Interactive Q&A with Michael Saylor & Phong Le | Strategy World 2026

All right, why don't we start with you,

James, why don't you ask your first

question?

>> All right, so the first question here,

Michael, I've been thinking about this a

lot and I want to hear your thoughts on

this. So AI is scaling toward AGI

potentially within years, not decades.

And if that happens, a productivity

shock could be massively deflationary.

But deflation crushes nominal GDP as we

know is ma making government debt

burdens explode.

So in response, governments will have to

or this government in particular will

have to print aggressively and monetize

their own debt. So we get the biggest

deflationary shock in history forcing

the biggest inflationary monetary

response. Where does Stretch STRC fit in

that world? And does digital credit

become the ultimate financial bridge to

this paradox?

Um, I just I think we're living through

the digital transformation of everything

and uh AI is digital intelligence

and we're going to see the digital

transformation of labor in essence

digital intelligence should demonetize

human capital. So if if you had a a mass

of you know millions of people doing a

job like driving a car or doing a white

collar job and the AI comes in it's

going to demonetize them, transform

them, dematerialize them. Uh there'll be

a massive increase in productivity. It

is deflationary. there's going to be

extraordinary increase in productivity,

a dislocation and a and a transformation

of what people are doing and and they'll

migrate. Um

we see uh stretch as a digital

transformation of credit. Bitcoin is the

digital transformation of capital. So as

the capital dematerializes to Bitcoin,

the credit on top of it replaces

physical credit. Um, I think that

certainly, uh, there's always this

debate, should I spend $250,000

on, uh, a college education or should I

just keep the money? And I would say,

uh, 30 or 40 years ago, the money wasn't

worth that much. And so the the

consensus was I should spend the money

on education so I can work hard.

It's it's not so clear to me now. It

seems like you're probably better off to

buy $250,000

worth of capital or 200 like a Bitcoin.

Then in theory you're getting 20 to 30%

a year uh on that forever or $250,000

worth of the credit.

And uh if you're going to get the if

you're going to spend the money on the

education, the question really becomes

why don't I just get a digital education

for free or from nearly free from the AI

instead of paying an institution to

educate me. So, I I think a lot of

people will make a lot of different

decisions, but it's going to be a

reallocation of of money from physical

education to digital education, from

physical labor to digital labor, from

physical or traditional credit to

digital credit, from physical capital to

digital capital. Um, we we think that

the $300 trillion credit market is

broken.

And it's uh you know you could

characterize it as all return or it's

basically returnfree risk

because the the credit spreads on top of

the risk-free rate are dimminimous.

Why would you take 77 basis points to

take the credit risk of a company or 288

basis points to take the credit risk of

a of a

high yield issuer. So you could kind of

say the credit spread of sovereign debt

which is the credit spread of sovereign

debt is 50 to 350 basis points that does

not cover the credit risk of the of the

debt of the sovereign debt. The credit

spread of the investment grade credit

doesn't cover the credit risk of the

company. The credit spread of the high

yield of the junk 288 bas doesn't cover

the credit risk of the weak company. The

credit spreads on municipal debt,

mortgage debt don't cover the risk of

those. So pretty much all $300 trillion

of capital is non-performing.

And uh you would think that as people

become pe people have been forced to

either take risk

like on on Bitcoin or take risk on uh

equity or they're just slowly suffering.

And what we see is human nature is human

psychology is they actually would like

to own the credit and not risk the

principle. and uh and they haven't had a

good option. So, we think digital credit

maybe is the way that we recruit

75% of the capital in the world to the

digital assets ecosystem into Bitcoin.

Uh it's the gateway for them to

transition from uh slowly suffocation,

right? you know, being slowly squeezed

to death uh to something better, you

know, and uh and so that's that's that's

where I think it's positioned right now.

>> Michael, you mentioned on my show that

you could do a thousand hours of podcast

and we still can't reach some of the

people in order to buy Bitcoin, but you

seem to be looking at digital credit and

uh instruments like Stretch as the way

to sort of reach the mainstream public

and the majority. So what is the gap?

Like if that's layered on top of

Bitcoin, why is it easier for someone to

understand stretch? And how do you

market it? What's the challenge there?

>> I think

chemistry is really complicated. Most

people don't understand uh chemistry,

but everybody wears nylon and polyester

and Lycra and they like Teflon and they

use and they like plastics. And the

truth is they don't want to understand

people don't I don't think people want

to understand nuclear power. They don't

want to understand prochemical. They

don't want to understand physics. What

they want is uh a car that's easy to

drive. And then they want uh they want a

dishwasher and a haird dryer. Mo not one

in a hundred people can explain how an

air conditioner works, but they all want

one. So I I and and I don't think one in

a

one in a 100,000 people understands how

an iPhone works, but they all want one.

So I think the great the the great

products are all B I don't think people

that drink Coca-Cola know how to make

Coca-Cola, right? Didn't Wasn't the

recipe for Coke a secret for a hundred

years? Right. It's most famous secret.

So you don't have to understand it to

want it. And I think the mistake is

sometimes to think that I have to teach

people how to create their own

explosives or how to create their own,

you know, uh, heat exchangers or how to

create their own internal combustion

engines. And when you're trying to,

you're in the hobbyest stage or the

early, uh, the early innovator stage at

that point. I think that people want an

insanely great simpletouse consumer

product that just makes their problems

go away that has complicated technology

embedded in it. And so I think that

we're moving uh from the early adopter

phase. Imagine the people used to create

their cars from a kit or they used to

act if you were an aviation hobbyist,

you constructed your own aeroplane and

then you tested it and flew it. And then

we eventually got to the point where

people just purchased an airline ticket

and they got on a plane they didn't

build, they didn't understand, flown by

a guy, did something that they can't do.

And uh and eventually where you end up

is we're just going to have cars that

drive themselves that take us to places

when we say take us there.

So, I I think we're moving to that point

in digital assets and uh in digital

credit and uh and the Bitcoin industry.

And uh

bottom line is

billions and billions and billions of

people want a company to create a

product to solve their problem.

And if you want to change the life of

billions of people,

you know, you create that massive

consumer product and give it to a

billion people. You know, sometimes they

want you to create the product and then

finance it for them and give it to them

for free. Like how many how many people

paid for their car in cash or their

house in cash, right? They want they

want someone to create a house and they

want the government to finance it with a

Fanny May Freddy Mack loan and then

they'll willingly move into the house

paid for by someone else was with with

credit built by someone else. But I

never seen anybody that said that they

didn't want to live in the house unless

they built it with their own hands.

Every part of it so I think that's the

case with most things and this industry

is evolving to that. I I would also add

Coca-Cola was originally successful

because they convinced pharmacists to

sell it as a tonic against an upset

stomach. And the iPhone was successful

because they convinced AT&T initially to

distribute it. And so for Stretch to

initially be successful, it already is,

but we had to convince banks to

distribute it because that's how

products get sold today. And now you see

all these layer three folks building on

top of Stretch. So the the distribution

is starting to happen uh even as we

speak on a six-month-old product. Uh and

that is another way that Stretch is

going to be successful is using the

distribution of traditional finance and

decentralized finance

>> and catchy tunes always help. So um

we're going to call up our first

audience member, Quentyn Yenni.

Do we have a microphone anywhere?

Take your seat.

We'll come to you.

>> Hello. Thank you for taking my question.

Quentin from the one share podcast. So

my question is around the regulation of

digital credit. If strategy is

successful in massively scaling their

preferred like stretch, you could see a

future where those products start to

rival government bonds. So my question

is,

how do you think long-term? What is your

long-term strategy in navigating this?

And do you do you think that there's

going to be new regulations that will be

implemented to try to stop this?

>> Um, no, I don't think anybody's going to

stop it. I think that the the government

is going to take the position you can't

call these things a money market fund.

uh money markets or stable coins will

have to be backed by currency

equivalents. But I think that it will

propagate as uh a as a security or as a

yield fund or as an investment fund or

or with a adjective. Uh whether we can

call it digital money is unclear, but

you can certainly probably call it

digital yield or digital income. And I

think it'll spread through uh

traditional banking systems. I think

it'll spread as digital income. I think

I think you'll have digital income

securities like STRC, but then you'll

see rapid ETFs. I think it'll spread as

an ETP like the 21 shares. STRC is just

a a security. Uh I think that it will

get built into digital income type

tokens or or the like and I think people

will create uh digital savings coins you

know like people are working on here. Uh

and I think that you'll have a set of

digital assets regulators and that'll be

one set of types of products. I think

you'll see the security regulators will

be a different set and then there'll be

a set of bank regulators. I don't think

this will be an exercise and anybody um

I don't think anybody's really

threatened by it. I think it'll be an

exercise in getting regulatory approvals

to roll out various flavors of digital

money and digital income or digital

yield. Uh the good news here is the most

powerful financial regulators in the

world are are the secretary of the

treasury of the United States and the

head of the Fed. The secretary of the

treasury, Scott Bessant, um

believes that uh digital assets are the

future and is an enthusiast.

Uh the head of the Fed, Kevin Walsh,

believes that digital assets are the

future, is an enthusiast. The president

of the United States wants to make the

United States the digital assets leader,

the crypto capital of the world. So you

have the support of the president, the

head of the Fed, the head of the

treasury. You also have enthusiastic

support from the head of the SEC, Paul

Atkins, and the head of the CFTC, Mike

Sullig. And I've traveled all around the

world. Um

the most uh progressive set of financial

regulators in the world are in the US

right now. The most powerful set of

financial regulators in the world in the

US right now.

Just today the OC put out guidance. You

can see it on X where they said stable

coins are fine. We endor we we encourage

you to look at them. So the OC, the

FDIC, uh, Treasury and the other fi, you

know, financial regulators and banking

regulators in the US are going to be

supportive. The UAE is the second most

progressive set of regulators. Uh,

they're they're also supportive and

enthusiastic.

Everybody else in the world is going to

defer to and follow the US. everybody

else, the Europeans, the South

Americans, Singapore, uh the Hong Kong

regulators, even the Chinese, and I

suspect the Russians. I think our

enemies will defer to the US. I think

our allies will defer to the US, and I

think that the train has left the

station. Uh there will just be nuances.

you won't be able to represent that it's

a it won't be a stable coin and you

won't be able to represent it as a

currency equivalent or a money market

equivalent because those are those are

defined terms that have very particular

meanings but I think that uh digital

credit and digital income digital money

will thrive in the digital assets

economy and at this point we're just

going to see a Cambrian expo explosion

of new flavors and types

And you're going to see a very

entrepreneurial movement because you

know releasing this in Australia will

require an Australian issuer or a

distributor of sorts and it'll be the

same in New Zealand or Singapore or UAE

or every single country in Europe. So

there's a lot of work to do but I don't

think there's much controversy or much

risk that any regulator is going to

crack down on this at this point. I

think we've crossed that event horizon

and uh and the genius out of the bottle.

There's broad consensus that that

Bitcoin is ethic ethical digital capital

at this point.

>> Look, it's also going to be a

win-winwin, right? This is right now and

and it's, you know, love to project out

10 20 years what happens to digital

credit, but stretches a three billion

dollar asset class. Digital credit is 7

and a half billion. Let's say stretch

goes to 30 billion. Let's say it goes to

300 billion. It's still a quite a small

percentage compared to what US

treasuries are. And let's say we get to

300 billion. You have 300 billion

people, many of them US citizens and

people all around the world now earning

11%.

Perhaps that causes them to save more

money. That's good outcome. It brings

people up. It increases income. So I

don't see why the government would look

at $300 billion of Stretch and say

that's a bad thing. They would be

supporting that and then that money

pours into Bitcoin. Bitcoin goes up. So

everybody who owns Bitcoin is doing

well. Stretch does well. Bitcoin does

well. People do well. Governments do

well. I can't imagine they look at a

$300 billion asset class and they say,

"Oh, let's regulate this." People will

just be more happy.

>> Yeah. There's a point to be made that um

digital credit is not competing with

sovereign credit. Digital credit is

creating with is competing with private

credit and junk junk bonds and uh

unrated credit instruments. And so uh

there's no way a large government will

feel threatened. The entity that's

threatened is a going out of business

private company that's attempting to get

a loan and offering 8% or 6%. So it's

it's uh and that's a huge market. Right.

Right. The people that are buying uh

stretch at 11 are saying this looks less

risky and better than my junk bond

portfolio that yields seven. And so it

it will squeeze probably high yield low

you know non-investment grade corporate

credit probably for the p next five

years and then maybe 10 years out if

it's a you know trillion dollar asset

class it'll start squeezing investment

grade corporate debt and 20 years out

it'll be squeezing various types of

investment grade corporate debt high

yield and then mortgage back securities.

s and other random types of credit

instruments. But uh it's going to start

on that side of the of the credit curve.

And it's the same mistake people make

with Bitcoin. They think, "Oh, Bitcoin,

it must come it must threaten the

dollar." No, Bitcoin's capital. It it

threatens someone's like second rate or

or it's someone's international real

estate portfolio or alternative assets.

I'm deciding whether to buy oil and gas

rights in Argentina or Bitcoin. Or I'm

deciding whether to buy real estate, you

know, in Asia or buy Bitcoin. Or I'm

deciding to buy, you know, a mixed

portfolio

of buildings, real estate and gold, you

know, and oil rights or Bitcoin. And

when you look at it that way, you

realize that that it's just a better

form of alternative capital. Just like

stretches, digital credit is a better

form of alternative

credit. The people,

the banks and the nation states that

embrace it will thereby grow and prosper

because they're embracing a new

technology. Uh and so the confident ones

are not insecure. They're not going to

be threatened by it. I don't think JP

Morgan doesn't think that Bitcoin's

going to eliminate its role in society.

And the United States is not concerned

about Bitcoin. That's why the president

endors it. That's why Worsh endorses it

at the Fed. That's why Scott Bessant

believes in it. It's just technology.

And and to Fong's point, we probably got

20 years before we're at 5%

of the market. In 20 years, people will

say, "Here's a new thing, and it looks

like it's two, three, four percent of

the capital in the world, and that's

perfectly fine with us."

>> Thank you, Quentin. Next up is Rayu.

>> Got a microphone behind you. Oh, no.

Behind you.

>> Okay. So imagine it's the year60 and the

world is fully on a Bitcoin standard and

Strategy holds 3 million Bitcoin.

The arbitrage window that enabled the

accumulation phase has closed. What will

strategy's role be in that future

Bitcoin economy

in the year60? There's still going to be

a lot of capital invested in real

estate. There are going to be rich

people living in Palm Beach and the

Hamptons. There's going to be buildings.

There's also going to be companies.

There's going to be a company with a

billion robots that makes robots and

there's going to be self flying hover

cars and there's going to be nanobots

and you know there's going to be a lot

of valuable equity, a lot of valuable

real estate. There's going to be a lot

of money invested in uh Bitcoin. There's

also going to be uh city and state

government. So I I think that that world

is a world where maybe 20% of the

capital is digital instead of

0.1

or 30% and then maybe instead of you

know digital credit will be successful

but will be there be other forms of

credit there'll probably still be other

forms of credit. uh our role will be to

support digital credit and then all the

innovations. There's probably going to

be some brilliant interesting things

that get invited in the year 2045 and

then we'll have 10 years to work on that

but we don't know what those are right

now. Um,

I I rather think though it it seems

pretty clear that white collar labor is

is getting turbocharged and transformed

by AI and blue collar labor is getting

turbocharged and transformed by AI and

you're going to have an explo an

explosion of diversity in in products

and productivity.

uh

our role is to improve uh to digitally

transform and improve the the economic

system of the world. So digital capital

is a better foundation for credit than

physical capital. Uh and digital credit

is better. And so the result presumably

is uh weak credit issuers will get

squeezed out and uh in all around the

world where people are suffering from

financial repression there'll be less

and probably the the rates the credit

rates of other instruments will increase

over time and as those credit rates

increase the decision making of the

borrowers will improve because cost

capital will change and so I I think the

world will be more rational and we'll be

a contributor to it but uh but otherwise

there's still going to be a lot of

diversity and a lot of innovation going

on and probably the world will be

evolving across 100 dimensions much

faster than it is today. Instead of

having instead of having 50 million

people or 20 million people engaged in

basic research, maybe you'll have a

billion people engaged in basic research

in 10,000 areas that we don't even think

are worth researching or we can't afford

to research right now. So, I'm not

worried that there's a collapse. I think

rather there's an explosion in

productivity and rationality

and opportunity and optionality.

And the world won't be perfect either.

There'll still be imperfections,

but it'll be a better world uh than it

is now. And there'll be more opportunity

uh for everyone. And more rationality uh

will be, you know, spreading from here

to there.

>> Yeah. 2 million Bitcoin is still really

just 10% of the Bitcoin in existence.

It's a lot, but it's not that much.

There are companies that own more of the

search market, more of the mobile phone

market, more of the electric car market.

And in 30 years, there will be new

markets that open up. We'll be worried

about how much real estate's on Earth.

There will not be real estate sold on

the moon, and somebody will go grab 20%

of the real estate on the moon. And

people will say, "Is that too much real

estate?" And I think there will be new

markets, new products, new capabilities.

AI will be around, humans will be

around, society will be around and

innovation will continue and by then

we'll have 20 10% of the Bitcoin and

maybe there will be a brand new category

of product that we've never thought of

and maybe we'll have innovated in that

space too.60

is a long long time away.

>> Thank you Ray. Our next question comes

from Christopher Adok.

Awesome.

Thank you for taking my question. Um my

question is if if Basil moved Bitcoin to

group one tomorrow, no other changes, do

the big banks uh that you've been

meeting with recently, do they start

buying Bitcoin all of a sudden or do

they need proof uh that the consumer

demand is there? Because there's a

dichotomy of the products that are being

rolled out versus them holding on their

balance sheet. I was just curious on

your experiences with the banks and your

thoughts on the the Basel rules and how

they should or may change in the future.

I don't think it's overnight. I I I

think Basil is an important standard

because it'll open up banks, insurance

companies, pension funds, and others to

holding Bitcoin to holding MSTR, other

Bitcoin treasury companies. It'll help.

It's not as existential, right? It's

just another sort of barrier to overcome

like Fazby, fair market accounting,

right? We'll we'll overcome these

things, but I don't think it's

existential. I think what's going to

cause Bitcoin to grow fast is, and we've

talked a lot about it, corporate

adoption, which has happened in the last

year, banking adoption, which we'll see

happen this year. I think when those

things happen, the distribution channels

of Bitcoin and digital uh credit will

increase and Basil is just one piece of

it. Uh and and we we'll fix that. But

but you know, Bitcoin doesn't have these

existential things that keep it down or

step functioning things that are going

to cause it to grow overnight anymore.

It's too big an asset class and too much

support in the government. So, I think

it'll be helpful, but but but it's it's

not necessary.

And on the flip side, it's not going to

just cause an avalanche of investment

either. And

>> there's no one milestone. There's going

to be a progressive adoption everywhere

in the world. quarter by quarter for the

next 40 quarters and and when 40

quarters have gone by it will be deemed

to be you know cool and new kind of like

the iPhone in 2020 like be like well you

you probably have a digital account or

you have a digital asset or something

don't you

and uh banks that don't handle digital

assets you know 10 years out from now

will probably be deemed to be you

traditional quaint

heritage banks like kind kind of like

when you go to the boutique bed and

breakfast that is is styled after the

turn of the century whatever and

it'll be something like that but it'll

be 10 years of just progressive adoption

everywhere in the world and then it will

be new and cool and modern.

>> All right, so the next question we have

is from Chris Ritter.

Thanks for taking my question.

Strategy is pioneering a new world of

digital capital, digital credit, digital

money. My question is, what role

infrastructure-wise does the Lightning

Network play in this new world?

>> I know Lightning is, you know, one of

the layer 2 protocols. It's not the only

layer 2 protocol. I mean,

for for tech forward companies, digital

uh digital wallet companies that want to

create really cool apps on a mobile

phone. And if they want to do things

that are that are high-speed, low cost,

they'll probably look at something like

lightning to do it with. And lightning

may be um a high frequency,

you know, a high frequency uh low

midsecurity settlement layer. uh between

a bunch of dig digital assets players

that want to swap Bitcoin around. But

but um there's going to be a lot of

other types of products that don't

require it. I mean there it's quite

possible for example I just wire a

hundred billion dollars to JP Morgan and

they just pay me 8% and they buy a bunch

of digital credit with it and I just

collect the 8% and then I give it to my

heirs and like there is no transaction

for the next hundred years. It's like

that that will probably be a more

economically consequential thing. So

there's a lot of interesting things that

will happen in the space that don't

require uh layer twos. There'll also be

layer 3es that will form at some point.

I wouldn't be surprised if you don't see

um you know Zuckerberg roll, you know,

roll support for Bitcoin transactions on

WhatsApp or Messenger or or any of those

networks. And you could see it get built

into the iPhone and it moves on

iMessage. So they're going to be layer

three protocols. They're lightning is

going to be a layer two layer 2

universal protocol. There's going to be,

you know, there's always going to be the

Bitcoin base layer. And there's going to

be a competition. I I happen to like

lightning but I I don't think the I

don't think the success or failure of

the digital asset future uh relies upon

any one particular um layer 2 protocol

or layer three. Uh the only protocol

that really is critical to us is the

layer one protocol which is Bitcoin. And

so the thing that we need to defend, you

know, with all of our hearts and souls

and all of our intellectual energy and

we need to protect and cherish

is the layer one Bitcoin protocol. As

long as that isn't corrupted, then you

can create a hundred trillion dollar

economy on top of it. And then every

other like right now, you know, if you

look right, uh the blocks are are are

not empty. Transaction fees are at an

all-time low. there's plenty of

bandwidth. That's because the rest of

the free market solves the problem of

transactions by transacting on layer 2

like lightning or on layer 3es. Uh you

know whether the layer three is a is an

exchange or or something else. So, I

think that there's going to be a very

competitive market in layer twos and

there's going to be uh an insanely

competitive market in layer threes

and they're going to cure and they're

going to create every piece of

functionality and bandwidth we need and

they're going to be in a neverending war

with each other. I mean, you're even

going to see the, you know, the crypto

networks like Salana and Ethereum and

Hype, they're all going to compete to be

a layer two to move Bitcoin around one

way or the other or a layer three if you

want, depends on how you deem them. Uh,

and so technology is going to evolve.

It's really the core base layer of layer

one from which all value flows. And as

long as the layer one is protected and

not corrupted then the rest of the

ecosystem would very be very healthy.

So the next question we have is from Tom

White.

>> Yes. Hi. Um could could you address

concerns regarding shareholder delution

from you know uh f further issuance of

shares of common and preferred? Thank

you.

>> Yeah, that that's primarily just a short

seller narrative or a Twitter troll

narrative, you know, by people that

aren't very well informed. Um we don't

do things that are dilutive. We do

things that are accretive. So whenever

you issue shares, whether you swap them

for Bitcoin or swap them for money, if

it's a good idea, it's accretive. If

it's increasing Bitcoin per share in the

near term or the long term, it's

accretive. If it's diluting Bitcoin per

share over the near term or the long

term, it would be dilutive. right there.

In in all cases

for the history of the company, we have

never done a capital markets transaction

that we believed was dilutive or would

be dilutive over the long term.

Occasionally,

one in 20 one in 50 transactions is

shortterm dilutive in order to be

long-term accretive, but very very

rarely. So we will occasionally

uh take a slight dilution in bitcoin per

share or assets per share in order and

and in all cases it was to improve the

creditworthiness of the company because

if we didn't improve the

creditworthiness of the company we

created a reflexive lack of confidence

which would be long-term equity

negative. But as a general rule

everything we're doing is equity

positive and credit positive. If we do

anything that was dilutive to the

equity, it would be dilutive to the

credit rating of the company. And so, so

doing things that are that are not

equity positive or bad business for the

credit. Doing something which is credit

negative is bad for the equity. If if um

if the creditors lose confidence in the

credit the credit lines dry up that is

no one wants to buy the credit

instruments like STRC that's bad for the

equity. So sometimes you would do

something which isn't immediately

screaming home run for the equity, but

it is long-term good for the equity

because it's good for the credit and we

balance the interest of the credit

investors and the equity investors in

every capital markets transaction. But

as a practical matter,

you can literally track the BTC gain.

It's on our website. We update it every

week. You can um look at the BTC yield.

We update it every single week. If the

BTC yield in any given quarter or year

or particular period is is more than

zero, then all of our equity

transactions are accretive. They're not

dilutive. So issuing of shares is in and

of itself not dilutive. That's a sloppy

use of the English language. Right. When

I when I issue shares in order to create

shareholder value, it's an accretive

transaction.

Yeah, I I think it's just sloppy is a

pretty good adjective. We've been very

clear. Our goal, what we consider

creative is increasing Bitcoin per

share. So, if the if someone thinks the

act of issuing equity is dilutive, then

they're just misdefining

what is dilutive or not or or not. It's

it's like saying a company that is

growing 200% but is has negative income

for two years is losing money versus

growing as a company. Right? They are

early stage companies looking for

revenue growth. That's the objectives.

And so you have to understand what is

the objective of our company. Our

objective is to increase Bitcoin per

share. We are as transparent as any

company possible as it pertains to that

metric. We update every single week what

our Bitcoin per share is, what our

Bitcoin yield is, what our Bitcoin gain

is. We talk to all of our active

shareholders, our top active

shareholders, Capital Group, Morgan

Stanley, Fidelity, they all understand.

And so I I think it's just really either

somewhere between misinformed and you

know just trying to get hits on X to say

that it's dilutive at this point in

time.

>> Yeah. I will say two other observations.

One is I think we're the most shorted

stock. I read we're one of the most

shorted stocks in the stock market.

That's because a lot of people are

hedging the converts and and and

I think that the narrative that we've

done anything dilutive is coming only

from people that are short the stock. I

personally have met with hundreds and

hundreds of stockholders. I've never met

a shareholder that thought we were doing

anything dilutive that was long that was

actually holding the stock. So this

entire narrative is only from people

that either don't own the stock or are

shorting the stock hoping that it will

go down. And so it's it's an ironic

proposition.

Um our our long-term goal and

expectation is we'll double Bitcoin per

share over seven years, but if you look

back, we had a 74% Bitcoin yield two

years ago and a 22% yield last year. So

uh the company's actions have been

screamingly a creative and and they will

continue to be a creative.

>> So um Fong a question for you. Yesterday

Michael showed us the three layer model

with uh stretch as layer 2 digital

credit and everybody saw that with uh

yielding over 11% with 22% volatility.

Um layer three above it digital money uh

has a goal of near zero volatility. So

when you think about stre uh stretch's

position in that quadrillion dollar

global asset chart that we see from

Jesse Meyers, right? Um $370 trillion in

real estate, $320 trillion in bonds,

$135 trillion in equities, $130 trillion

in money, um $35 trillion in gold. How

do you see layer 2 fitting into the

institutional portfolios allocating to

each of those buckets? And how does

layer 2's role evolve as layer 3

develops in the future?

>> Well, I I'd start with that. I don't

think layer 2 and layer 3 are

necessarily mutually exclusive, right?

There are people, you know, one one very

simple way of thinking about it is if

you have money that you need

immediately. You need one month or three

month money, right? You probably want to

put it into layer three, right? And that

individual or that institution or that

corporation that has threemonth money

that they want to spend typically right

now are just holding it in some form of

a money market, right? Or if you're

lower income, lower asset landed assets,

you're holding it in a checking account,

right? And you want access to that

money. You want to know that it's going

to be perfectly stable so that when you

have to pay your rent or if you get in a

car accident, you have to fix your car

or your AP is running uh a little bit

high and your AR is running a little bit

low that you want to have three-month

money, right? And that's where layer

three comes in, right? That same

individual, that same corporation, that

same person, that that same family then

has everything between three month money

and call it fouryear money, right? And

maybe you're saving you're you're that's

that's for you to put as a down payment

on a car or you want to buy a nice

refrigerator or you're a corporation and

you want to grow and you want to hire

another hundred people. That's what

stretch is perfect for. Right. And in

that particular case right right now

where are they holding it? They're also

holding it in a checking account or

they're holding it in a money market or

they're holding it in a T bill. They

might be putting it into private credit

which I wouldn't do. All right. maybe a

corporate bond and it replaces that. So

it's the same individual, the same

corporation, it's just different asset

allocation. And of course, then the

perfect scenario is that individual or

that corporation or that asset manager

has money that's greater than four years

out. And that's where Bitcoin comes into

play. The first two categories represent

somewhere in the category of 300 to400

trillion dollars worth of money, right?

Um, but it's the same person that should

be holding all three. Layer one, layer

two, layer three. They just serve very

different purposes. And it's primarily a

duration. And don't you think with the

illiquidity of private credit in

particular, which may have a little bit

more yield, uh, but way higher risk and

you can't you actually can't access your

capital. I mean, it seems like that's a

that's a perfect avenue for for stretch

right off the bat. It's a perfect avenue

and I I don't understand why people buy

private credit personally, right? I've

I've been pitched so many different

private equity investments where they

lock up your money for four years and

they charge you two and 20 and maybe

you'll get 15%. You know, or maybe 20%

and of course you get taxed on that too.

Uh the reason people buy it is the

distribution channel gets paid a lot of

money to sell it, right? And so the

distribution channel, whether that be

private equity and they have an entire

group of people selling out to wealth

management and other tiers, that's the

reason why people are buying it. Uh and

when you have a four-letter ticker that

you can just go by in the NASDAQ that

offers significantly improved

characteristics, right? It's uh shorter

duration, better maturities, it's higher

yields, it's tax deferred, uh it pays

you monthly. It's just sort of

it has to like anything, you know, the

issue and and why I get obsessed talking

to banks and others is the distribution

channel is controlling who's buying

what, right? Which is why I thought it

was brilliant that Apple created the

Apple store after they went through the

carrier, right? why Tesla started

distributing directly and disrupting and

it was regulatory,

you know, hurdles or Uber decided to go

straight to give people rides without

going having to get a taxi medallion,

right? We think of these things as as

sort of cute and novel, a taxi medallion

or even now a car dealer.

Well, right now the distribution channel

owns distributing private credit. 10

years from now, we'll think of that as

cute and novel because people will be

able to buy securities, not just on the

NASDAQ, but 10 years from now, they'll

be tokenized. You'll be able to do it

right on your phone or you might, you

know, chip implanted in your brain. You

just think stretched and it just

appears, right?

>> I think anybody after this conference is

already happening.

>> Yeah. So, so I I think I think it there

is an opportunity for for for

disruption with the product, but there's

also an opportunity for disruption with

the distribution channel.

>> Yeah, we may have time for just if you

have time for your question is a perfect

leadin to your question.

>> Well, we have we actually have a final

question. Every room I walk into, every

table I walk by, everyone's talking

about AI, AI, artificial intelligence,

cloud, Hatch BT, and we know that AI was

deployed to help you create your

preferred instruments. So, I just wanted

to know from both of you, how are you

personally using AI in your workflows,

and how should other business leaders

deploy these technologies?

>> Um, yeah, I I'm using AI for everything

we do in the capital market. So we used

it to define uh to to design strike,

strife, stride,

stretch, stream. We use it uh to decide

how to manage our capital markets

programs, you know. So I we're we're

using it in order to work through the

monetary engineering and the finan all

of the digital engineering issues around

digital income, digital yield, digital

money and we'll continue to do it. uh

primarily because you've you've got a

mixture of uh financial issues like

frequency like like for example you know

how many days is it you know before I

what what is what is the logical

frequency of liquidity on stretch now

right you wouldn't have to wait more

than four weeks to actually get your

money back on stretch right now but if

as the liquidity builds and the

volatility falls that time frame goes

from four weeks to maybe four days. And

to Vong's point, we're thinking about

the frequencies of money and the

frequencies and we're thinking about the

the harmonics of risk. So I use it a lot

to think about risk, credit theory,

monetary engineering,

uh, and then use it to design digital

money, digital yield. think about uh

think about um how it compares to

everything else. We we use it to analyze

the private credit market and and all

the other credit markets and the like.

So it's for me it's pretty strategic in

uh capital markets execution

uh securities design

strategy

competitive analysis and uh

communications

you know and uh so I I think it's

critical the the biggest the biggest uh

I think question mark for me is just

which various AI models should I use in

which mode and then how frequently

should I reconsider whether or not it's

still the smartest one. do I need to re

and I was like we used to actually redo

the RFPs with our vendors every three

years and then it was every year and you

kind of have to redo the RFP with your

AIS more and more frequently because

there are just more and more

capabilities and you have to have to

reconsider whether or not you uh need to

reprogram the way you do work but

otherwise I find them to be pretty

transformational and stretch wouldn't ex

digital credit wouldn't exist without

AI, right? I I can say that very

unequivocally. None of those credit

instruments and when you finish the

credit instrument, you can see there's

there's

one that's better than the next and then

the next is better than the next. And

when you get to the best one, you know,

I used to be known for that phrase,

there is no second best, right? You find

that there really is no second, there's

a best. And when you find the best, it's

so much better than everything else. You

think, why did I even ever waste my time

doing the other thing? And the real

contribution of AI is it helps you move

from the third best to the second best

to the fir to the first best. And then

when you've got something that's really

good, it helps you figure out how you

make it better.

>> Yeah. there there's really not anything

that I do that requires thought that

doesn't go to an AI in parallel. Meaning

if you think about our legal department

and our government affairs, I have an

accounting question I would used to go

ask our accountants. Now I ask the AI

and then I would ask our accountants. If

I have a question about, you know, we

talked about Basil, we talked about

MSCI, like how did I figure out how

these things work? I go ask the AI and

then I go ask the lawyers, right? And