In August 2020, Michael Saylor publicly stated that BTC was a ‘dependable store of value’ and called the cryptocurrency ‘digital gold.’ He then backed this up with MicroStrategy acquiring 21,424 BTC, costing $250 million.
At the time, BTC was priced at approximately $12,000. What happened next was extraordinary and led to BTC hitting all-time highs by November the following year of more than $68,000.
Why was this statement so important?
This was arguably the first time a public limited company had made such a bold statement supporting BTC. At the time, Saylor was the C.E.O. of MicroStrategy, a company with a net income of approximately $535 million, and a former student of M.I.T. Calling any asset a ‘dependable store of value’ is big news on Wall Street. The investment will not lose its value over a long period. It means it is considered low risk and can be trusted. That is what every investor wants to hear.
Bullish and Brave
MicroStrategy’s sudden and immediate participation in the cryptocurrency world started a new market trend. Soon after their initial investment, BTC’s value fell by $2,000 per coin. MicroStrategy responded by buying even more! Such a bold and brave move was seen as highly bullish. Things started to change almost immediately.
The Flood Gates are Open!
In September 2020, MicroStrategy bought another 38,250 BTC, costing $425 million. The following month, Paypal announced that customers could hold, trade, and even purchase goods with BTC. BTC surged in value.
In November, Blackrock, the largest asset manager in the world, with $7.8 Trillion, stated BTC ‘’could replace gold’’. BTC hit $18,600.
Saylor and MicroStrategy began to see huge returns.
The Momentum Continues!
Saylor going public with the MicroStrategy acquisitions continued to snowball and attracted even more credible names. Investment icons such as billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller joined Jim Cramer and Paul Tudor Jones in piling into BTC.
Soon Visa announced that it would allow its clients to buy using cryptocurrency. JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley started offering wealthy clients cryptocurrency as an investment opportunity.
Elon Who?
In December 2020, Saylor and Elon Musk began exchanging Tweets and discussing BTC. Saylor was advising Musk to exchange his Dollars for BTC. The world watched as Saylor told Musk that other S&P 500 companies would follow his lead. He ended the Tweets by offering to discuss this further ‘’offline’’.
And Then It Happened
The following month, in January 2021, Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of $240 Billion, added the hashtag #bitcoin to his Twitter bio. Every news station in the world covered the story. BTC jumped 20%. At this point, Musk declared to the world ‘’ I am a supporter of bitcoin’’. The following month MicroStrategy invested a further $1 Billion in BTC. Bitcoin hit $49,600. In the same month, Saylor held an event called Bitcoin for Corporations. He expected 1,400 attendees. It achieved more than 10,000 attendees each day. Tesla announced in a February 2021 S.E.C. filing that it had bought $1.5 Billion worth of BTC and would accept BTC in payment for its products.
What a Journey!
In November 2021, just 15 months after Saylor had announced his public support for BTC, it hit an all-time high of $68,000. In January 2022, Goldman Sachs said that BTC could become more valuable than gold and reach $100,000 per coin, and in June, Microstrategy acquired its most recent purchase of BTC, bringing its total holdings to 129,699 Bitcoin. Saylor is said to personally own about $300 million in BTC. How much of this is down to Michael Saylor? Well, undoubtedly, he opened the floodgates. By 2021 he had changed the big players in the market from ‘considering’ BTC to actually ‘purchasing’ BTC. The dominoes fell.
Yes, we are presently in a bear market, but Saylor does not control the financial world. Momentarily Micheal Saylor has stepped down as C.E.O. of MicroStrategy but remains Chairman of the Board of Directors. The reason? To focus solely on Bitcoin! Here we go again!
