Kristina Roberts
In recent times, more and more companies in the US and around the world have started buying Bitcoin as part of their financial strategy. One of the biggest names leading this trend is Michael Saylor’s company, which has seen massive growth since it began investing heavily in Bitcoin. However, while some businesses are jumping on the bandwagon, Wall Street and investors are not fully convinced that this is a smart move for every company.
Michael Saylor, who has been a strong supporter of Bitcoin for years, says there has been a huge increase in interest from companies wanting to add Bitcoin to their balance sheets. “Over the long term, Bitcoin on the balance sheet has proven to be extraordinarily popular,” he said in a recent interview. His company, which was once known by a different name, has grown significantly since it started buying Bitcoin, and its holdings are now worth billions of dollars. Other companies, including some well-known meme stocks and media firms, have also announced plans to buy Bitcoin, but their stock prices have not reacted the same way.
For example, one media company recently revealed plans to raise billions of dollars to invest in Bitcoin, while a popular gaming retailer announced a smaller but still significant purchase. Despite these announcements, their stock prices dropped shortly after. Saylor believes this might be because the market expected them to buy even more Bitcoin or because of the way they raised money to make these purchases. “Maybe the market wanted them to buy more Bitcoin,” he said. “But these are short-term dynamics.”
Saylor also mentioned that he sees a global shift happening, with more companies outside the US showing interest in Bitcoin. “Everywhere I go at this conference, someone says, you know, I’m working on a Bitcoin treasury company in Hong Kong. I’m doing this thing in Korea. I’ve got this thing I’m working on in Abu Dhabi,” he explained. He described this growing trend as an “explosion of interest” and said that Bitcoin supporters are spreading the idea all over the world.
The US government’s stance on Bitcoin has also changed in recent years. Under the previous administration, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were often viewed with suspicion, but now, there are signs of greater acceptance. Earlier this year, an executive order was signed to create a US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, which means the government will hold Bitcoin as a long-term asset. The plan is to fund this reserve using Bitcoin seized from criminal cases, and the government has made it clear that it will not sell any of its Bitcoin holdings.
A high-ranking government official even spoke directly to the Bitcoin community, calling it a way to protect against inflation and too much control by authorities. At the same time, new rules have made it easier for people to include Bitcoin in their retirement plans, which was not encouraged before. Saylor sees this as proof that Bitcoin is here to stay. “No force on Earth can stop an idea whose time has come,” he said. “Bitcoin is digital capital and maybe the most explosive idea of the era.”
Still, not all companies are rushing to buy Bitcoin. Some major corporations have rejected proposals to invest in it, despite arguments that they could miss out on a major financial shift. Saylor had even tried to convince one of the biggest tech companies in the world to follow his strategy, but shareholders voted against it.
When it comes to his own company, Saylor has no plans to stop buying Bitcoin. He believes the price will keep rising, making it harder to acquire over time. “We’ll keep buying Bitcoin,” he said. “We expect the price of Bitcoin will keep going up. We think it will get exponentially harder to buy Bitcoin, but we will work exponentially more efficiently to buy Bitcoin.”
Some people worry that if too many big companies and governments start buying Bitcoin, it could go against the original idea of Bitcoin being a decentralized currency not controlled by any single entity. However, Saylor disagrees. He argues that the more different groups and individuals hold Bitcoin, the stronger and more secure the network becomes. “The network is very anti-fragile, and there’s a balance of power here,” he said. “The more actors that come into the ecosystem, the more diverse, the more distributed the protocol is, the more incorruptible it becomes.”
In the end, while Bitcoin adoption by companies is growing, not everyone is convinced it’s the right move. Some businesses have seen their stock prices drop after announcing Bitcoin purchases, while others, like Saylor’s company, have benefited greatly. The debate over whether Bitcoin belongs on a company’s balance sheet is far from over, but one thing is clear—more and more businesses are willing to take the risk. Whether this trend continues or fades away will depend on how Bitcoin performs in the coming years and how investors react to these bold financial moves.
