Even though we probably should not be kissing the asses of anyone in bitcoin, even if they end up serving as a pretty BIG bitcoin spokesperson in a lot of ways.. And surely Saylor ended up coming to bitcoin in a way that was quite aggressive and assertive in terms of his investment of both money and time, as Gachapin pointed out.
He’s more than that. MicroStrategy is a
de facto national intelligence agency for Bitcoin. Hello, what is their core business? Their highly profitable business, the proceeds of which they have used to buy all those bitcoins? Analytics and data mining to guide strategic business decisions.
Business Intelligence.(This also relates to some points on the POW vs. POS thread, where I will reply later.)
I am dismayed that they apparently got blindsided together with everyone else, as someone out there quietly built up terrifically huge short positions and prepared to execute a multi-pronged trashing of the market, timed to hit right after the big Fed meeting. But it’s not surprising. MicroStrategy are no dummies—but (I infer/upon information and belief) Blackrock, Citadel, et al. are no dummies, either. It is sharks vs. sharks, by analogy to “spy vs. spy”.
(Don’t forget that in mid-2020, Saylor himself
very quietly built up MSTR’s initial long position. IIRC, before he publicly announced it, he managed to scoop up something like 0.18% of the total then-existing BTC supply without anyone noticing.)
Not that timely intelligence on that would mean dumping BTC! Not for someone who is in it for the long term. If I had high capital and an inkling that a much higher-capital party was preparing to wreck the market, I would hold BTC long while shorting perps and dated futures, hedging with options, and taking other steps to batten down the hatches and secure my position with the goal of winding up with more BTC
and more dollars at the bottom.
FYI, I also take it as highly significant that
Saylor and his Business Intelligence company more or less suddenly exchanged their saved-up dollars to bitcoins in mid-2020. (They essentially switched their savings account to BTC—before they started exchanging some of their ongoing income into bitcoins,
and using debt to buy even more bitcoins.) That is the action of an
extremely well-informed investor, who had access to mountains of data that you and I have no idea about.
That’s much more significant than his tweets. Helpful though those are (thx, @saylor).
I don't disagree with anything that you are saying, and surely Saylor was a fast studier into bitcoin, but I take him at his word in terms of his explanation that our March 2020 liquidity event (and governmental actions/reactions) surrounding that had triggered his looking into bitcoin.. so actually prior to March 2020 bitcoin was not on his radar.. except that he was largely dismissing it as a big nothing burger.
Sure, Saylor is smart. Sure Saylor has a lot of sophisticated tools, and he articulates various bitcoin fundamentals quite well.
At the same time, he is not really saying anything new in terms of what OG bitcoiners had been saying for at least 6-8 years before he came onto the bitcoin scene... In some sense, the people coming into bitcoin are becoming smarter and smarter, but really they are building off the foundations of various giants and there is some symbioticness in regards to how the information builds, and for sure Saylor has put information together that is quite sophisticated in framing some of the bitcoin matters in new ways - so sure some aspects of bitcoin consciousness is likely changed and better informed and better able to parrot some of his talking points, too.
Maybe I am rambling a wee bit in my not disagreeing agreement with you.. and yeah, it sure is nice that we have Saylor on the bitcoin train.. and even though we can sometimes see his relatively BIG ego coming through some of his interviews, he does seem quite able to restrain various ego aspects and to ongoingly stay on message... and even he seems to recognize and appreciate that he is ONLY one cog in a bitcoin wheel that is much BIGGER than him.. while at the same time he seem to be doing his part to help spread the bitcoin message.. fairly regularly and much more than he needs to be doing.. as
Gachapin mentioned he could be banging hot chicks all daylong from now until he kicks the bucket, but instead he chooses to spend his time talking about various aspects and angles of bitcoin 24/7-ish.
Jay, if you think I seem pessimistic now, you have no idea how I will personally redefine the whole concept of “pessimism” if Bitcoin fails. The world needs Bitcoin.
You can only help yourself in regards to your own mental ways of dealing with the various ways that bitcoin continues to grow (or not), and even if I had used the word pessimism to describe you, I consider you to be overstating both the powers of any potential challengers who want to kill the golden goose, and understating bitcoin's already built in ability (even as a bunch of people) to stave off the various attacks that are likely to be thrown in the direction of bitcoin.
I have already responded to this point, so I doubt that I have much to add, and I doubt that I am even discounting that large attacks can be made onto bitcoin, but I question the extent to which we need to be living as scaredy cats in regards to such attack actions that they may well not be able to coordinate as well as you expect or to be successful.. yeah bitcoin is small and yeah bitcoin could get pushed underground....
I think the most important questions for each of us regards how we are going to allocate ourselves, and really, I had asked you at one point, DW, what is it that you want me (and others to do, exactly), and maybe I don't really want to know the answer to the extent that you have already provided some answers in that direction.
Please don’t incite the wannabe sleuths around here to start guessing which account is his.
On the other hand, it
is an awful coincidence that I started sounding the alarm here in WO about POS being a serious threat to Bitcoin—and then, Saylor tweeted about it. By wannabe-sleuth standards, that amounts to proof that I am Saylor’s super-secret Bitcoin Forum account!
oh gawd!!!!
Is the idea really
that ridiculous? “Asking for a friend”—well, not for
my friend.
My friends are not wannabe-sleuths who shoot off their mouths over irrelevant non-issues based on a few coincidences.
My friends are not possessed of such pettiness and poor judgment.
Needless to say, I myself am aware that the idea is ridiculous. Nonetheless, rules are rules!
Pursuant to my strict policy in such matters, I neither admit nor deny the rumor that I am Saylor’s super-secret Bitcoin Forum account.
oh gawd!!!!
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