Microstrategy’s Michael Saylor Doubles Down on Bitcoin

I said doubling down earlier but it's

more like tripling or quadrupling down

at this point why do that now

you know a year ago we had a 500 million

dollar software business and 500 million

in cash there was generating zero

percent yield today we have a 500

million dollar software business growing

10 a year and a 5 billion dollar Bitcoin

business that's been growing north of

100 a year

so our strategy is to acquire and hold

Bitcoin we've told the market we're

going to do it with Equity offerings

with convertible debt with uh senior

debt and junk bonds and also with cash

flows where appropriate we saw this is a

great opportunity uh we sold over the

past uh quarter about 400 million

dollars worth of equity at a price that

allowed us to buy Bitcoin in a way that

we thought would be accretive to all of

our shareholders so we try to choose our

spots but then in the day you know if

you add another 10 000 Bitcoin when the

price goes to a hundred thousand right a

lot of money when it goes to a million

it's a lot of lot of money and our

shareholders are long Bitcoin there's no

one buying microstrategy stock that

doesn't believe Bitcoins going up

so if you've already risked your money

to buy microstrategy stock and Bitcoin

goes up you'd rather us own more Bitcoin

rather than the less Bitcoin so you

benefit from the upside

and yet there's obviously a looming

regulatory Crackdown take a listen to

this from SEC chair Gary Gensler

your view that stable coins themselves

can be securities

um I think it's US senator they may well

be Securities to me a stable coin

doesn't meet the second prong of the

Howie test

that there has to be an expectation of

profits from the investment and so if it

doesn't meet the Howie test it looks to

me like it's not a security now maybe

you've got a good argument for why some

are and some aren't my whole point is I

think we need to have Clarity on this

Michael are you at all concerned that

Regulators could regulate the exuberance

that you were talking about earlier out

of the market

I think that um the big winner of that

entire hearing was Bitcoin the the

consensus that's emerging is that

Bitcoin is a commodity and Bitcoin is

property and if your use case is to buy

Bitcoin as a long-term store of value

then there's broad-based consensus and

support for that across Congress the

Senate The Regulators the administration

and Industry here and abroad

um I think that there's a need for

clarity I mean there's consensus that

people think

um the Innovations of of cryptocurrency

could be beneficial for the next hundred

years they're good for the industry

they're good for the Western world uh

there's also consensus that we would

benefit from Clarity and I think Senator

Toomey was pointing out that that we

would all benefit from Clarity but I

think that the sec's uh would probably

agree with them and I think that over

time we can expect that we'll see more

clear learning with regard to All

Digital assets and I expect that will

reduce the volatility in the Bitcoin

space it'll increase public confidence

in Bitcoin and it's also going to

accelerate institutional adoption and

Retail adoption of Bitcoin because these

are all good things for the industry

case versus the SEC when you see you

know the biggest crypto platform out

there taking on the SEC you know does

that raise concern if you're just

considering getting into this market

right now

well I mean coinbase is uh the largest

um publicly listed uh crypto Exchange in

the United States and and uh the other

crypto exchanges were offshore

so I would say coinbase is probably

frustrated they'd like to see more

clarity coming out of uh government and

Regulators so they can figure out what

they can do and they can't do and they

like to see it faster and I think that's

really consistent with the entire

industry view which is the industry will

benefit from more clarity I I think

um I think the fact that coinbase came

public this year in the United States

was a good thing coinbase doesn't uh it

doesn't offer the same range of products

and services that you can get from

offshore crypto exchanges and uh and I

think that they would like to compete in

a crypto industry but there's still

murky regulations as to what's allowable

what's not allowable and if all the

rules are clarified for everyone and

everybody competes by the same rules I

think that'll alleviate some of that

frustration

meantime Solana a 17-hour outage this

week after having been on a tear you've

got Open Seas acknowledging that an

employee was trading nfts on inside

information do these events suggest that

this Market that this technology isn't

ready for prime time yet

well in the market there are three

things there's the Blue Chip asset the

institutional grade asset which is

Bitcoin and if you want to buy something

and hold it for 30 years in lieu of a

bond or in lieu of cash or other forms

of credit then Bitcoin is that commodity

store of value it's in a class all by

itself then you have unicorns you have

the solanas and the binance smart chains

and the ethereums and they're like the

airbnbs and the and the Ubers of this

space and their and their Sparks and

there's a lot of money and there's a lot

of risk and if you're soft Bank maybe

you would get into those kind of

businesses and we don't know how those

stories end and then you've got the

smaller crypto Ventures right of the 6

000 projects out there that are that are

looking for some future and I think

they're all competing in a world where

there's some murkiness about uh about

what's appropriate what's not

microstrategy obviously only invests in

Bitcoin

I think if you're an Institutional

Investor the only institutional grade

asset the only investable asset you can

invest in is Bitcoin just for the

reasons you pointed out and I think that

uh that the SEC is Justified in having

an interest in the space for all the

reasons you point out and uh to the

extent that they clarify the rules of

the road I think it's going to make it a

a safer more welcoming environment for

retail investors and also for

institutional investors and and the

industry will evolve and mature in that

way

meantime you have demonstrators in El

Salvador burning a Bitcoin ATM

protesting the country's adoption the

country's president uh pushing the

adoption of Bitcoin what's your take on

what this kind of resistance mean and

just in just one country and for the

rest of the world

well I think first of all uh the big

news here is 500 000 people in El

Salvador are downloaded a lightning

Bitcoin wallet and they received thirty

dollars worth of bitcoin and that's an

extraordinary world shaking event never

happened in the history of the world and

it indicates just how rapidly Bitcoin

and lightning can spread I think that uh

there are sparks in El Salvador and

there's politics right there's an

opposition party in the country there's

opposition parties in every single state

of the union and every country in the

world and and so if the government takes

one position there's going to be an

opposition to that position and it's

natural to see that but I I think that

the way to think about Bitcoin is

Bitcoin is the most disruptive

technology of the decade it's making

people's lives better but it's something

you can't avoid which means that

everyone's being forced to have an

opinion and so you see some Sparks

because it's moving so so quickly like a

like a air foil moving fast in the speed

of sound there's going to be a shock

wave but it's because it's changing the

world so quickly