Exclusive: Michael Saylor Backstage Interview at the Bitcoin Conference

We're live from the Bitcoin Conference.

This man deserves no introduction

because everybody knows who he is, but

it is the one and only Michael Sailor.

Michael, how are you? How's the

conference going? Best week of the year.

I think this is the greatest Bitcoin

conference ever to tell you the truth.

Really? Why? Why is that? First of all,

the energy is extraordinary. All the

people are extraordinary. It's electric.

But the number of announcements, you

know, the GameStop announcement and

Mayor Adams announcement about the bit

bonds, you know, and Caner's

announcement about Bitcoin credit, you

know, and the Nakamoto announcement. We

had the vice president here. We've never

had a vice president of Bitcoin

conference, right? So, Bitcoin being

embraced by the government. We have

cabinet members here. Bitcoin being

embraced by states. Bitcoin being

embraced by cities. Bitcoin being

embraced by lots and lots of public

companies. Bitcoin being embraced by the

mainstream media rank and and file. And

just the incredible surge of of

Bitcoiners here. I think altogether

that's extraordinary. How far we've

come. Every single conference they each

outperforms the other. What else is

going to happen? where you had the

president of the United States, the VP

like are we going to have the monarchs

from Saudi Arabia come and speak in time

we're going to have country we had

Pakistan announcing a strategic Bitcoin

reserve in time we're going to have

countries coming working to outdo each

other and that will be a wonderful day

that will 100% you know actually I've

talked to many of the CEOs of the

Bitcoin strategic reserves and all of

them have confessed is that you're their

mentor. I have to ask, who's your

mentor? And because you're mentoring

them, you must have like a mentor. And

what do your days look like now that

you're mentoring all these Bitcoin

treasury companies?

I I have gone through a 100,000 pages of

economic history by Murray Rothbart of

of political history by Will Durant all

the Austrian economist Hayak and von

Mises you know all of the political

histories and and they're my mentors

learning from that and then I've spent a

lot of time communing with AI which

which has also read all of them you know

and discussing what it thinks and I'm

very inspired by the great thinkers

throughout the civilization.

And of course, you know, if I had to

pick one mentor of the modern era, it

would be Satoshi because Satoshi gave us

perfect money. And I date January 3rd,

2009 as the singularity.

All of the historians, all of the

writers I read, Voltater and Von Mises

and Rothbart and Dur, they all lament

that the world is an imperfect place,

the money is broken, and uh government

policy intervention doesn't work. All of

them agree on that. It took Satoshi to

give us the solution because the

solution was for the first time in human

history, we can tightly bind economic

energy to the individual. put it in

their head. And so this idea that we can

invert the entire power structure of the

human race by pulling the energy out of

the land, out of the currency, out of

the gold, out of the companies, out of

the collectibles, out of the bonds and

put it into the heads or the hands of

the people. That's a profound

breakthrough because that gave us the

hope that we could actually deliver

economic freedom, political freedom, you

know, uh, dignity and sovereignty to

humanity. I would like to say that was a

dream before January 3rd. But the truth

is all of these historians, all of these

economists I've read, they never

articulated the dream. They couldn't

conceive of the solution. They just gave

you a hundred examples of the problem.

And so if there is one mentor, it's got

to be Satoshi. 100%.

And obviously we're starting the faces

like you see um Bitcoin in a way

entering the political realm. Is there a

possible way that Bitcoin can fail?

Because in a way we're still in the

early stages. Bitcoin's a teenager in a

way. And you're saying that it's our

hope. Is there a way that like for

example the politicians can try to

centralize Bitcoin mining and for it to

like Satoshi's vision kind of fall or do

you think we've already passed that

point and Bitcoin will succeed against

all the odds? Bitcoin is a truth virus

wrapped in a freedom virus wrapped in a

monetary virus and it is spreading

throughout the entire world. When 10

people on the city block embrace it, it

becomes more powerful. When the richest

person on the block embraces it, it

becomes more powerful again. When a

small city embraces it, it becomes more

powerful again. And the city's

transformed. they become more truthful

and they look out further and they

become they become more rational and

then everyone in the network benefits

and so as Bitcoin spreads virally

through cities and counties and states

and countries on one hand it's drawing

their energy on the other hand it's

transforming them every single

politician every single person that

seeks to benefit from Bitcoin finds

themselves transformed by Bitcoin So it

is a virus, but it's a virus of

rationale

and and it's a it's a virus of truth and

it's a it's a virus of soundness, sound

money. So as more and more countries

embrace it, it will actually make

Bitcoin stronger. Bitcoin is better if

if adversaries if the 20 superpowers in

the world or the 20 powers in the world

they all embrace it they will all uh

create a counterveilling check and

balance on each other that strengthens

the protocol and actually strengthens

everybody in the network. So I don't

worry about it spreading to other

countries. I don't worry about it

spreading to more powerful companies or

any other entity. I think Bitcoin is a

perfect machine made of imperfect parts.

And it is true that every single person

that adopts Bitcoin will be imperfect.

Every company, every government, they

will all be imperfect. But they will

give their energy to the network. The

network will become even more

anti-fragile, even more robust and even

more powerful. And that is that is the

impact of this brilliant crypto virus

that was unleashed by Satoshi on the

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savings a daily habit. I want to talk

about the 4242

capital plan. How is that going for you

guys? And can you simplify and tell us a

little bit where that went? In August,

uh, sorry, in October of 2024,

we announced a 21-21 plan. We announced

that we were going to raise 21 billion

of equity and 21 billion of fixed income

in order to buy Bitcoin. And that was 10

times bigger than anything anybody had

ever done in the history of the capital

markets. It was the biggest equity uh

filing in the history of the capital

market, not just in the US, but

anywhere. And people thought we were

crazy. And we said, "Well, you know,

give us three years. We'll get through

it." You know, and then what came next

was the red sweep followed by an orange

cabinet

followed by extraordinary enthusiasm.

And we went through that first $21

billion of equity in like four months.

It went not three years, but three to

four months. And then we were able to go

and sell billions and billions of fixed

income. And so we realized, you know,

come this uh this quarter, we're about

six months out, we decided that we

needed to reset it. And so we double

down to 42 in billion in equity and 42

billion in fixed income.

Again, setting our targets out three

years. Maybe it will take us that long.

Perhaps we will go faster. uh how fast

we go is a function of uh the enthusiasm

of the capital markets and the bitcoin

market and then everything everyone else

is doing in this community, right? When

the mayor of New York announces that New

York is behind the Bitbond that helps

us, you know, when the government

announced Bitcoin reserve that helps us,

you know, should they buy lots of

Bitcoin that will help us as well. So,

we don't know exactly how fast we'll get

through it, but we're confident that we

will. And and the goal is to simply

strengthen the Bitcoin network by

funneling all of that capital from the

fiat currency markets and the equity

capital markets and the traditional

credit markets into the Bitcoin economy.

You mentioned New York. You know, New

York, obviously, you talk about it a lot

because of, you know, the real estate

and everything and you also talk a lot

about Bitcoin as digital real estate or

digital capital. Besides accumulating it

for shareholders, do you have any plans

to use or build on strategies Bitcoin in

the near future, you know, IE loans, a

Bitcoinbacked bank loans, etc.

Lots of people will come up with lots of

things to do with digital capital over

time. What we're doing with it is we're

using it as collateral. It's the base

layer that we use to issue billions of

dollars of bonds. We've issued about $10

billion of bonds that were backed by the

Bitcoin. And now we've uh just issued

two preferred stocks. one called Strike

and there's about a billion dollars of

it floating in the market now that is

backed by the Bitcoin and another thing

we issued called Strife that provides a

10% dividend at par value that's the

sort of the highest yielding instrument

of its kind in the market that is backed

by Bitcoin so when people are buying

this preferred stock called Strife we're

going to give them 10% yield forever

forever for a hundred years for thousand

years. And so how are we doing that?

We're investing our own Bitcoin. And

then their question is, well, how will

you pay us? Well, we're invested in

Bitcoin. Bitcoin's appreciating. I think

it'll appreciate 30% a year for the next

20 years. And then 20% or more. So the

Bitcoin is the engine that is generating

the dividends, that is generating the

collateral and the security for those

fixed income investors. The future of

our company, our business strategy is we

wish to be the global leader in the

issuance of Bitcoin back credit. We want

to issue uh a a preferred stock that

gives you European yield in return for

Bitcoin yield. So, we'll give the

Europeans more yield than they're

getting from their corporate bonds. Or

we'll generate yield for the Japanese

yen. So the Japanese investors get 50

basis points in yield from their

corporate bonds. If we go to Japan and

offer 10 times that much, they're

getting JPY yield. We will take back

Bitcoin yield. You see? So what we're

doing is we're creating Bitcoin yield

for our equity investors and we're

giving fiat yield for all of the

conventional fixed income investors.

That's a $30 trillion market. So when

you're saying, well, what do how are we

actually getting value for the Bitcoin?

The Bitcoin is generating yield for our

equity shareholders because every time

we sell any of those fixed income

instruments that generates BTC yield and

then of course the fixed income

instruments generate a more secure,

higher yield for the conventional

investors. And that's a business that

can grow scalably uh for a long long

time. The critical thing is we have to

have the Bitcoin. We have the $60

billion of Bitcoin collateral. That's

what allows us to secure the loan and

that's also what allows us to provide

the performance to the convertible

preferred stocks that the investors won.

And so it's a very it's a very elegant

strategy right now. The beauty of the

strategy is we hold our own Bitcoin.

We're not giving it to anybody else

hoping they'll give it back to us. In

essence, you know, it's a it's a Bitcoin

back credit strategy. If I were to go to

a conventional investor and I were to

say, what would you rather have? 50%

return and 50 V or 20% return and 20 V,

the majority of them would want 20%

return and 20 V. The actual market for

that is 100x bigger. and and that's

because they just don't want to get on

the roller coaster and Bitcoin is a

roller coaster for many. But having said

all that, the world, the capital markets

are structured. So there are some people

that have billions of dollars to invest

in venture capital. They have to invest

in a private equity of a venture. There

are other people that have billions of

dollars to invest in bonds. They have to

buy the bond. Other people have billions

of dollars to invest in convertible

bonds. They have to buy the convertible

bond. Some people have billions of

dollars to invest in equity.

They can't buy Bitcoin. They can buy a

Bitcoin company. And so when you look at

the overall capital markets, and I'm

talking about 400 to 500 trillion

dollars, that's been structured over 50

years. These people created that fund,

all the famous money managers, you know,

they've been in the business 30 years.

So 10 years ago, they agreed with their

limited partners, the pension funds and

the endowments. They agreed they would

invest that money with this strategy.

They have to stay in their lane and and

and the lane, the charter doesn't

include Bitcoin. So what we're doing is

we give if you're a private company, you

give the venture capitalist Bitcoin

preferred. And if you're public, you

give the equity capitalist public

equity. And if you give uh credit

instruments to credit investors, they

can buy it. Believe it or not, there are

some people that can only invest in

distressed debt from bankrupt companies.

I do not intend to ever serve that

market, right? I don't I'm not going to

bankrupt myself to give them something

to buy from me. But they have to buy

that. And so once you understand where

all the money is, you have the people in

Japan, they want J Japanese yen

denominated yield. I could say, "Well,

I'll give you something better in

dollars." They're like, "I can't buy

it." We have a 10% yield in dollars

right now. They're getting 50 basis

points,

12th as much in yen. They're not going

to buy the thing that's 20 times better.

they might very well buy something that

yields 4% in yen because it's in yen. So

you have to go to the investors and give

them the instrument they want structured

the way they want in their capital

market if you're going to get them to

trade their capital for your security or

your investment idea. And that's what

we're doing as a business in order to

grow the Bitcoin ecosystem and bridge

the traditional capital markets with the

crypto economy. And you've also said

that endorsing other companies execute a

similar Bitcoin accus accusition

strategy through ATMs, convertible

bonds, and other financial products

won't threaten or compete with Micro

Strategy's ability to do so. Why?

Bitcoin is the most cooperative, most

ethical, most inspirational network in

the world. Every time someone joins the

network and contributes their capital to

the network, all the rest of us become

more powerful, more secure, and more

successful. So I could say, hey, it's

like electricity. We have electricity.

Every company's going to use

electricity. Why would I threaten? But

that would be a much weaker metaphor

than the real metaphor. The real

metaphor is there's only 450 Bitcoin

available for per day. There is a drive

shaft that's turning the entire network.

Every time $50 million of capital flows

in the Bitcoin ecosystem, we turn it

once. So Nakamoto raises a billion and

they turn that 20 times, right? And when

GameStop raises 500 million, they turn

that shaft 10 times, right? And uh when

21 raises their three billion, they turn

it again. And so we're turning the drive

shaft which is lifting everyone because

once the $50 million of capital comes in

the network, there are no natural

sellers left. Now the price must go up

to find a new seller. As the price goes

up, everybody in the network becomes

that much wealthier and that much more

powerful. And all of their business

strategies catch energy and momentum. So

everyone will pursue their own strategy.

The Metaplanet people raise capital from

the Japanese market. I couldn't sell

into the Japanese market. They're not

competing with me. They're orange

pilling the Japanese investors. They'll

be Bitcoin treasury companies in Brazil.

They'll be Bitcoin treasury companies in

France, in Canada. They're all bringing

their unique value proposition and they

will help their nation, their their

shareholders. But ultimately, the final

beneficiary is always Bitcoin and the

Bitcoin holder and everything that is a

derivative of Bitcoin will benefit from

that. So I I think we're in the early

days where there's a dozen companies

pursuing this hard and there's a hundred

pursuing it lightly. But one day every

public company will flip to the Bitcoin

standard from the local fiat standard.

And they'll do it because 25 years out,

fiat sovereign debt will yield 3% and

have a three ball and Bitcoin will be

20% with a 20 ball and it will still be

seven, eight, 10 times better to be on

the Bitcoin standard even after 20 years

of all of us doing what we're doing. So

I'm I'm not at all concerned. I think

it's great for the C. All those

companies will be successful if they

don't make a rookie mistake. You still

got to execute, but they're more likely

than not to be successful. They will all

pursue a different strategy. We will all

learn from each other. We will all

benefit each other. The ultimate

beneficiary is the entire Bitcoin

network. And speaking of these

companies, they have uh a core business

uh that ultimately they end up being,

you know, insignificant compared to

their treasury for strategy. Why is it

still important to have a cash flowing

business and why not just sell it for

more Bitcoin? We love our customers. We

love the business. The business, it's

important to our customers to keep

upgrading the software. It makes us

money. And it's it's kind of like the

example I gave of the dentist. If you're

a dentist or a doctor and you love your

work and you invest in Bitcoin and

you're smart about it and you get

insanely rich, you may still want to

show up to work because you like having

to do. If you were an artist, you would

want to paint. So, if you love what

you're doing, you're going to keep doing

it. Everybody's got their operational

business, right? Their uh their day job.

If you if you get delight from what you

do and you get a lot of uh positive

feedback from your audience, you'll

continue to do it. And uh Bitcoin will

empower you, endow you with the wealth

to do that without fear or anxiety or

without taking shortterm shortcuts. And

obviously you've helped many of these

companies uh you know get the Bitcoin

standard and become many strategies.

Would strategy ever consider acquiring

stakes in these companies as an

investment?

Our business strategy is to be 100%

Bitcoin. Um and so we will always buy

Bitcoin. Bitcoin is our hurdle rate. And

there are a couple reasons for that

really almost three. One, we want to be

neutral because I want to help hundreds

of companies and I don't I can't afford

to play favorites and I don't have

enough time to be invested in just three

of them. The second is all of our credit

instruments we sell, those are all based

upon a homogeneous credit risk. You're

holding Bitcoin. Are there any

complications? No. If I were to invest

in 22 things, then there would be 25

pages of disclosures for each thing and

there'd be 250 pages of consideration.

And I don't want to complicate the

decision my investors make. I want to be

hyper transparent. You know, if if one

of them were to work differently than

Bitcoin, even if it was better or worse,

the company becomes opaque. and it

becomes opaque, it's hard for people to

understand and to and to to trust us.

See, part of our value proposition is is

because you know exactly what we're

going to do.

If you disagree with it, you can short

us with 20x leverage. And if you agree

with it, you can go long with 20x

leverage. And you could put on a billion

dollar bet that's good for four weeks.

The last thing you want is for me to

say, "Oh, we're investing in a new

business and we're very excited and it

might, you know, and and it just screws

up that guy's billion dollar bet and

that guy's billion dollar bet and now

they're like, I can't trust the company.

I don't know what they're going to do.

I'm just going to sell. I don't want to

play the game." So our our job is to be

neutral Switzerland with regard to the

ecosystem and make everybody successful,

but also to be laserike in our business

model, which is we're going to create

equity, which is which is going to be

levered Bitcoin. We're going to attempt

to outperform Bitcoin with leverage, and

we're going to create credit instruments

that strip volatility and risk and

performance off of Bitcoin. and we're

going to keep doing it the same way. And

uh I think all these other businesses

are great opportunities for private

equity investors, venture capital

investors. They have other pools of

capital that is uh not invested in

Bitcoin. You could the way you could

think of it is my $65 billion of Bitcoin

is pledged to support the equity and to

support the bonds and support the

preferred stocks. And I need to make

sure that that uh that that pledge

remains inviable. And I need people to

say that's what they're going to do for

the next decade. And if I believe that,

then I will buy something and I will

hold it for a decade or 20 years or 30

years. We want people to know what we

stand for. And uh this is what we stand

for. Bitcoin forever. Bitcoin forever. I

love that. You also recently said it

would be unsafe to do proof of reserves.

However, your Bitcoin Treasury Strategy

competitors, MetaPlanet and 21 Capital,

are both doing proof of reserves. Do you

think they're making a mistake?

I think it's just a complicated subject.

It depends on the the size of the

company, the capital market you in

you're in. It depends on the scope of

your operations, and it depends upon

your regulators.

For us right now, it's important to note

that a public company selling an equity

has to post a proof of assets and a

proof of liabilities

that's audited and signed off by the

auditors with the annual report every

year and with the 10 10 uh Q every

quarter. when you post that that has to

be signed by the officers but with an

attestation under Sarbain Oxley and then

all of the related parties to the

officers and directors have to be

disclosed. So you see, you couldn't

reasonably make an investment in a

public company without knowing there are

no related parties, without knowing

there are no side agreements, without

knowing the scope of all the liabilities

and then all the assets. And that's the

best practice and that's generally what

equity investors big ones in the US

expect.

Um I think that the proof of reserves

offers you the chance to see what's in a

wallet. What it doesn't do is solve the

question of are there liabilities

against the wallet? Are there related

parties that own part of the wallet? Are

there any side agreements that are in

the wallet? And uh you can't ever really

know that without a full audit. So I

think I think they will do it. There

will be some benefits for people to

publish it. There will be there will be

uh security complications because you

know I wouldn't recommend any individual

go on X and publish their Bitcoin wallet

address to the world because you would

have everyone tracking you. Uh I I think

that we will learn from what everybody

does. And I think the great thing about

the ecosystem is with this many

companies, there are some companies

going to try different strategies.

They'll do well, for example, people

will do things that my lawyers would

tell me I can't do or I shouldn't do.

And uh so they will do it and if it

works, then I will take that and go back

to my attorney and say, "Look, it

worked. The regulator said it was okay.

The banker said it was okay. It worked.

And maybe we should do it." And if it

doesn't work, then we'll say, well, I

guess guess the lawyers or the

accountants or whatever, right? So, I

think we're still early days and um and

uh we'll see how it all works out. Only

time will tell. Speaking of time, what

is the most interesting or coolest thing

that you've learned about Bitcoin this

year? I think the coolest thing that

I've learned about Bitcoin this year is

just the incredible

diverse appeal that it has globally,

right? The the number of actors from

people in Brazil, people in, you know,

actors in Mexico, actors in in Pakistan,

actors in the Middle East, actors in

France, in the UK, the explosion of

excitement about Bitcoin, Bitcoin,

Treasury companies. I meet someone like,

"Yeah, I'm doing this in UAE. I'm doing

this in Hong Kong. I'm doing this in UK.

I'm doing this in Norway. Like the

explosion of that and then every time

you see an exciting announcement, a

soccer team that's embracing Bitcoin,

GameStop embracing Bitcoin, the mayor of

the biggest city in the United States

embracing Bitcoin. These this is a

classic example of a of a viral

explosive phenomena.

you know this, you know, there's no way

you can stop an idea whose time has come

and you just you see indicators this

year that the time has come for this

idea. And what would you say your

hottest take on Bitcoin is? Most of the

risk, if not all of the risk, in my

opinion, has been stripped off it in the

past four years, especially over the

past 12 months. And yet most people

don't appreciate this fact. Right? So,

so we're at a very critical inflection

point where you already know the banks

will embrace it, the insurance companies

will embrace it, the governments will

embrace it, you know, the accounting

professionals embraced it, Wall Street

has embraced it, companies have embraced

it, international markets have embraced

it. You can see it all. And yet the

conventional investor, the mainstream

media, they still don't get it yet.

And so this is like a once ina lifetime

opportunity where you can know

something. You know the future. It's

very clear. You know why the future is

clear and everybody else just doesn't

see the future yet. And that's the

superpower I think we all have in this

industry right now. I love that because

yeah, we're 100% still early. Thank you

so much,