In brief
- MicroStrategy invested $425 million in Bitcoin during August and September of this year.
- The company's Bitcoin holdings are now worth $517 million.
- Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy CEO, has become one of Bitcoin's loudest advocates in recent months.
Business intelligence firm MicroStrategy now owns over half a billion dollars worth of Bitcoin, having seen a surge in the price of Bitcoin over the last few months.
After investing a total of $425 million in Bitcoin in August and September, the company’s Bitcoin holdings are now worth $517 million—up 21%.
MicroStrategy’s CEO, Michael Saylor, is incredibly bullish on Bitcoin these days, describing the famed cryptocurrency as “digital gold.”
Saylor’s outlook, however, has not always been so optimistic.
How did MicroStrategy arrive at Bitcoin?
In 2013, Saylor tweeted that Bitcoin’s days were numbered, and that “it seems like just a matter of time before it suffers the same fate as online gambling.”
Fast forward to 2020, and firm’s Bitcoin journey began with a $183 million investment in the cryptocurrency on August 11. Just over one month later, MicroStrategy announced an additional investment of $183 million in Bitcoin, bringing the company’s grand Bitcoin total to 38,250 at an aggregate purchase price of $425 million.
Bitcoin has increased in price by over 15 times since that tweet was published, and, along the way, Saylor and MicroStrategy decided to come along for the ride.
Ultimately, the u-turn can be put down to Bitcoin’s perceived long term value. On Anthony Pompliano’s well-known podcast, Saylor described Bitcoin as an ultimate inflation hedge that was one thousand times better than gold.
However, there is more to MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin position than a long term punt on value.
When the company announced its initial $250 million investment in Bitcoin, Saylor said Bitcoin’s “global acceptance, brand recognition, ecosystem vitality, network dominance, architectural resilience, technical utility, and community ethos” acted as persuasive evidence for the asset’s promise.
Saylor has accompanied this investment by taking it upon himself to become a huge Bitcoin bull, taking every podcast opportunity to sing the cryptocurrency’s praises. Not only that, he also recently declared how much Bitcoin he personally owns.
“I personally #hodl 17,732 BTC which I bought at $9,882 each on average,” Saylor said in a tweet. This equates to approximately $240 million today.
In addition, the business intelligence firm, which has prided itself on anticipating global economic trends for decades, anticipated Bitcoin to feature in “The Virtual Wave,” a period of rapid growth in dematerialized products, services and processes, catalyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
After MicroStrategy made its investments, Square piled in with a $50 million investment of its own. On October 8, 2020, Square invested $50 million in Bitcoin, buying 4,709 Bitcoin, now worth approximately $63 million—a 27% profit for the company.
“The support that’s come from Square to build Bitcoin and to promote—actually to take Bitcoin on the balance sheet was a big deal,” Saylor said during a conference call discussing MicroStrategy’s Q3 financial earnings.
As MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin wealth grows, so too do Norway’s fortunes.