Michael Saylor, CEO of business intelligence firm MicroStrategy, has staunchly defended the company\u2019s bullish, long-term Bitcoin (BTC) position based on its unique potential to evolve into \u201cthe future of the property.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Saylor argued that MicroStrategy\u2019s big bet on Bitcoin, which it has turned to the debt markets to sustain, is the \u201chighest upside, lowest risk strategy\u201d the company can pursue.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people think diversification means buying other types of cryptocurrencies or other kinds of equities,\u201d he said. \u201cWe think that by holding Bitcoin, we\u2019re diversified. Because we can see Bitcoin on the balance sheets of cities, states, governments, companies, small [and] big investors, ultimately, Bitcoin is going to be the core to tech innovation at Apple, Amazon and Facebook, so we want to be holding the Bitcoin.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In response to his interviewer\u2019s probing as to how the interests of large, centralized behemoths such as Twitter and Facebook can be reconciled with a decentralized network, Saylor made the case that Bitcoin holds the key to solving their endemic issues with cybersecurity and spam. Integration with Bitcoin \u2014 and, specifically, the micropayment-supporting Lightning Network \u2014 could tackle these by incorporating an ecosystem that can vouch for creditworthiness and trust:<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to improve the user experience [on these tech platforms], then you need to have skin on the game. And Bitcoin provides skin in the name for all of the interactors in the cyber environment. Dorsey understands this. The killer app is cybersecurity integrated into an international trust network.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Saylor\u2019s projection for Bitcoin\u2019s long-term potential appears to be balanced between this capacity to support new functionalities on the web and to evolve into the future of the property.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Related: MicroStrategy pledges to buy more BTC despite paper loss on its holdings of $424.8M in Q2<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
The reason MicroStrategy has leveraged long on Bitcoin \u2014\u00a0for which it has controversially borrowed $2.2 billion at a blended interest rate of about 1.5% \u2014 is that the firm anticipates that Bitcoin, as an open property network, will be used by \u201cbillions of users.\u201d While the firm currently takes a 10-year view, Saylor\u2019s comments suggested his perspective is long in a truly maximalist sense:<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople joke that Bitcoin isn\u2019t really a trading strategy, it\u2019s an exit strategy. What we want to hold is a form of non-sovereign store of value forever […] I took a survey: the average Twitter user thinks it\u2019s going to last 3500 years. Nobody\u2019s in a hurry with Bitcoin. We\u2019re thinking that it\u2019s the future of property.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In the interim, the coin is nonetheless also meeting the needs of retail traders, Saylor observed, noting that cryptocurrencies in general offer users of apps like Robinhood the unique possibility of trading 24\/7, 365 days a year. In his view, it \u201cmakes total sense\u201d for Robinhood to drive hard and up its support for the new asset class. Yet among digital assets, Bitcoin, as the \u201crisk-off king of all the cryptos,\u201d is, for Saylor, still \u201cwhere all the traffic and excitement is.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the results of a recent study from Crypto.com, the number of crypto users worldwide more than doubled from 100 million this January to 221 million in June. While Bitcoin retains the lion\u2019s share of users, smaller altcoins have slowly eaten into both the veteran coin market share and the market\u2019s second-most popular crypto, Ether (ETH).<\/p>\n