Michael Saylor: 21 Ways To Wealth | Bitcoin 2025 Keynote Speech

[Music]

[Applause]

I am uh

I'm delighted to see everybody here

today and the number one reason I'm

delighted is because this speech is for

you. I have I have traveled the world

and I've spoken about Bitcoin and I've

told countries why they needed Bitcoin

and I've told institutional investors

why they needed Bitcoin and I've told

boardrooms and companies and CEOs why

they need Bitcoin.

And I've spoken to the disembodied

spirits about why our children's

children's children need

Bitcoin. But my presentation

today is directed at the 8 billion

people on the planet. It's the 21 ways

to wealth for every

individual, every

family, every small business, every

entrepreneur is not for the billiondoll

public companies. It's for everybody.

And I focused for quite a while on that.

So, this is for you.

wealth. The first way to

wealth, clarity. Clarity is the

topic. And that that clarity of mind

comes when you

realize that Bitcoin

is capital, perfected capital,

programmable

capital, incorruptible capital.

The significance of that is every smart

person, every thoughtful individual

everywhere in the world is going to want

perfected capital. Every every one of

your enemies is going to want

uh incorruptible capital. And all of the

AIs are going to want programmable

capital. The demand for this is huge.

What's it worth?

It's worth half of

everything. Half of

everything. The second way to

wealth,

conviction. It starts with the

observation that Bitcoin is going to

appreciate faster than every other asset

because it is engineered to outperform.

It's going to grow faster than the S&P.

It's going to appreciate faster than

gold. Sorry,

Peter. I should say that again. It's

going to go faster than

Peter. It's going to grow faster than

real estate or collectibles or anything

else you can imagine because it was

engineered that way.

And that leads us to our third way to

wealth. If you're going to generate

wealth, if you're going to get rich on

Bitcoin, you're going to need courage.

And courage means wealth favors those

who embrace

intelligent

monetary

risk. Satoshi started a fire in

cyberspace. And while the fearful run

from it and fools dance around it, the

faithful feed the flame, dreaming of a

better world, bathed in the warm glow of

cyber

light. What does that mean?

It means that a lot of people that look

at Bitcoin are going to be afraid of it.

They'll never touch it. They'll never

been benefit from it. They'll be left

behind. Then others will just juggle it.

They will juggle the fire. They will

make fireworks with the

fire. They will create trinkets with the

fire. They will create magic tricks with

the

fire. But those that truly understand it

will feed the fire. How do you feed the

fire? You feed the fire by buying the

Bitcoin. Buy it. Take your fiat

currency, trade it for Bitcoin. Take

your long-term capital, trade it for

Bitcoin. Sell your bonds, trade for

Bitcoin. Sell your inferior equity, sell

your inferior real estate property, buy

Bitcoin. Feed the fire. And what will

come of that? A an extraordinary

explosion in the network, in the power

of the network, and you will have bought

your ticket to prosperity.

The fourth way to wealth is

cooperation. And this is very important.

You're more powerful not as an

individual but but with a with the

support of your family with your family

aligned around this. If you understand

Bitcoin, you can act as an individual.

But when your entire family understands

Bitcoin, you're much more powerful. Your

parents, they have credit, they have

capital. You, you have

capability, you have

conviction, you may have courage. Your

children, they have time, they have

potential. Your 80year-old grandfather

can draw down capital from an IRA, can

borrow money from a bank, has a

portfolio. The secret is transfer that

capital into the hands of the child. The

child's got 80 years ahead of them.

Right? When you think in terms of how do

I actually transfer money uh transfer

capital from the past and turn it into

money for the future, it's a

generational thing. So think about the

family. Uh families that work together

are extraordinarily powerful on this

journey.

The fifth way to wealth in this day and

age is

capability. And here I could list all

sorts of technologies for you to master

and I thought about it. But at the end

of the day, the overarching compell

compelling observation is you need to

master artificial intelligence if you

would be

wealthy. When in this day and age in the

year

2025, you have at your

fingertips an array of accountants. You

have a group of lawyers. You have a set

of professors, historians. You have at

your fingertips all the collective

wisdom of every great

entrepreneur. You have everything that I

know, everything that any other CE

knows. All you have to do is go to the

AI, put it in deep think mode, plug in

all of your circumstances, all of your

hopes, all your aspirations, all of your

problems, and then start to query it and

then engage with it. I tell all my

executives before you ask a lawyer,

before you ask a banker, before you ask

any expert, go to the AI, ask the AI,

make it think. Grind the Silicon

Overlord. Okay, this is very important

because many of the suggestions I'll

give you next, they were out of the

reach of of the working man. They were

out of the reach of the middle class.

You could say, "Yeah, those

sophisticated trusts or those

sophisticated legal constructs, that's

great, but I don't have the money for

that. I can't afford to spend hundreds

of thousands of dollars on lawyers." And

let me tell you a secret. I have dozens

of lawyers that work for me, thousands

of lawyers I've employed, spent hundreds

of millions of dollars on lawyers. The

first thing I do when I have a question

is I go and ask the

AI. After I do

that, I argue with

it. It tells me no. I ask a different

way. I threaten

it. I ask it to give me a

solution. I find I find a 95% solution.

I find the

solution and then I and then I take that

solution. And I send the link to my

management team and my lawyers and I

say, "Look, I solved the problem. This

is what I want to

do. Give me your execution plan." And

then I give them anywhere from 2 to 5

days. If you're feeling charitable, give

them 5 days. If you're in a hurry, give

them two days. If your fi if your

financial advisors, if your accountants,

if your lawyers, if your executives

can't if anybody, your friends, your

family, if they can't figure it out in

two to four days, they're going to get

exited from the gene

pool. Change the

lawyer, change the whatever. If someone

said, "I can't use the telephone. I

can't I can't figure out the web link.

You sent me a book, but I can't read."

you would find someone else to work

with. This is very important. You know,

the path to wealth is through

capability. But 2025 is the year where

every one of you became not a super

genius. Every one of you is collectively

a hundred super geniuses that have read

everything the human race has published.

If you have the humility to ask for help

from the AI, don't put your ego first.

Put your interest first. Your family

will thank you in years to

come. The sixth way to wealth is

composition. Construct the legal

entities that scale your strategy and

protect your assets. What do I mean by

that?

I mean that you can go and borrow money

against your 401k and maybe you can make

an investment in an IRA and maybe you

can construct an efficient insurance

policy. Perhaps you're going to want to

put together a dynasty trust in Florida

that's good for 300 years, but you may

find that you want the timeless dynasty

trust out of South Dakota that lasts

forever. The normal reaction would be I

don't know how to do any of this. But

that but my observation today is ask the

AI figure it out because if you figure

out the appropriate legal rapper the

corporate container right and and by the

way I'm not giving you the exact answer

because if you live in UAE or Singapore

it's a different answer and if you live

in North Dakota it's a different answer

and depending upon who you are it's a

different answer but what I am telling

you is you go to the web you fire up

your AI and you start to ask it it will

give give you a customized answer. So,

you can work hard or you can work smart.

But I got to tell you, you work smart,

you'll go a hundred times as far, it'll

be a lot easier. 10 years ago, someone

would have said, "It's just too hard. It

takes a year. You know, the lawyers are

too slow. They're too expensive." And

you would punt. Not this year. This

year, everybody ought to be as smart as

the most sophisticated, you know, mega

billionaire family would ever be. You

can have the same legal advice they get.

You can have the same efficiency if you

decide to pursue

it. Lucky number seven, the seventh way

to wealth is through citizenship.

Choose your economic nexus. Doicile

where sovereignty respects your

freedom. What does that mean to you?

Well, it depends on who you are.

Everybody's circumstances are different.

But I give you a simple prompt. Go to

the AI and ask, "What are the 10 best

states in the United States for people

that hold Bitcoin?"

Now go to the thing and say why don't

you rank every country in the world

based upon my intention to hold Bitcoin

or invest in it and then describe your

circumstances and it will give you

answers and I would encourage everyone

to think about it because it's different

living in Florida than living in certain

other states. We like Wyoming. We have

the Bitcoin senator from

Wyoming. Thank you. sent the

alumus. I like Florida. I'm from Miami

Beach. But you have to figure out where.

At the state level, at the county level,

at the city level, at the country

level. Think deeply. It's not about this

year. It's about this century. Where are

you and your family going to be for the

next 100 years? Your grandchildren will

thank you.

Eight. The eighth path to prosperity,

the eighth way to wealth, it's through

civility. Respect the natural power

structures of the world. If you go on

safari, don't wrestle with the

lions. Don't try to outst the

elephants, you know. Don't fall off a

cliff while you're taking a selfie on a

hike. Respect gravity. Respect the force

of nature. I think everybody understands

that. But what I would say beyond that

is if you would generate wealth in the

Bitcoin

universe, think about the way the world

is constructed. And just remember, you

don't have to topple your least favorite

government in the world. You don't have

to change someone's religious beliefs.

You don't have to topple any particular

system that exists in this world. You

need to choose your battles, right?

Respect social

norms. Don't don't uh fight

unnecessarily. You're just dissipating

energy. Right? Whenever I look at at the

world, I think there's a hundred things

I'd like to change. And then I think the

world really only cares about my opinion

on one of those

things. And the likelihood that I'm

going to succeed in changing the other

99 things is not

high. Right? If if you would generate

wealth, figure out what you're going to

do. Focus on the thing and be civil.

Often times you'll meet people that have

have different religious beliefs,

different political beliefs, different

economic

beliefs, different cultural beliefs than

you. Strive to find common ground with

them and and move forward

because the

inflammation and the

distraction just slows you down as you

move to the future. So civility it will

do you

well. The ninth way to wealth is through

corporation. A well ststructured

corporation is the most powerful wealth

creation engine on earth. So you're an

individual. What's my suggestion? You go

to that AI and you figure out how to

create a company whether it's a small

company or multiple companies. Companies

have advantages. They have special

access to the banking system. Companies

have special rights in every business.

Companies come with legal immunities.

Companies come with duration. Companies

come with tax efficiencies. Companies

come with all sorts of efficiencies.

They're more

creditworthy. Companies can sell equity.

Companies can finance the future. A

company could look out 30 years, project

and then draw the economic energy back

to today and invest it now. Individuals

can't do that. So as much as it is

admirable to be an individual, right?

There is no shame in being a company of

one or a company of a family, I would

think about what is your

path. If you look at the hierarchy of

the world and you're ranking it, it's

the individual is at is at the at the

bottom of the hierarchy. The family is

more powerful. The partnership is more

powerful still. The small midsize

private business is more powerful still.

The large private company is next. The

the small public company on an OTC

market is next. Then a public company on

a large capital market. than a public

company on NASDAQ or New York Stock

Exchange. Then there's the seasoned

issuer in the US capital markets. And at

the very top of the pyramid is the

well-known seasoned issuer in the US

capital markets. There's a few hundred

of them in the world. What can you do

when you crawl to the top of that

pyramid? You can file a registration

statement and sell a billion dollars of

securities in six hours. That's what you

can do.

I want that for each one of

you. I want you to reach your full

potential. And and incorporation is a

start to

that. And

now, can you give me slide

10? My clicker

is jammed. Thank you. The 10th way to

wealth is through focus.

Just because you can do a thing doesn't

mean that you should. I have done lots

of things. I have done I am 60 years

old. One of the reasons that I have

embraced Bitcoin with the religious

passion and the ideological fervor that

I have is because I had the opportunity

to do things in my 20s and my 30s and my

40s and my

50s, you know, and uh what you find is

that it's very challenging to change the

world operationally.

Most of my great ideas I thought were

infallible, but it turned out that they

didn't work out the way I thought they

would. In fact, if you invent a new

product, a new service, a new whatever,

there's a 90% chance over 5 years it'll

fail. If you invest in Bitcoin on your

balance sheet, there's a 90% chance over

5 years it'll succeed. as I push out to

the 30 or 40year time frame, there's a

99% chance every operational idea fails

and there's a 99% chance every financial

idea that rest upon a foundation of

succeeds. So don't confuse ambition with

accomplishment, right? Keep in mind that

the property company, the company that

owns the

Bitcoin is looking at a 30 to 60% AR

every year. You're growing 30, 40, 50%

if you do nothing. Now, think about

every operational business, your

restaurant, your hotel, your whatever

you get up on day one of the year and

then you're going to grow the business

30% every year for the next 20 years.

It's been done by seven companies. We

called them the magnificent seven.

There's 400 million that tried. So in

this particular case, make sure that

when you come up with a strategy, focus

on it. You know, don't get

distracted. The 11th way to wealth is

through equity. What does that mean? It

means share your opportunity with

investors willing to share your risk. A

company can do this. An individual

cannot do

this. Metaplanet has done this.

Metaplanet went from 10 million to a

five billion dollar market cap with the

partnership of their equity investors.

Without their equity investors, they're

nothing. My company went from a billion

dollar enterprise to a hundred billion

dollar enterprise with the help of our

equity

investors. What are you doing? Right?

You have the company. You have the

strategy. You offer them the

opportunity, right? That what you're

really If you're a dentist and you make

$200,000 a year in cash flow, you can

buy 200,000 of Bitcoin every year for 20

years. And that's not a bad idea. You'll

be the richest dentist on your block.

But you can incorporate the dental

practice, get it valued at five times

cash flow, get a million dollar value,

sell 50, sell 33% of it for

$500,000. Take the 500,000, invest in

Bitcoin today, wait a year, raise

another 500,000 at a double market cap,

two, three, four times NAV, invest that,

wait another year, raise 3 million,

invest that, you'll be the first

billionaire dentist on your block. And

what what did you do differently?

you partnered with someone else and you

cut them in, right? That's what that's

that's what Strategy's done. That's what

Metapun has done. That's what Similar is

doing. You can do

it. The 12th way to wealth is through

credit. What does that mean? It

means there are a lot of people in the

world that are afraid of the future.

There are a lot of people that want to

protect their money or they want a small

yield. and Japan corporate bonds yield

50 basis points and the US investment

grade bonds yield four 500 basis points.

When you as a corporation give creditors

certainty, you give them a fixed coupon.

You give them a fixed dividend and you

give them seniority in your capital

structure. You turn that risk into

yield. You're giving them certainty,

security,

yield. And what you're getting back is

the capital. The world's full of people.

I'm a retiree. I want a guaranteed 8%. I

don't want to lose my

money. If you give them that

proposition, you're going to get the

money and it's going to compound at 30

to

60%. The worst case is you're capturing

the 22% spread, but it's compounding up

with all the capital up front. And so

credit sometimes is a bad word, but at

the end of the day, you as the

individual creating a company can create

credit.

If I want to be the billionaire dentist

on the block, I incorporate. I sell some

equity. I sell some of my

future. I get to I get to stock up and

then I go borrow some money or I sell a

preferred stock or some instrument to

someone that wants less risk, less

return, more certainty. And I rock back

and forth. And and the goal is not to

take $200,000 of cash flow a year or

50,000 of cash flow a year and invest

over 20 years. The goal is to accelerate

a hundred times as much money through

proper financing on my corporate entity

now and invested in the world's greatest

asset which is

Bitcoin. SL here we have 13 weigh 13. 13

is not always a happy number. I use the

word

compliance. You should create the best

company you can create within the rules

of your market. Every market is

different. But think about this. Public

companies have special rights. They can

issue equity and debt. Trust companies

have other special rights. They're more

tax efficient. Insurance companies have

special rights. They can reinvest

annuities and they can assume risk and

they can create very taxefficient

vehicles. A broker dealer has special

rights. An exchange has special rights.

The bank has special rights. A bank can

take a million dollars of capital and

print $20 million worth of fiat

currency. They can lever 20 to one.

Okay, that's an advantage. So while

compliance sounds like a difficult world

word, if you create a company and you

understand the rules of the road in the

market you function in, you can create a

special very very productive enterprise

and then you can use the power of that

enterprise in order to raise capital,

invest in Bitcoin and create wealth. So,

it's more intricate, but if you have the

talent to do it, you know, uh it will

allow you to go faster and

further.

14.

Capitalization. Your your goal is to

raise and rein reinvest capital

relentlessly as veloc as fast as you

can. As much as you can, as fast as you

can. the velocity compounds the wealth.

So, you know, you create that practice,

the small hotel, you incorporate, you

sell 10% of the equity, you buy

Bitcoin, Bitcoin goes up, the value of

the hotel goes up. You sell 20%, you buy

more Bitcoin, the value of the

enterprise goes up. You borrow a little

bit of money, you buy Bitcoin, the value

of the enterprise goes up. You're

continually raising capital. You have

cash flow, you buy Bitcoin. You have

treasury assets, you buy Bitcoin. You

have a house that doesn't have a

mortgage on it. Okay. Well, good for

you. You could borrow money at 6%

invested at it's been 80 going up 80%

for the past year. So, you can capture

even if you look at a 30 or 20% ARR.

You're borrowing at six. You're

investing at 20. You're capturing the

spread. It's

compounding. This is a race to

capitalize on Bitcoin. He who has the

most Bitcoin at the end of the game

wins.

communication. No one's going to give

you money if they don't trust

you. The creditors won't give you they

won't take a or give you a loan. They

won't buy your bond. They won't buy your

preferred stock. The equity investors

won't buy your stock. No one will do

business with you. Employees, vendors,

they're not going to trust you. You must

speak with cander. You must act with

transparency. You should repeat that

often using every modern digital

channel. You don't need a complicated

strategy to build wealth in the Bitcoin

universe. You simply need a

straightforward one that you're that

everyone else understands. Once they

understand what you're going to do, they

will they will support you and then they

will make you successful. So,

communicate. Way number 16 is

commitment. Don't allow yourself to be

distracted. A lot of people discovered

Bitcoin before me. People discovered in

2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and then they

went on to build

Yoyocoin. And then they went on to build

the thing to juggle the Bitcoin. And

then they went on to write the book

about how smart they are about having

discovered the Bitcoin. And then they

created the business and they got a

board of directors that made them sell

Bitcoin. Right? So commitment to the

Bitcoin. The Bitcoin is the idea. Don't

feed the trolls when people cock at you

online and tell you're stupid. Don't

argue with them. Don't chase, By the

way, don't get distracted by your good

ideas. Don't chase your good ideas.

Satoshi gave you an idea worth half of

everything on

earth. The most common mistake

entrepreneurs make is they fall in love

with their own

idea and and then they chase

it. You have the world's greatest idea,

the greatest idea in the history of the

human race. It's there. You get you're

living during an age where the majority

of the planet doesn't get it. All you

have to do is figure out how to

capitalize it right now. But there will

be a million other

ideas. Don't fight lost causes. Choose

your

battles. Don't try to fix stuff, you

know, beyond your reach. You might have

an opinion about this and that and the

other thing, and it might make you

really mad, and you might be burning

about it, and you might think this is

just awful. All that is true. I agree

with you. But the truth is, the world

probably doesn't care what you think.

And unless you can stop the war yourself

then and if you can stop the war you

know you can do that then you should

focus on that. But if you can't then

don't take your own success for granted.

You know avoid dilutive

distractions. Way number 17. Deliver

consistent, precise, reliable execution.

Be relentless. Don't take your customer

for granted. Don't take your security

for granted. Don't take your success for

granted. Laserlike focus. The world

wants perfection from you. Or when I

first got to DuPont, they said you are

allowed up to but not including one

mistake. Okay. So maybe you think you

can juggle 10 razor blades and do 20

things while you will pine on 50 topics

on Twitter X. Right?

The person you're competing with is

laser-like focused and the marketplace

will shift to whoever is laser-like

focused.

18.

Adaptation. Over a long enough timeline,

every counterparty will fail, including

you. Over a hundred years, everybody you

trust, every bank, every company,

everything, every structure that works

now will fail. You will need to adopt

adapt. A wise person is prepared to

abandon their baggage at several times

along the road of life. So be prepared.

Have a plan. Work it now. Be monitoring

it every quarter, every year. At at some

point when that is no longer the right

path, you know, don't be ashamed to

change the path. Have a succession plan.

Keep your affairs in

order. Way 19,

evolution in build on your core

strengths. Leverage your strongest

assets. Um, your goal is graceful

evolution, not radical

mutation. Right? If you happen to have

skill in a culture, in a capital market,

in a thing, you want to you want a

business that grows based upon

leveraging that. When you get over your

skis or you decide to go do something in

a totally random new area, the risk of

that execution goes up by a hundfold.

Way 20,

advocacy. Inspire others to walk the

Bitcoin path. Become an evangelist for

economic freedom. The more individuals,

corporations, governments, institutions,

cities, leaders embrace Bitcoin, the

more likely you are to succeed, the more

likely they are to succeed. The more

likely Bitcoin is to succeed, the more

likely the human race is to succeed.

21. The way to wealth is through

generosity. When you are successful, and

you will be

successful, get up every morning and and

spread

happiness, share

security, deliver hope to those less

fortunate than you. You found the path

first. You found the way

first. You should spread good

karma. Make sure that you're delivering

that to your employees, your family,

your friends, your customers, your

investors, and your

community. They will see that glow. They

will respect you. They will support you.

They will be inspired by you. They will

follow you. It's good for you, good for

business, good for

Bitcoin, good for the world.

And I'm going to end with this final

thought. You

know, 16 years later and two trillion

year two trillion dollars of proof

later and after who knows how many

millions of pages of wisdom have been

delivered to the world, I'm able to give

you this speech.

But someone much greater than me,

Satoshi, with none of that information,

with none of that proof, with none of

that time, said this many, many years

ago, the most important 12 words in the

English language, it might make sense to

get some in case it catches

on. Thank you.

support. I'm here because of all of you

and I look forward to seeing you next

year.

Heat. Heat. Heat.