Michael Saylor on bitcoin: Full interviews 2021-2024

well despite declines for Bitcoin today

micro strategy shares well they're

higher TD Cowen raising its price Target

on the stock to 1560 that's

$1,560 after micro strategy increased

its Bitcoin Holdings by another 12,000

Bitcoin the total Holdings about 205,000

now joining me now micro strategy

executive chairman Michael sailor

Michael it's good to see you it's been a

little while thanks for having me julan

so I want to start I know that you were

bullish on bitcoin I I think everyone

knows by now that you see a

long-term um store of value in Bitcoin

and you have said that you see it as

digital property as opposed to thinking

it as a digital currency so if you could

help me understand as you add more to

the company's balance sheet what the

sort of end game is for those Holdings

on micro strategies balance

sheet yeah well we think Bitcoin is the

highest for property it's the Apex

property in the world and it's um it's

the best investment asset so the endgame

is to acquire more Bitcoin um whoever

gets the most Bitcoin wins well I no

other iname but Michael I guess what I'm

trying to understand is so if I think of

it as digital property and I think of

analogies right I think of a real estate

company that buys property and holds on

to other kinds of property they may not

be the Apex but whatever kinds of

property I think of an asset manager

that buys all kinds of different assets

eventually they sell those assets in

order to make profits but I I don't

think that is your end game right you're

not planning to sell the Bitcoin at any

point so kind of what is the purpose of

it over time well um let's keep in mind

the the fundamental principle what

what's the use case of Bitcoin it's it's

Capital preservation so if you have a

billion dollars and you live in South

America or you live in Asia or you live

in Africa and you want the capital last

for a hundred years you're not going to

want to buy a billion dollar company or

a billion dollar building or a billion

dollars of land in any place in Africa

you're going to have to find some other

form of property that you can hold for a

long period of time uh let's take New

York City uh developers of New York City

in 1776 didn't have an endgame uh

they've been raising Capital to invest

in New York City real estate at the

all-time high for 300 years if you went

and talked to them today and you said

what's your ingame they would say well

we're going to keep investing in New

York City if you've ever talked to a

person that owned an apartment in New

York City no one aspires to hold the

apartment for a few years sell the

apartment and move out of New York City

they put it in their will they give it

to their children and if you ask them

why they say there's no better place on

Earth to live than New York there's

there is no place up from there so New

York City is the endgame uh for people

that uh that want to live in the

greatest city in North America Bitcoin

is the endgame for anybody that wants to

own the greatest property in the 21st

century well I I guess that is the case

but you know at is there a price at

which you would consider selling some of

the Bitcoin pulling out so I mean

because you don't you can do something

with New York City you can live in New

York City you can have a business in New

York City you you know what do you do

with the Bitcoin besides it just

gather

value well um the proper real estate

developers in New York City uh they're

not buying the real estate because they

want to live in it they're buying the

real estate because they expect because

they want to sell it eventually Michael

I mean let's be honest most of the

people who are yes sure some people pass

it on to their children but like most of

the people who are buying assets at some

point want to sell the assets at a

profit so I let me let me say it a

different way people that use fiat

currency as a store of value there's a

name for them we call them poor okay uh

anybody that's rich in the world they

own property they own they own large

waves of land the royal family of

England it didn't sell all of its

property in central London in order to

buy uh you know currency or paper money

nor did the royal family of uh of Japan

nor did the royal family in the Middle

East in fact they want to own the

property for forever I I I want to want

you to imagine Bitcoin is it's a city in

cyers space that 276 blocks wide 276

blocks high 276 blocks deep about 21

million blocks now imagine all eight

billion people in the world want to live

there one day they want to put their

Capital there there's $900 trillion

dollar of of wealth in the world as

people migrate from uh from every other

form of property and they assets into

cyberspace you're going to see the

Bitcoin Network go from a trillion

dollar Network to a 10x that to 100x

that and there really is nowhere else to

go it is the Apex property of the human

race so at some point as the value of

the Bitcoin on micro strategy's balance

sheet grows both because it's growing in

absolute terms and maybe you're adding

more to it do you at some point down the

line see being able to use it to

transact to invest in the business to

pay out a special dividend to investors

to buy other

businesses we we believe that the that

the highest best use of capital is to

buy Bitcoin and hold the Bitcoin the

Bitcoin is going to appreciate and value

faster than the S&P index it's going to

appreciate and value faster than

commercial real estate and so there

there's no point in selling the winner

to buy the losers and Bitcoin is the

winner and so we're just going to keep

acquiring Bitcoin with our cash flows

with uh with Equity or Capital raises uh

any other any other uh AC creative uh

method that comes to mind um something

else I've noticed as I've talked to

different investors different analysts

is that micro strategy is actually

trading at a pretty steep premium to

bitcoin itself according to one analysis

that I saw today as much as 90 to 100%

premium to bitcoin is that is that

justified and and why do you think it's

Justified right now uh an Institutional

Investor that wants to buy Bitcoin has a

choice of uh investing in the ETFs of

which you know Black Rock and Fidelity

and are very well known or investing in

some other company that has a Bitcoin

strategy like micro strategy uh you

could think of the ETFs like uh like

oceangoing container ships they can

carry huge amounts of capital you can

invest a billion dollars a day in the

BlackRock ETF so they could they could

take on hundreds of billions of dollars

of capital they're not going to trade at

a premium but what they don't have is

performance and leverage micro strategy

is different because uh our Capital

isn't you can't redeem our shares so

it's possible for our shares to trade at

a premium we're an operating company and

that means when our sharees trade at a

premium we can either raise Capital

through convertible debt or through

Equity when we do that we're doing it at

a premium to the underlying assets that

captures uh an accretion for our

underlying shareholders so following uh

a debt deal where we swap the debt for

Bitcoin our common stock shareholders

have more Bitcoin per share than they

did before the deal so another way to

say that is if you want to pay 25 bases

points and be one to one levered then

you would buy the ETF but if you

actually want to generate an accretion

or a yield and not pay the fee and have

leverage then you would buy a stock like

micro strategy you could think of us as

like uh we're like Air Freight we're

Federal Express we can take you faster

but we're never going to carry the same

amount of capital in our payload as a

super tanker or a container ship so

there there's place for both of those

strategies and in fact they're very

complimentary I think the ETFs benefit

from the existence of companies like

micro strategy and micro strategy

benefits from the existence of the ETFs

yeah certainly we've seen um an uptick

adoption with the the introduction of

those ETFs um you mentioned the

convertible offering um I am curious

because it's not the only offering

you've done of course you've done others

as a way of investing in more Bitcoin

what happens if the price goes down

again precipitously what happens to the

capital structure of micro

strategy well you can see uh if you look

at our past there have been periods uh

during the crypto winter when Bitcoin

went from 66,000 all the way down to

16,000 uh in that case we simply hold

the Bitcoin instead of being 20% levered

we become 40% or 60% lovered um the and

the way that we raise the capital is

using convertible debt and so the

convertible debt is an is a unsecured

uh instrument is not Mark to Market it

doesn't come due except in four or five

or six years from the point that we

issued it and uh it's not secured

against any other kind of capital so we

don't have to actually do anything we

just wait uh for the market to recover

and and that's what we did uh in 22 and

in 23 we recovered and our shareholders

benefited from the deleveraging as

Bitcoin rallied in the other direction

all right it has been an eventful couple

of days for cryptocurrencies to say the

very least as the Ripple effects of the

FTX crash make their way through the

wider Market despite this some crypto

Bulls are staying put our next guest

might well be the most high-profile

Bitcoin champion of recent times and

he's still beating the drum saying

Bitcoin might well come out on top we're

happy to be joined by Michael C micro

strategy founder and executive chairman

Michael always nice to see you you heard

Jared uh talk about this Recovery Fund

being put forth by CZ what are your

thoughts on that Recovery Fund and does

that help to rebuild trust in the

industry um I you know I think that

binance is is the best managed and of

course the most uh wellknown of the

crypto exchanges but uh the most

important point to be made here is the

collapse of FTX and

ftt uh represents a a a corrupt crypto

Bank collapse fueled by an inflationary

Fiat

cryptocurrency so you know as Gary

gendor has said the vast majority of all

the cryptos are unregistered Securities

they're trading on unregulated

exchanges uh proof of stake tokens are

backed by nothing which is why ftt could

be printed into the8 billion Zone and uh

this is simply a very expensive lesson

for the crypto ecosystem and the

difference between crypto and Bitcoin

Michael we've just recently seen Bitcoin

come off of its 52 we low but it's also

Winter low in terms of the price action

here and so with that in mind do you

believe that crypto Wales are looking at

the price right now and still seeing

some type of opportunity and what type

of concentration among Bitcoin ownership

do you think even at these lows which

are still amid a wash out in some of the

confidence for other investors in crypto

what does that mean in terms of the

concentration of ownership going forward

uh you know I think it's a another event

that's uh that's massively Distributing

more Bitcoin all around the world I

think there's a massive amount of

accumulation of Bitcoin right now uh the

BTC is moving from weak hands to strong

hands I think this is one of those

annealing events uh two and a half years

ago in March of

2020 uh we saw similar circumstance with

Bitcoin trading in the $4,000 range if

you look at the volumes of Bitcoin

trading today versus then they're up by

a factor of 5 to 10x so there's

extraordinary instit tional interest and

investor interest in the asset class and

I I think that this is going to be

really helpful for Bitcoin because this

is an educational moment and people are

realizing the benefits of uh buying a

crypto asset that's backed by the

world's most com most powerful Computing

Network and by 10 gws of energy and uh

the difference between that and the

20,000 other cryptos that are in essence

backed by nothing and they're just like

other field

currencies so Michael let's pick up on

that point I mean it sounds like you're

saying there's going to be real

Divergence here between the likes of a

Bitcoin or an ether versus some of these

other digital tokens what does that

Shakedown look like and ultimately how

many of those tokens

survive well I think this uh this crash

uh accelerates regulatory intervention I

mean in fact in a sense right uh SBF is

like the Jordan bfort of the crypto era

instead of the Wolf of Wall Street

they'll make a movie called The King of

crypto this is going to bring in the SEC

the cftc at a much greater rate and the

the the future of the entire industry is

digital assets trading on register it's

registered digital assets trading on

regulated exchanges so to the extent

that there's something good in the

crypto industry the good stuff is a

digital exchange that trades 247 365

trading on 8 billion Android and iPhones

uh digital currency available to

argentinians and Lebanese and people all

all through Africa and Asia that are

blocked from the US Financial system the

ability to issue tokens if you're a

Creator uh and monetize your brand and

the ability to deliver digital

Securities that trade 247365 at the

speed of light friction free outside of

the traditional banking system which is

in essence a monopoly on assets so those

are the good things the problem is those

have been pursued by the crypto industry

in an unethical unstable technically

irresponsible fashion and this is just

highlighting the fact that a good idea

pursued in an unethical irresponsible

fashion is a bad idea I think that uh

The Regulators have it right the idea is

you should be able to register your

digital asset if you have a stable coin

you should register it with the SEC if

you have a security you should register

it if you want your crypto token to be

designated a commodity and an asset

without an issuer you ought to have a

registration process and if you want to

run a digital exchange the trades all

these tokens you should be a regulated

transparent exchange that's trustworthy

and I think the I think The Regulators

get it I think the politicians get it I

think it's it's been a very expensive

process going through terara and Luna

and Celsius and three arrows and now FTX

is collapse but at this point I don't

think there's anybody in the in the

western world that doesn't understand

the risks of allowing people to promote

unregistered Securities on unregulated

exchanges and so what's going to happen

you're going to see a massive ShakeOut

99% of these air tokens are going to go

away they're literally the penny stocks

of our era the joke of course is penny

stocks used to to trade for a nickel

whereas some of these dog coins are

trading for fractions of a penny they're

not even penny stocks at one point they

created a token which was

0.001 Cent so that you couldn't even

read the price of the token on an eight

significant digit display on a crypto

exchange so that stuff's got to go and

what needs to replace it is ethically

sound technically sound econom ically

sound digital assets the industry needs

to grow up Michael as a Statesman in

this industry those words you know

comparing SBF to a Jordan bord and

that's those are some big words here so

is there another way to look at it in

that you view SBF as a corrupt player in

this industry and he needs to be made an

example of put in jail for what he has

done to the

space he was using counterfeit money and

stolen money to Lobby against all the

virtues in the industry against proof of

work against Bitcoin he was working to

corrupt regulations corrupt the

political process right when you have

actors that use corrupt uh counterfeit

stolen money in order to undermine the

industry it's not good for anybody and

so yeah I mean I I think that uh people

need to decipher this FTX you know

generated uh an ftt token blew you know

if you trade your own token on your own

exchange with wash trading with leverage

you can park the price at any number you

want so you want to make a billion

dollars you Jack the price by three

bucks by wash trading with yourself then

you generate a billion dollars of

collateral then you look for a bank

that'll loan you money against the

collateral and of course nobody in their

right mind should be loaning money

against an air token that you

manipulated yourself but of course Sam

happened to be the CEO of a bank that

made loans so he applied for a loan from

his own bank and he granted it to

himself and then he took real assets

like Bitcoin from his honest customers

and then he

rehypothecation offshore micro strategy

CEO Michael sailor will be shifting from

his head role to the executive chairman

position here to explain what that move

is and why uh why it will impact the

market Bitcoin bull himself who is

joined by Julie Hyman and crypto

reporter David Hollerith Julie David

good to see you

both thanks I appreciate it Dave um

Michael thank you so much for being here

obviously it's a big day for you a busy

day for you as you prepare um for this

succession um I want to ask you first of

all you've said that you are stepping

down um in order in part to focus more

on your Bitcoin advocacy and I'm just

curious from a day-to-day perspective

what that's going to look like what

exactly you're going to be doing um

versus Your Role

now well you know the CEO job is

primarily to run a software business and

we've got about 2,200 employees at micro

strategy and thousands of customers um I

I started that business uh 33 years ago

and I love it but um Fong who's our our

president as of now is a very good

operating officer and uh we've been

working on a succession plan with him

for about four years making him first

Chief Operating Officer and then

president about two years ago and when

he was president he was President

CFO uh we entered into a Bitcoin

strategy our balance sheet is swelled by

billions and billions of dollars and we

decided that the best thing for the

business is to bring in a full-time CFO

we did that Andrew Kang and may of this

year and that was the Catalyst that

allowed us to elevate Fong to be

president and CEO

and I uh have been wanting to assume the

role of executive chairman so this is my

decision uh many many years in the

making as executive chairman I'm GNA

stay engaged in the business many people

don't realize I'm the controlling

shareholder of the company so I'm the

chair of the board I'll Remain the chair

of the Investments committee that

oversees our Bitcoin acquisition

strategy and my primary role will be

advocacy education and Innovation

working on technology uh leadership

opportunities and then Fong will run the

day-to-day business uh along with the

support of Andrew our new

CFO Michael uh given your new role how

uh would you say that micro strategy's

Bitcoin strategy will at all change

given that you're taking on these new um

advocacy focused

initiatives no we're we're as

enthusiastic as ever it won't change

other than our goal is to acquire as

much Bitcoin as we can and hold it

forever

um we started this strategy in August

11th of 2020 and in those two years our

stock is up

123% through August 1st so we

outperformed Bitcoin we outperformed

every major asset class we're 10x better

than the NASDAQ we outperformed all of

our enterprise software competitors like

Oracle by a factor of three like IBM by

a factor of 10 and uh and we have

managed to increase the Enterprise value

of the company by 7 130% by from 600

million to about five a half billion

dollars in that time frame so the

strategy is a big success um we're

enthusiastic about continuing to both

grow the business intelligence software

company business and to continue to

acquire more Bitcoin uh this uh

executive Evolution will allow me to

focus more on outgoing Bitcoin Envoy and

advocacy roles and and corporate

strategy initiatives and it will allow

Fong to run the day-to-day business as

the chief

executive Michael I I've heard you

talking a lot I heard you talk on the

call I've heard you talking a lot in

interviews today about that

outperformance of micro strategy since

the strategy's Inception but from micro

strategies High you've actually

underperformed a lot of those assets

that you've talked about if you compare

their performance from their recent

highs so I guess it depends on when

investors got in and if you look at the

the core business as well you guys just

reported a year-over-year drop in

revenue for example that missed estimate

so I I mean is your only marker of

success for the strategy how the stock

has done since you guys started buying

Bitcoin I mean aren't there other

metrics that a potential shareholder or

an existing shareholder might might want

to look at and not be as pleased by if

you're a troll or a cynic and you pick

any two dates uh with a short enough

time frame you can find a period during

which every asset traded down if you

look at year- to-day performance of

every risk asset in the world they've

all traded down so what you just said

could be said to literally every single

CEO in the world because they all traded

down this year the reason that August

11th 2020 matters is because on August

11th the company announced a Dutch

auction to buy back $250 Million worth

of its shares and we announced that we

were going to buy $250 Million worth of

bitcoin on that day the ENT value of the

software company was about $60 a share

and we had $500 million of

non-performing cash so if you look at

the stock today we have gone through

this transformation from a $60 a share

stock to over $300 a share and we have

converted a non-performing balance sheet

into Bitcoin which is the best

performing asset in the last decade so

uh yeah I think that for sure since we

embarked on the Bitcoin strategy that is

the thing that matters the stock has

been volatile uh up and down in the

months that followed so has every other

asset in the

world you're

shareholder why I mean but if you're a

sh shh

youus and that's why you're buying it

why not just buy Bitcoin itself why is

buying micro strategy better than just

buying

Bitcoin first of all our shareholders

how a $60 a share stock that's what the

software company was worth we turned it

into a $300 a share stock so what they

wanted us to do was make micro strategy

stock go up so we have uh micro strategy

stock has performed better than every

other asset and all of the competing

stocks in the space that's the right

thing to do for our shareholders as for

why you would buy micro strategy versus

Bitcoin that's left as a decision for

the investor some people want to hold a

commodity or a property in which case

they should own Bitcoin but I will note

that micro strategy stock has performed

better than Bitcoin since we embarked on

this Bitcoin strategy because we took a

lever long position and we borrowed

billions of dollars at a blended

interest rate less than 2% so if you

wanted to tap into the cheap Capital

markets in order to make a leverage long

bet on high quality property then

Bitcoin would be a a very favorable

investment vehicle for

that Michael a Bitcoin question there's

a cohort of of bitcoiners who have

argued that um to be a healthy Network

Bitcoin can't sustain itself unless it

reaps fees some in some way um this is

uh often likened to the fact that it has

to become a currency at some point and I

realize that's anatha to micro strategy

current bitcoin strategy but I was

curious to hear your thoughts on uh just

sort of uh this topic because if Bitcoin

is a a digital property um how exactly

is it supposed to get development in the

future how do you see that

unfolding um the Bitcoin network is

currently running on the basis of a

combination of transaction fees and

block subsidies and and the block

rewards will go on the year

2140 so after the year 2140 which is a

long time in the future we'll need

transaction fees to compensate the

miners but the security is cumulative

and the investment in mining equipment

and energy contracts is cumulative so I

don't think we have much to worry about

with regard to what the fees are and

their relationship to security until

sometime in the year 2120 or Beyond as

for uh do you need to move the asset for

a de value no uh absolutely not for

example uh the property in Manhattan

doesn't have to move for it to have

value the uh the granite if you own a

City Block in Manhattan the fact that it

hasn't moved in 200 million years

doesn't have any impact on the on

whether it has value in fact you would

prefer that Manhattan be built on

granite or shifts that doesn't move for

hundreds of millions of years that

actually makes the property more

valuable and Bitcoin is that right what

you want is you want to know that a

hundred years from now there'll be no

more than 21 million Bitcoin and that

the network will be secure and have

integrity and no one can change it um

you don't really need high-speed

transactions you can do that on a layer

two like lightning or a layer three like

cash app or or binance or coin base and

and people do millions of those

transactions every day and it works just

fine Michael good to get some time with

you today again I know it's a busy day

Michael sailor uh who is currently CEO

of micro strategy but as of August 8th

will be transitioning into that

executive chairman Ro thanks again and

thanks to David too back to you guys our

next guest though still buying Bitcoin

still very bullish on bitcoin as he has

been Michael sailor is joining us now

micro strategy CEO Michael it's great to

see you and I know that you've been out

there putting the word out not just that

you are still billish on bitcoin but

you've been talking about um the sort of

debt covenants of the company and that

you're not at risk as we see Bitcoin

fall to levels where they are the market

seems to be convinced of that I think at

this point judging by what's happening

with your stock price so what's next I

guess is the question here in this cycle

we have already seen seen a wash out in

as I said the ecosystem it doesn't feel

like that wash out is done what do you

think I think that um the crypto

industry is going through a transition

we're crossing the chasm from the first

decade which was entrepreneurial and

offshore and and you know like the wild

catting phase of the crypto industry and

uh the industry is growing up to be

institutionalized and public and it and

it and uh 10 to 100x bigger I think um

the crypto industry today is full of

confusion um it's it's obvious why we

need it it the benefit is programmable

money at all frequencies but um a lot of

times it's not clear whether you have

10x leverage or 10% leverage a lot of

people are confused about what's a cur a

commodity versus a security versus a

currency versus a token uh what's the

definition of an exchange what's a

derivative and uh it's not even clear uh

the difference between permanent capital

and temporary capital there's a big

difference between having a billion

dollars forever and having a billion

dollars of capital in a token until

tomorrow and uh so clearly the industry

is going to benefit and it's going to

grow uh partially by education but

really through enlightened

regulation um so enlightened regulation

or regulation really of any kind doesn't

feel like it's that imminent right on

the education front I mean you've been

talking about it for the past several

years I feel like most lay people have

had a lot of questions about crypto over

the past several years so what's been

missing in that education piece and how

do you still fix that leaving the

regulation piece aside for a

moment you know I think sometimes uh it

takes time uh if we think about the

Securities model it took us a hundred

years before we understood what it means

to to disclose a security

and then uh and then derivatives uh took

about a decade and now they're fairly

well understood and and ETFs have gone

through this uh

transformation um I I I actually do have

confidence that enlightened regulation

is coming this decade I mean not in the

next few weeks but in the next few years

uh until we get that uh regulation the

safe choice is a Bitcoin the use case is

a commodity

not as a currency not as a security but

rather as a commodity where you custody

it in a place that you uh you have

confidence in either self- custody or or

a very institutional grade

custodian what requirements do you think

could come as a results of that

regulation you know it's a good question

um you know first of all uh if if The

Regulators uh make it clear how you

establish a digital commodity right

digital commodity is based on proof of

work without an issuer we need a way to

certify digital Commodities if I can

launch a proof of work Network in a fair

fashion with and without an issuer I've

got a commodity that's one treatment uh

digital currencies like stable coins

they need a certification uh technique

as well and the question is how much

collateral is backing it is it 10%

collateralized 100% or a th%

collateralized Securities need a clear

guidance for how do I issue a crypto

security is it exactly the same as uh

any other security we need a definition

of tokens what's a crypto token how do I

disclose and create a crypto token what

are my rights and obligations with it I

think we need uh what a definition of an

exchange there's a lot of confusion

about what an exchange is in the crypto

ecosystem we know that 247 exchanges uh

that have lots of functionality are good

things but there's a big debate about

what they can do what they should do and

then of course there's even a question

about what is a crypto bank right was

Voyager or Celsius where they Banks was

block VI a bank uh I I can see the

benefit of having a crypto bank but we

need more structure there so I I think

that guidance and Clarity it's G to come

it's going to be good for everyone it's

going to grow the industry it's

especially going to be good for Bitcoin

but also it's going to allow all the

entrepreneurs and all all the innov

adors to act uh much more rapidly and

and much more decisively than they are

right now and I I would say clearly the

the ball is in the court of the SEC

primarily uh to a lesser extent uh the

the OC has a role the FDIC has a role

the cftc has a role Congress will

probably get uh get involved at some

point but this is what the industry

needs to to grow and get Beyond its

current stage Michael let's talk about

micro Strat for just a second here

because you've got the decline in

Bitcoin prices you've got what seems to

be the decline in demand for enterprise

software uh right now you guys had um a

decline in your um Topline Revenue last

quarter we've seen a lot of retrenchment

in in the tech industry really writ

large what about you guys in terms of

hiring this year or maybe layoffs this

year in terms of any kind of

retrenchment and spending on your

part well we've got a very stable very

profitable business and in fact our

business is like 99% of the other

businesses on Earth which is we spent

many many years to figure it out and we

can manage it in a stable fashion but we

can't necessarily grow it 20 or 30% a

year year-over-year like the digital

monopolies so micro strategy strategy

isn't different than any private company

or 99% of the other companies and

and uh that strategy consists of run

your business efficiently as best you

can grow it when you can and then uh

make sure that you invest your your cash

flows into a treasury asset that's going

to appreciate over time so of course

we've uh We've chosen Bitcoin and risk

assets are are struggling this year

right this is the worst year of 50 years

for risk assets but again that's a

universal challenge that everybody faces

and if you look out Beyond four years

and based uh your decision- making on

fundamentals I think you conclude that

Bitcoin is the right choice for a

treasury Reserve asset but again going

back to the Core Business are you guys

retrenching on investing in that Core

Business and particularly on the on the

Staffing

side no uh we wouldn't cut back uh we

continue to hire we like as I said we're

profitable we remain profitable and

we're if you look at our business we got

2,000 employees uh all but about five of

them focus upon creating business

intelligence software for our customers

and then about five to 10 people are

focused uh on uh the Bitcoin strategy

which is a treasury Reserve strategy and

and we're going to motor through this I

think we're quite confident uh in the

business and we like the transition that

we see from from on premises software to

Cloud software crypto Winters usually

spark a lot of new projects or at least

a wash out of the projects that are

nonviable in this crypto winter is there

kind of a point where you believe or are

comfortable with a bottoming out of

Bitcoin

prices I I tend to focus upon the

four-year moving average and and if you

look at the four-year moving average of

Bitcoin uh we've only touched that a few

times in the decade and generally

historically those have been good

opportunities to enter and so um and so

we're about there right now I I think

that that does indicate that uh the

industry is rationalizing and we're

forming a ID base around this

point and is there are remind us are you

actually coming in and buying here or

are you just holding what you guys have

our strategy is to acquire and hold

Bitcoin so as we generate cash flows we

buy we sweep our excess cash flows into

Bitcoin and so we will continue to buy

Bitcoin at at these levels or any level

it's it's just like a dollar cost

averaging into a strong property asset

Michael sailor micro strategy CEO as

always thanks so much for the time and

the discussion we appreciate it Michael

crypto markets hoping for a reprieve

following weeks of downward pressure and

of course last week's implosion of the

stablecoin terror they're not really

getting that reprieve today at least not

on a broad scale for a longer term look

at crypto though let's bring in Michael

sailor micro strategy CEO who of course

has been a longtime proponent of the

cryptocurrency holds it on the company's

balance sheet Etc Michael it's good to

see you um so let's talk about the

recent action and I'm also of course uh

it caught my attention the comments from

ftxs Sam bankman freed in the Ft over

the weekend where he talked about that

Bitcoin is not really going to be a a

viable transaction mechanism even if it

can still be a good store of value does

it need to be a good transaction um

currency in order to reach some of the

heights that folks such of your such as

yourself have talked

about I think Sam left off mention of

the lightning Network it's pretty clear

that bitcoin's the future of money and

lightning is the future of payments and

if you're going to do payments and

transactions highp speed you're going to

need a base layer that's uh ethically

sound economically sound and technically

sound and that's what Bitcoin is but

then billions and billions of

transactions are going to go on a layer

two like lightning which is an open

permissionless ethical protocol or

they're going to move on layer threes

like cash app or PayPal or Apple pay or

Visa or Mastercard those are uh are

securities they're companies that are

that are uh custodians that are moving

payments back and forth so I I don't

know why Sam left that off but it's

pretty obvious every Bitcoin or that

payments are going to take place on

layer twos and layer threes and so for

the Holdings though at this point that

you've been able to amass over the years

one huge thing that sticks out is terms

of the in terms of the crypto winter

that we're in right now versus versus

the one prior is the number of larger

companies that have Holdings such as

yours is there a certain price Target at

which you would have to start

liquidating some of those Holdings no

we're gonna we're in it for the long

term our strategy is to buy Bitcoin and

and hold the Bitcoin so there's there's

no price Target I mean I expect we'll be

buying Bitcoin at the local top forever

and I expect bitcoin's going to go into

the millions so we're very patient we

think it's the future of money so you

don't sound like you have wavered

whatsoever um Michael as we have seen

this downturn in price of course we've

seen downturns in price

before is this one different at all is

there is there any doubt in your mind

when you watch the action that we've

seen over the past few weeks I think

that the entire crypto crash has made uh

a couple things clear first of all

there's one perfect thing that's Bitcoin

that's a decentralized ethically sound

technically sound economically sound

money there's a bunch of imperfect

things there they the stable coin the

USD Circle and tethers and uh and uh bu

USD and Etc everybody wants a stable US

dollar uh they're struggling with how to

do it in a compliant fashion with

transparency then there's a lot of

dangerous things there's 19,000

dangerous things it's basically all the

unregistered security crypto networks

running on proof of stake that have

active management uh project management

teams that have IOS that have that have

some centralization in them and Luna and

US was an example of one of those crypto

security tokens that was mismanaged and

it blew up and what's going to happen is

an entire generation of crypto people

are going to get educated on why Bitcoin

is the superior asset and then a bunch

of regulators are going to accelerate

their regulation of stable coins and

accelerate their regulation of the

crypto security tokens and the winner of

that entire exercise is Bitcoin because

once people figure out why Bitcoin is

superior to everything else then the

institutions are going to come in with

large sums of money and uh we're not

going to have to struggle through this

mess of explaining why we're different

than 19,000 other crypto tokens and just

quickly Michael just to be clear here

you traditionally have been sort of a

Bitcoin maximalist so to speak so to be

clear you you you weren't invested in

things like terara or luna are in any of

the stable coins well first of all you

know I'm not even sure Luna is not a

stable coin but we wouldn't invest in a

in an unregistered security so

99.9% of everything in the crypto space

is an unregistered security and I might

invest in a registered security one day

I mean if you ask me would I buy Apple

stock or Google stock after reading the

10K and 10q disclosures maybe maybe not

but that's not our strategy right but I

really don't think that any public

company or public investor can invest in

an unregistered security that's venture

capitalist so no we're not invested in

it it's pretty obvious that they're all

unregistered Securities and and I think

the crypto industry hasn't really

addressed that issue that's the elephant

in the room and the Luna Terror meltdown

has actually brought this to the

Forefront and now I don't think people

can ignore it Michael there's been some

stories recently I think Fortune ran

with this one if if Bitcoin Falls below

21,000 there might be some form of

Margin Call uh over at your company what

what does that mean help us understand

like what does happen if crypto

continues to fall that's all fud look we

have five we started with5 billion

dollar of unpledged collateral we

borrowed $200 million against it so

that's a loan to value of 4% if Bitcoin

fell

95% from that number then we'd have to

post additional collateral um you know

people got their hands around the fact

that we would adjust some collateral if

Bitcoin ever got to 21,000 but it's

really a non-issue whatsoever you could

think of it as like Leverage of

1.04 if I was lever 10 to one we would

have barred 50 billion dollars against

that collateral but we borrowed 200

million it's really a it's a nothing

issue what type of Regulation do you

expect to come over the course of this

year as we've increasingly heard Bitcoin

and broader digital assets that's

discussed accelerating in Washington and

how does that impact where you would add

on to your existing crypto

positions okay well first of all we will

we we won't add on to crypto positions

we will add on to our Bitcoin position

whenever we come into excess cash and

that's a very simple strategy with

regard to regulation there's been a

deadlock in DC um and on Capitol Hill

around stable coin regulation and around

security token regulation

I think the administration wanted to

move faster uh Congress was moving

slower I think that uh that this

meltdown of Luna us that's going to

accelerate the regulation of stable

coins and security tokens which will be

a good thing for the industry and

Michael finally getting back to price

for just a second here do you think that

Bitcoin will remain sort of in the

doldrums as long as the FED is in a rate

raising

cycle no I mean I think that uh clearly

Bitcoin has been drawn down with all the

risk Assets in this uh in this

deleveraging uh tightening cycle but you

know there also the the crypto crash

issues and the and the Luna Terror

impact so over time I think as people uh

get educated and as they get more

comfortable I think we'll recover from

this draw down uh you know fed policy is

very difficult to opine on or or to or

to predict and so clearly they have a

huge impact on how people value all

assets depending upon what they say from

dayto day Michael we certainly do

appreciate the time here discussing not

just your own Holdings but the broader

landscape as well micro strategy CEO

Michael saor thanks for the time Bitcoin

prices are still having a tough time

replanning the $40,000 level with weak

weak results out of Facebook not helping

investor sentiment let's bring in a

leader leading voice in all things

crypto micro strategy CEO Michael seller

Michael Michael always nice to see you

thanks for taking some time here have

you been frustrated with the price

action in Bitcoin so far this

year now my time Horizon's a decade or

more the answer to your question by the

way as to what you do with your Bitcoin

is you hoddle your

Bitcoin we're hanging out PE people

people buy Bitcoin because they want to

buy an asset that they understand that

might have value in a hundred years and

the truth is there's no security trading

on the NASDAQ or the New York Stock

Exchange right now that you can

understand a 100 years from now we're

you know we got a long time Horizon and

so uh yeah this is near term there's a

lot of riskof volatility but I don't

think that bothers any a true

bitcoiner and we know that you are a

true bitcoiner of course Michael um

because we've talked to you about it of

course you tweet about it um you've put

it on the books at your company and on

um in your personal accounts as well I

would ask though you know when when an

individual buys Bitcoin and it goes down