Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, said that his company’s Bitcoin purchases alongside Tesla and Square’s were ‘Tip of The Icebarg’ for any institutional investment interest.
Saylor talked about how Bitcoin will help “fix the world’s balance sheets” in an interview with TIME Magazine. While pioneering institutional participation in Bitcoin, Saylor has become a proponent of the digital currency.
During the interview, the CEO also stated that there had been an avalanche of institutional participation in BTC, citing MicroStrategy’s purchases as well as Tesla’s and Square’s. Tesla’s purchases which reached $1.5 billion in Bitcoin, said set an inflection point for institutional Bitcoin investment.
In December 2020, after Musk tweeted about the cryptocurrency, Saylor said he was going to share his “playbook” for purchasing BTC with Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Early this year, Saylor also congratulated Musk on the BTC investments the company was making. At that time, Tesla announced that it had added BTC as one of its payment methods for its goods.
MicroStrategy Venture into BTC Makes Huge Returns
MicroStrategy shocked Wall Street last year when it became the first publicly-traded company in the United States to begin investing in Bitcoin. Last month, the company purchased $1 billion in BTC, followed by many smaller purchases, for a total of 91,326 BTC, for a total cost of $2.211 billion.
MicroStrategy’s foray into Bitcoin has also benefited its stock, which has increased significantly in the last year and is now worth $777, up from $107.
According to Saylor, the rush of investors to BTC was an example of reasonable action in cases of monetary inflation. He believes that BTC is a store of value.
BTC is not Speculation
When explaining why he preferred BTC over Gold, he said that the cryptocurrency was not speculation because of its unique technology.
Saylor backed the new research and development program supporting BTC linked to MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative with $4 million in financing last month. This was after joining Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, together with cryptocurrency exchange Gemini founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.