Saylor’s recent purchase of 12,333 BTC, at an average price of $28,136 per coin, reaffirms the company’s bullish stance on cryptocurrencies.
Former CEO of software giant MicroStrategy Michael Saylor made an appearance at this year’s Miami Bitcoin Conference. He assured that Bitcoin is here to stay and that there is no reason to worry about the prospects of a currency that has, at this stage, clearly proven its worth.
Michael Saylor Still Loves BTC
Saylor addressed the 2022 bear market and did his best to calm investors in the room. It’s unclear at this point if they were worried about Bitcoin’s future, but Saylor was quick to address the situation, letting them know that the technology behind bitcoin is revolutionary and will secure the currency’s place on the financial spectrum. He stated the following:
“The reason why bitcoin is so solid, literally solid, is because it is thermodynamically solid. This is a masterpiece of engineering because we have created a monetary asset in which we have eliminated all counterparty risk.”
He claimed that one of the top reasons why Bitcoin is so “special” is because it is easy to use. Currently, people only need internet connections and digital wallets to appreciate bitcoin and its altcoin cousins. When users try to get access to standard money tools and services, these usually don’t focus on people’s background (employment or financial history, for example). Bitcoin, in contrast, doesn’t really care about that.
With a digital wallet and internet access, one can easily start trading, buying, selling and investing in bitcoins at will. Saylor also said that right now, bitcoin’s “safe haven” status is growing, given how shady and unreliable the rest of the industry has become, following a long series of bank failures including Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic Bank. He pointed out the following:
“All of those things, which could be viewed in a negative way, are positive for bitcoin because they are speeding up the principal investor’s conclusion that bitcoin is ethically sound, technically sound and economically sound. Bitcoin fixes things. Bitcoin can help everyone.”
He was very positive about the Lightning Network, which is a service that allows many smaller bitcoin transactions to happen off-chain, thus freeing up space on the network and ensuring transactions move faster.
Saylor is a maximalist who believes that Bitcoin has a bright future ahead of it despite the many ups and downs of the past two years. He concluding by asserting that “Bitcoin is here to stay. Bitcoin is the future.”
So Much Love Has Led to Trouble
MicroStrategy is arguably one of the biggest institutional bitcoin supporters. The software giant started trading and buying bitcoins in August 2020, a time when very few companies, especially ones as big as MicroStrategy, were taking such steps. The company bought around $250 million worth of BTC and then added to this purchase just a few weeks later.
In September 2020, the coin experienced a brief bearish bout that saw the price of a BTC drop from $12K to around $10K. It is easy to assume that, in most cases, companies that had been involved in transactions similar to MicroStrategy’s would decide to cut their losses. They’d probably sell their bitcoin units and get out while they could, but MicroStrategy wouldn’t.
Saylor has been investing his company’s reserves in bitcoin since late 2020. While things initially looked positive, by mid-2022, the industry took a nasty turn, but Saylor continued to invest and put his company in debt as a result.
In the last few months, MicroStrategy has lost over a billion dollars in BTC holdings. However, this does not deter Saylor, who has vowed that his company will continue to buy BTC for as long as the coin exists.
By Audy Castaneda
