Strategy's Michael Saylor weighs in on whether bitcoin's four-year cycle is dead: CNBC Crypto World

Today's strategies Michael Saylor

provides his outlook [music] for Bitcoin

in 2026.

Welcome to CNBC's Crypto World. I'm

Talia Kaplan. Crypto investors are

taking advantage of the last few trading

days in November. By noon Eastern,

cryptocurrency prices were mixed as we

come off the Thanksgiving holiday here

in the US. As we look at the week,

Bitcoin and Ether are both in the green

over the past 7 days. Some good news for

the crypto market after a deep sell-off.

If we look at how both cryptocurrencies

are faring for the month of November,

both are firmly in the red as AI

uncertainty on Wall Street and economic

uncertainty here in the US hampered risk

assets.

All right, let's jump to my conversation

with strategies Michael Saylor at the

Clear Sky Disruptive Technology

Conference in Palm Beach, Florida last

week. I sat down with him exclusively to

ask about the year ahead for Bitcoin.

Now that we're approaching the end of

the year, we're about to kick off 2026.

At a high level, what is your outlook

for Bitcoin in the new year?

Bullish.

Um I think that the the exciting

developments in the asset class are are

bank acceptance and and uh and credit

development in the banking network. So,

we've seen about half of the large banks

in the United States start to extend

credit against IBIT in the past 6

months. And a number of banks uh like

Charles Schwab and City have announced

they're going to start to custody

Bitcoin and extend credit against it in

the first half of 2026.

So, I think that the real story in 26 is

banker acceptance of Bitcoin,

willingness to custody it, trade it, and

extend credit against it. And that

should catapult the asset class to new

levels.

And you know, this week Bitwise CEO

Hunter Horsley argued that the 4-year

crypto cycle is over. And Fundstrat's

Tom Lee made the same argument saying

that the classic 4-year Bitcoin cycle is

dead.

What is your reaction to that? Do you

agree? Yeah, I think that the 4-year

cycles are based on the Bitcoin halving.

And the Bitcoin halving was really

important for the first 12 years of the

asset because uh we were cutting that

the amount of Bitcoin that was being cut

from the supply was very material

relevant uh relative to the uh demand in

the market. But right now you're seeing

days when Bitcoin trades 50 billion or

100 billion dollars in a single day.

The total amount of the halving in the

next halving is going to be 225 Bitcoin.

So, 225 Bitcoin times even 100,000 of

coins 20 It's 20 million dollars a day

is the impact of the halving. And so, 20

million dollars isn't a first-order

impact on a 50 billion dollar a day

liquidity. It's not even a second-order

impact. It's probably a third-order

uh issue. The primary drivers of Bitcoin

right now are are the structural

developments in the market. For example,

if the banks extend 50 billion dollars

worth of credit, right? That dwarfs 20

million a day in the halving. And then

um

when the SEC uh loosened the

restrictions on derivatives trading on

IBIT, the open interest in IBIT went

from 10 billion to 50 billion in a few

weeks.

So, you're talking about tens of

billions of dollars of demand for the

asset based upon the embrace of the

traditional finance establishment. And

And so, the the the asset class is being

driven by the structure of of support in

the banking industry and in finance and

a few regulatory changes that are

actually enhancing that support for the

asset.

Now, I want to turn to digital asset

treasury companies because many people I

interview call you the OG. Back in 2020,

MicroStrategy made its first Bitcoin

purchase, more than 21,000 Bitcoin for a

total of about 250 million dollars, I

believe. And ever since then, other

companies started to follow suit. But we

saw this acceleration

of DATS especially this year. And so,

I'm wondering, do you view these digital

asset companies as

competition? Are you fazed by this at

all? Obviously, you have a massive head

start. Or do you see all the copycats as

a form of flattery?

Yeah, well, you're right. We were the

first, and then there were a a handful,

and then about a year ago there were 60,

and then there were 120, then 180, and

and now there's

more than 200. Um generally, I'm a big

proponent of any company uh holding

Bitcoin as digital capital on its

balance sheet. I think that's good for

the company, and that's good for

Bitcoin, that's good for the crypto

economy.

Our business has evolved

from a company that simply owns Bitcoin

uh to a company that that issues digital

credit against the underlying Bitcoin.

So, today we're the largest issuer of

digital credit in the world. If

thousands or tens of thousands of other

companies buy Bitcoin, that will be good

for Bitcoin and good for our business.

So, it's helpful. Um out of those 250 uh

crypto asset companies or crypto

treasury companies,

only a couple are in the business of

issuing digital credit. Um examples

would be Strive that issued a treasury

credit instrument about a month ago. And

then Metaplanet, the biggest uh Bitcoin

holder in Japan, that actually just

issued their first digital credit

instrument. So, there's three of us that

are in the digital credit market.

There's probably 2 to 300 that are

holders of crypto assets.

It's all good for the crypto economy.

They'll all benefit. But the exciting

thing in the market right now is digital

credit.

Now, your strategy of accumulating

Bitcoin made MicroStrategy the

best-performing

company for some time, and many other

companies followed suit. But why do you

think we're seeing so many DATS arise

specifically now?

Um before November of last year, before

the red sweep, uh there was a lot of

uncertainty over the asset class. And

so, I think a lot of publicly traded

companies were afraid to go in the

space.

Um we have a very supportive

administrative administration. Um

the president has designated Bitcoin as

digital gold. Uh the Secretary of the

Treasury has said we want to be the

crypto capital of the world. Donald

Trump said we want to be a Bitcoin

superpower.

So, we're the first year of

institutional adoption. And in 2025,

you got the support of the SEC, the

support of the CFTC, the support of the

Secretary of the Treasury, the support

of the President of the United States.

And so, normally public companies are

very risk-averse. Uh and with all of

those supportive moves by the

administration combined with uh the

accounting profession rolling out fair

value accounting, which was a very big

deal. Um fair value accounting means

that when you when you generate gains,

you're allowed to mark them up on your

balance sheet. And before that point, uh

you could only take losses. You could

never take gains. So, the accounting was

reformed and uh and the regulators began

supporting the asset in the year 2025.

And I think that once those two things

happened,

it became pretty clear that it gave a

structural competitive advantage to a

public company to have Bitcoin on their

balance sheet. Because Bitcoin is I is

growing 50% a year for the past 5 years.

And so, all things considered, if you're

buying Bitcoin, you're buying the the

world's dominant digital monitoring

network growing 50% a year.

And the alternative would be to hold

something growing 5% a year.

So, what's your outlook for DATS in

2026? Do you think this momentum will

continue, or do you think that this

trend will kind of fizzle out a little

bit?

I think that generally uh public

companies will start to buy more digital

assets and hold more digital assets on

their balance sheet. And I think that

Bitcoin adoption is going to spread, and

that will be good for Bitcoin, and that

will be good for those companies. I

think the real story going forward is

going to be digital credit.

If you think about the perfect product,

the perfect product is a is a bank

account that pays you 10% when the money

market's offering you 4%. And so, if you

can offer people 600, 800 basis points

of additional yield over the risk-free

rate, whether it's in the euro, the yen,

or the dollar, then everybody's reaction

is, "Yeah, I want that. What's the

catch?" And so, I I I think that the

real interesting idea is that digital

capital, which is what Bitcoin is, is

powering digital credit, and digital

credit is two to four times more

compelling than traditional credit

instruments for people that want fixed

income.

So, on top of seeing the rise of DATS

this past year, we also saw this IPO

boom related to crypto companies.

We saw Galaxy Digital go public in May,

followed by Circle's blockbuster IPO in

June. Uh we saw many others, American

Bitcoin one example in September,

followed by Gemini. So, what's your

reaction to this crypto company IPO

boom? And do you see it continuing into

2026?

I think this current administration has

decided they want to embrace digital

assets, digital finance, digital

capital, digital innovation, digital

intelligence. And so, you have a very

progressive administration, a

progressive set of regulators. And the

combination of that progressive

leadership with constructive legislation

like the genius act which legitimize

stable coins open the way for all these

crypto exchanges to come public and for

the successful circle offering. I think

that you know what you want is a set of

regulators that want to see thousands of

companies launched and see hundreds of

billions of trillions of dollars of

value created and you know you you've

either got that or you've got a very

regressive regime which is more

concerned about something going wrong

and they tend to damp out all that

innovation or block those IPOs.

So strategy was a way for people to get

access to Bitcoin at a time when we

didn't have any

of these crypto companies going public

and when we didn't have these investment

vehicles like spot crypto ETFs. But now

we're seeing a lot more of these

investment vehicles arise. We just saw

the first ever spot Litecoin ETF spot

Hedera ETF spot XRP ETF and obviously

there are many spot Bitcoin ETFs. So

what makes people want to invest in your

company in strategy versus one of these

other vehicles? What's the investment

case there? There are two hemispheres to

the digital assets industry. One side of

the assets industry is based on Bitcoin.

It's digital capital

and the killer application is digital

credit. A bank account that pays you

10%.

Okay? My my company strategy is on that

side of the business. We're just

offering credit instruments. If what you

want is a whole digital capital digital

gold and you want to hold it forever or

if what you want is to invest in digital

credit and you want that kind of

amplified exposure, you would buy our

equity.

Um the other half of the digital assets

economy is digital finance

and the killer application of digital

finance is tokenized currencies like

stable coin or tokenized securities or

tokenized memes or tokenized brands or

or capital raising etc. And that tends

to that tends to have uh

exploded over the past 12 months that

because a very supportive crypto

administration has encouraged all of

those things to grow. So if what you

want to do is invest in digital finance,

you would you know have to decide which

of those networks you think is going to

be the winner and you would do this as a

tech investment. But if you're more of a

credit investor or a capital investor,

then you would want to invest in digital

capital or a company like mine.

Now you mentioned stablecoins. Ark

Invest's Cathie Wood recently lowered

her price target for Bitcoin

saying that in part stablecoins are to

blame because they're stealing some of

Bitcoin's thunder. Do you agree with

that assessment and if that is in fact

the case that stablecoins

are in fact gaining market share, what's

the role for Bitcoin in the financial

system?

I think she's alluding to our enthusiasm

for digital finance which is about

tokenizing currencies. But I think that

there are separate opportunities. Um

people that are

that are excited about stablecoins are

focused upon payments technology. How do

I move money at the speed of light or

how or how do I improve the Visa network

or the MasterCard network or the

traditional banking system using digital

technology? The value proposition of

Bitcoin is digital capital. It's someone

that wants to to store their value for

the next 30 years.

So if you think about it, you don't know

of any billionaires that are going to

sell everything they own to buy US

dollars and put it in a safe.

As I said. So you don't really have

currency currency as the dollar

competing with capital. Stablecoins are

digital currency. It's a it's a

different industry. Bitcoin is digital

capital. Bitcoin is competing with gold.

It's competing with real estate. It's

competing with public equity. Your your

mag seven stocks or your S&P index or

private equity. And and people that have

always owned those capital assets in the

20th century

and they're thinking they want to own

digital capital.

Stablecoins on the other hand they're

competing with traditional credit card

networks or traditional banking networks

and they're offering people with digital

payments technology all around the

world.

Ultimately the big winner in the

stablecoin movement is going to be the

US dollar because what it means is that

every foreigner will be able to use

dollars instead of using pesos,

bolivars, rubles, CNY, euros, any

African currency, the rand, etc. So the

dollar is the winner. The US is the

winner

and then the technologists that enable

and host those digital dollars, you

know, are going to be successful

companies.

Now nobody's arguing that Bitcoin is

going anywhere, but there is that

argument that altcoins have no utility

and might not stick around. And yet

we're seeing all these spot altcoin ETFs

arise here in the US. So is there a risk

to Wall Street if the tides turn and

things change? Also because we're seeing

dads associated with altcoins as well

arise here in the US. Well there's

there's thousands of ETFs and there's

tens of thousands of public securities.

As I was saying that the distinction

here is there's a digital finance

economy built around proof of stake

networks and all of these altcoins. It's

a very competitive business but it's

very exciting. A lot of people are

interested in it. It's it's the networks

and the exchanges you'll use to tokenize

currencies, to tokenize brands, to

launch meme coins, to tokenize

securities.

That's an involving business. It's

competitive. If you're invested in it,

you need to be a sophisticated tech

investor to understand it. And the

future that business will be largely

determined and channeled by the out out

by by the resolution of the clarity act

which is the next big piece of crypto

legislation that we expect to come in

the first half of 2026 at this point.

So it's happening. It's complicated.

I'm assuming now first half of 2026

because of the longest government

shutdown in history delayed things. But

what are you hoping to see as it relates

to crypto market structure on Capitol

Hill? What are you hoping will

ultimately become law?

Well I think everybody in the industry

is looking for clarity. They're they're

looking for some some clear path

forward. How how do I tokenize my

security?

How do I tokenize a currency? How do I

raise capital with crypto tokens? What

kind of decentralized or digital finance

can I engage in? What are the rules of

the road? And I think that's what we're

expecting to have resolved in the

clarity act. Now I want to turn to

institutional adoption and focus on that

before I let you go. But just last month

one example JP Morgan announced that it

plans to allow its institutional clients

to use Bitcoin and ether as collateral

in secured loans. Is this something that

strategy might utilize given you are in

fact the largest corporate holder of

Bitcoin?

Our business model is to issue the

credit. So we're selling public credit

like STRC and STRD, STRF and we've sold

about $8 billion of that public credit.

So we will issue billions and tens of

billions of dollars of public credit and

our Bitcoin is the collateral backing

that credit. So

that's our business. I think the

formation of bank credit networks around

Bitcoin is very auspicious. It's very

good for the asset class. Um

if if banks would not give you a loan on

real estate, your real estate values

would be lower. And if banks were I'm

going to give a loan on a stock

portfolio, then that would impair a lot

of people that want to invest in stocks.

The banks are moving into offering

credit on digital assets and especially

on Bitcoin. That will be good for the

banks. That will be good for Bitcoin and

it's merely an acknowledgement that

there's $2 trillion of wealth that is

unbanked right now and this is the banks

beginning to move into this new asset

class and provide banking services to

the $2 trillion of holders.

Final thought, what's your outlook for

institutional adoption of crypto in

2026? I think it will continue

progressively. I think I think that the

that they're very positive moves. There

there is good positive guidance from the

banking regulators right now directing

banks to to begin to support Bitcoin.

There are really good moves from the

banks. They've all announced they're

going to begin to custody and hold

Bitcoin. That helps. I think

there is some positive guidance

coming from

Basel and the Basel working group that

they will start to upgrade the

collateral value of Bitcoin for for

bank balance sheets. That will be very

helpful. So I think that all of those

things will generally accelerate

institutional adoption. The every single

month that goes by there are more large

institutions that come out in favor of

digital assets and Bitcoin in particular

and and every single time one of them

announces that that catalyzes another to

consider doing the same.

Michael Saylor, founder and executive

chairman of Strategy, thank you very

much for sitting down with us here in

Palm Beach, Florida. Thanks for having

me.

Okay, that's all for Crypto World this

week. We're back again on Monday and

we'll see you then.