

you know lose one percent you lost 90

29:08

percent of everything so I I kind of

29:11

knew intellectually that this could be

29:13

useful

29:14

you know but it wasn't a visceral it

29:17

wasn't a visceral near-death mortality

29:20

facing event right you don't really get

29:23

religion until and until uh someone says

29:27

you know next Monday everything you've

29:30

got I'm taking it all

29:33

if you stay here right and uh so when

29:37

you have that kind of come to Jesus

29:39

moment

29:40

then you get you get religion so um I

29:44

think that um for us our our um come to

29:49

Jesus moment was March of 2020 and it's

29:52

just we got to the end of the line where

29:54

I'd spent a decade trying to use

29:56

conventional models and conventional

29:58

techniques you know use treasury bonds

30:00

as a treasury treasury asset and do

30:02

stock BuyBacks and just work harder

30:04

anything you work harder and you use

30:07

conventional techniques but you're

30:08

making no progress and you're just

30:10

getting beat to death

30:12

and I I mean at that point I wasn't

30:14

looking at

30:16

we still didn't have the Sri Lanka you

30:19

know the Sri Lanka Argentina Zimbabwe

30:23

type situation where

30:25

your money is losing value at the rate

30:27

of I think 90 of the value drains out of

30:31

the ball out of the Venezuelan Boulevard

30:33

every year right it wasn't that bad

30:37

but I think that uh in 2020 I realized

30:41

the half-life of money the half-life of

30:43

energy or a wealth stored in the

30:45

currency

30:47

was 36 to 48 months

30:51

so I looked at 500 million dollars and I

30:54

said 500 million dollars stored in U.S

30:57

dollars at a 15 to 20 monetary inflation

31:00

rate you know divide 20 into 70 right

31:03

the rule is 70 and you'll hey okay got

31:05

three and a half years and it's half of

31:07

it's gone so I think I got to that point

31:09

and and the significance of that for me

31:12

Brian was

31:13

I realized at that point that holding

31:17

500 million in cash

31:19

at at a 15

31:22

monetary inflation rate means that you

31:25

lose 75 million a year on your balance

31:28

sheet and the best I could hope for is 2

31:32

000 people working themselves to death

31:34

doing a hundred thousand things right

31:36

every year everywhere in the world and

31:38

if we didn't screw up anything and if

31:40

everybody worked

31:42

themselves to the Bone we could make 75

31:45

million right so I I had a this

31:48

inflection point where I realized

31:50

everything we're going to do for the

31:52

rest of our lives is going to be negated

31:54

by the inflation on our balance sheet

31:58

and there's just and that's the point of

32:00

Hope Despair and indifference to where

32:02

you're like it just doesn't matter what

32:04

we do for the next decade because we

32:06

can't get ahead now that's a slow death

32:11

right I've used the phrase right the

32:13

road to Surf them is working

32:14

exponentially harder for our currency

32:16

growing exponentially weaker just a road

32:18

to Surf them um that's a slow death but

32:21

you know if you if you took yourself and

32:23

you dropped yourself into uh Venezuela

32:26

or Zimbabwe and I just told you or

32:28

Argentina

32:30

it's the same idea but instead of a slow

32:33

death it's just a fast death right you

32:34

just you might as well just open up a

32:37

vein and let the blood drain out right

32:40

it's not like giving a pint of blood a

32:42

week it's like giving a pint of blood a

32:44

day or I just open up the vein and I

32:46

just bleed out right I mean that's what

32:48

hyperinflation is

32:50

so I would say

32:52

um we were Jarred out of our lithurgy or

32:55

Jarred out of our our conventional

32:58

thinking because of that crisis and then

33:01

we had this a couple of advantages one

33:04

we had a huge balance sheet and so it if

33:08

you were running on 500 million in debt

33:11

instead of 500 million in equity

33:14

right when you're running on 500 million

33:16

of equity at 15 monetary inflation the

33:18

cost of 75 million a year but when

33:20

you're running on 500 million in debt

33:23

you know you're actually getting 75

33:26

million a year so you see you see if

33:29

you're an indebted company you wouldn't

33:31

be as sensitive a sensitizer to that so

33:34

we happen to have a lot of cash we had

33:37

positive working capital and then we had

33:40

a company with a a fairly uh tight board

33:43

five people we knew each other and and a

33:46

very smart engaged executive team and

33:49

engage board and uh and I'm the

33:52

controlling shareholder of the company

33:54

so we didn't have to worry that we would

33:57

have some hostile takeover activists

34:00

that would just immediately Target us if

34:03

we were to get outside of the

34:05

conventional bounds

34:07

and so we had sort of not much to lose

34:10

when we had something to gain

34:13

and our option was a fast death we give

34:18

the 500 million back to the shareholders

34:20

and we just get Beat to Death by

34:22

Microsoft and Oracle you know or a slow

34:26

death we keep the 500 million but we

34:29

just gradually get whittled down at 50

34:31

to 100 million a year

34:33

or take a risk

34:36

you know you ride out from the castle or

34:39

the or the Citadel and you make a stand

34:42

on the plane and you fight that battle

34:45

and you may win or you may lose

34:48

but you know that if you just cower in

34:51

your Citadel you know when you get

34:52

surrounded you're going to get starved

34:54

out and choked out it all cut off your

34:56

water supply right there's no way you're

34:59

gonna win unless you make a stand so we

35:02

we decided that rather than the slower

35:04

the fat death we would go and do

35:05

something and take a risk and it's a

35:08

very intricate story which is probably

35:10

beyond the scope of this but the short

35:12

of it is about

35:14

10 different transactions you know a

35:17

Bitcoin you know a a share buyback a

35:21

Dutch auction

35:22

Equity raises junk bond convertible

35:26

bonds lots of communication to the

35:29

street

35:30

and and we we went from investing 250

35:34

million in Bitcoin to 425 million in

35:37

Bitcoin to eventually a billion in

35:40

Bitcoin to 2 billion in Bitcoin to just

35:42

slightly less than four billion and

35:45

Bitcoin and and the result I just I just

35:48

said right for our shareholders our

35:50

stock outperformed every big tech

35:52

company every asset class and every

35:54

Enterprise software company I think we

35:57

did the number and we calculated we

35:58

outperformed

36:00

485 of the 500 s p companies over that

36:04

time period

36:05

and then um and then in terms of the

36:07

corporation itself we added billions and

36:09

billions of dollars to the Enterprise

36:10

value of the company

36:13

it it's paid off so far

36:16

even though we get thrashed this way in

36:19

that way by volatility right you know

36:22

now you know the war in Russia the war

36:25

in the Ukraine the utterances of the

36:27

Central Bank of Europe the utterances of

36:29

the Federal Reserve all of those things

36:31

impact our stock and impact our

36:34

shareholders but

36:36

you know better to get out

36:39

it's another analogy you're in a row

36:42

boat you're rowing three miles an hour

36:44

the wind is blowing against you 20 miles

36:47

an hour the current is 10 miles an hour

36:49

you're never going to get to your

36:50

destination you will starve to death

36:52

before you get there your choice you

36:56

know reach down in the hall put up the

36:57

sale

36:58

tack into the wind and now you're

37:01

sailing with the wind and you know what

37:02

you're you're actually going somewhere

37:05

and you probably will get to your

37:06

destination but you're gonna actually

37:08

get jerked around by the storm and it's

37:10

going to be a fast ride and maybe a

37:13

harrowing ride but you have a you have

37:15

life

37:17

and you have an opportunity because

37:20

you've harnessed a new energy source and

37:23

the old strategy was going to kill you

37:25

the new strategy is it's scary

37:28

I gotta learn to sail I gotta learn to

37:31

it's uh invigorating it's different

37:34

people are going to think you're crazy

37:37

but you know they wouldn't be talking

37:40

about us and and uh we would be just

37:42

very quietly uh starving to death or

37:46

getting squeezed out of existence while

37:48

we didn't really bother anybody or

37:51

threaten anybody had we not done what we

37:53

did right okay I like the decision you

37:56

made I think I think it was the right

37:59

um question is there a price of Bitcoin

38:01

where things get interesting for you as

38:03

far as where I don't know not that you

38:06

get stopped out but where as a leveraged

38:08

position gets where it's like okay now

38:10

there's an issue I might have to

38:11

liquidate bitcoin is there a price there

38:14

is it 12 000 or 13 000 well that's an

38:16

issue or is that not the case

38:19

now we've been pretty Artful about this

38:22

uh for example the first 425 million

38:25

almost the first 500 million was was

38:27

equity

38:28

and then uh then the next 500 million uh

38:32

or the the next 1.7 billion was

38:34

convertible debt but it was converting

38:36

into equity and it's not it's unsecured

38:39

debt so it's not related to the Bitcoin

38:41

it just becomes Equity at some point in

38:43

the future and in the next 500 million

38:46

was a junk bond but that was secured

38:48

against the cash flows of the software

38:49

business which is very stable that could

38:52

be refinanced in the future and it's

38:54

just it was a seven year jump Bond so

38:57

again not really correlated to bitcoin

39:00

um and then the next billion was an ATM

39:03

Equity issues we issued a billion

39:04

dollars of stock so so you see we've

39:07

issued a lot of equity and then we've

39:09

we've financed other parts of the

39:11

business it was only the last 200

39:14

million 205 million where we pledged

39:17

some Bitcoin is collateral so that's our

39:19

famous Bitcoin backed alone or Bitcoin

39:22

back yeah loan facility with silvergate

39:25

and we calculated that when we did that

39:28

we were 20x over collateralized like we

39:32

had 20 times as much Bitcoin as the loan

39:35

and right now we're probably 10x over

39:39

collateralized I think if Bitcoin got

39:42

down to 3 500 a Bitcoin then we'd have

39:46

to come up with some other collateral

39:47

okay but you know we just announced

39:50

another 500 million dollar uh at the

39:53

market Equity shelf registration so

39:56

we've just used a balance of equity

39:58

long-term debt secured debt unsecured

40:01

debt of just a very thin layer uh

40:04

borrowing against the asset itself and

40:06

we primarily did that just to prove it

40:09

could be done in order to legitimize it

40:11

as an asset you could borrow against so

40:14

so the answer to your questions I don't

40:17

really worry so much about that

40:19

um you know it's at some point if

40:21

Bitcoin gets to 2 000 that I have to

40:23

adjust something but uh you know not so

40:26

likely with quite a big buffer okay are

40:30

you buying more or plan to buy more

40:33

yeah okay yeah we are I remember when

40:36

you were here last time I said uh I said

40:38

how how are you gonna buy it and you

40:40

were like I'll buy it up to 250 000 like

40:43

I remember you just said that just

40:44

resolutely like this for the next

40:46

thousand years you're like I still I'm

40:49

happy to keep buying this

40:50

um I don't know if you remember the same

40:52

we've still got the same uh you know

40:55

question which is if I have an increment

40:58

of 10 million dollars of cash flow do I

41:00

put it into bonds do I put it into gold

41:02

do I buy silver do I buy land do I buy

41:05

art do I buy Bitcoin so um I still think

41:09

Bitcoin is the most scarce most

41:11

desirable highest quality property it's

41:13

a long-term store of value

41:15

so I just I think generally for us we

41:19

we've adopted very simple strategy we

41:22

keep we keep enough working capital to

41:26

last us a year normally in the range

41:28

about 50 million dollars in US dollars

41:30

and then when we have excess cash either

41:33

from operating income or any other

41:36

financing opportunity we put that into

41:39

our treasury Reserve asset and we have

41:43

adopted Bitcoin as our primary treasury

41:46

Reserve asset so we're 100 treasury

41:49

reserves in Bitcoin you might decide

41:52

that you're going to split your treasury

41:53

reserves one-third property one-third

41:56

arched one-third Bitcoin or one-third s

42:00

p stocks or something right it's a it's

42:02

a preference for an individual or an

42:04

investor

42:05

but of course our company microstrategy

42:08

has adopted a Bitcoin strategy and we

42:11

have transparently communicated that to

42:14

all of our outside shareholders and that

42:17

is in our 10K filing so when someone

42:20

buys microstrategy stock they know what

42:22

they're getting they don't want us to

42:25

hedge or juggle 16 different assets so

42:29

if I showed up and said hey I found it

42:31

we could buy a Picasso and I got a good

42:33

deal on it we think that's better than

42:35

Bitcoin all my shareholders would freak

42:37

out because they don't want to invest in

42:38

art hedge fund or a real estate hedge

42:42

fund they want someone that's got a

42:44

Bitcoin strategy so so from a corporate

42:47

point of view it's the right thing for

42:49

us to do I personally think it's the

42:52

highest quality property in the world

42:54

and I think it will appreciate the best

42:56

over time and as I pointed out to you it

42:59

has performed the best in the past two

43:01

years versus every other option so so we

43:04

we've been right over a two year time

43:06

frame I think we'll be right over a for

43:08

a 10-year time frame but even even if it

43:11

turned out that your picassos were

43:13

better or your Rolexes were a better

43:15

investment we're running a publicly

43:17

traded company

43:20

to continue watching the rest of the

43:21

episode for free visit our website

43:24

londonreal.tv or click the link in the

43:26

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