MicroStrategy Buys $250M in Bitcoin, Calling the Crypto ‘Superior to Cash’

[JayJuanGee]

He pontificates in every post and his posts are usually idiotic, so I don't respond to him anymore because I've learned it's a waste of time.

Yes.  Of course, you are amazing.  Humble, too.   

 You can't hedge the volatility of an asset by moving into an asset with higher volatility, that defeats the purpose of the hedge.  

Oh wow.  Learn something new everyday.  It is only possible to hedge an asset by choosing/using a less volatile asset.  That makes a lot of sense.

If you want to argue that eventually bitoin will prove to be less volatile than the dollar, fine, but I'm not interested in that speculation because it's unknowable.

It is unknowable and nearly irrelevant.

One thing that is almost guaranteed with bitcoin is that it is going to be volatile for a considerable amount of time.  You could almost bank on bitcoin being volatile, rather than it not being volatile.

So like I originally said, bitcoin won't be an effective hedge until the dollar's volatility is greater than bitcoin's, which would likely not be until the dollar experiences hyperinflation.

What a lame theory.  But hey, peeps have rights to their theories and they can strategize and allocate their finances in accordance with their theories, and see how it plays out.

By the way, sometimes someone might have a lame theory regarding why bitcoin is not a good investment asset (opinions vary of course), and then if that someone decides to NOT invest in bitcoin because of such lame theory, that would be worse than just reducing their allocation.  So, frequently we talk about getting off zero, when it comes to bitcoin, and personally I suggest that beginners consider a 1% to 10% allocation, and then as they are investing and working towards reaching their BTC investment allocation target they can study their own personal financial and psychological circumstances as well as studying bitcoin and thereafter tweak their BTC allocation in accordance with what they learn or begin to believe about bitcoin as an investment.. .accordingly, concerns about volatility would be a reason to reduce allocation towards bitcoin, gravitating more towards the lower end of the 1% to 10% allocation or perhaps taking certain kinds of trading actions rather than justifications to go to zero in their BTC allocation.... 

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[amishmanish]

the line of thought JJG is trying to push through, though in that typical non-endearing way that maximalists have.

--snip--If my ideas about hedging are off or incorrect, then I am open to hearing about that.  I still stand by the positions that I had already attempted to make in regards to what appears to be jaysabi's inadequate and inferior ways of attempting to consider hedging, and sure if I misunderstood what I considered to be largely lame-ass points, then please let me know what that misunderstanding might have been.

Your idea is not wrong. That "maximalism" comment was basically making an excuse for all Bitcoiners in general, LOL. Newbies and Nocoiners want Bitcoiners to be "nice" to them just like the Alt-coiners and scammers. They fail to take into account that they are nicer because they want your money and time. Bitcoiners aren't "nice" because there is no Bitcoin corporation trying to push Bitcoin to them. It has always been inspired by Satoshi's "If you don't believe or don't get it, I don't have the time to convince you, sorry".

That kind of straight-forwardness is off-putting to many and they just love to close their mind to further argument, like @Jaysabi is doing here.

In response to your post, my point was that bitcoin's value as a "long term hedge" is undefinable because bitcoin has an extremely limited operating history and therefore a "long term track record" has never been established because it hasn't been around long enough to have one.  What we do know unequivocally is that bitcoin's volatility is many magnitudes greater than the dollar's and that makes it a poor hedge.  You can't hedge the volatility of an asset by moving into an asset with higher volatility, that defeats the purpose of the hedge.  If you want to argue that eventually bitoin will prove to be less volatile than the dollar, fine, but I'm not interested in that speculation because it's unknowable. So like I originally said, bitcoin won't be an effective hedge until the dollar's volatility is greater than bitcoin's, which would likely not be until the dollar experiences hyperinflation.

What you are talking about is a correct but very narrow take on "Hedge effectiveness" for currency volatility; specifically Bitcoin vs Dollar. That is why you are repeatedly making the "hyperinflation" point.

Hedging is basically a Risk management strategy. Measures of "Hedging effectiveness" are both qualitative and quantitative. How to define it is something that the respective institutions' Accountants and Risk managers have to decide when they are diversifying into Bitcoin. As far as I know, those analysis are not in public domain.  What we do know is that multiple institutions have taken positons in BTC. The basic idea behind that "hedging" for corporations as well as individuals is what JJG said here:

--snip-- actual considerations that institutions or individuals might be making when the(y) choose to allocate some portion of their overall investment portfolio to bitcoin (whether we are referring to some kind of modest hedge amount, such as 1%-10% that I recommend for beginners)

If you are not trying to wrap your head around it simply on the basis of "Bitcoin isn't a great hedge against dollar volatility" in the short term, and does not have long enough history or the long term, sorry to say but that is just a stupid, Nocoiner reason.

[JayJuanGee]

the line of thought JJG is trying to push through, though in that typical non-endearing way that maximalists have.

--snip--If my ideas about hedging are off or incorrect, then I am open to hearing about that.  I still stand by the positions that I had already attempted to make in regards to what appears to be jaysabi's inadequate and inferior ways of attempting to consider hedging, and sure if I misunderstood what I considered to be largely lame-ass points, then please let me know what that misunderstanding might have been.

Your idea is not wrong. That "maximalism" comment was basically making an excuse for all Bitcoiners in general, LOL. Newbies and Nocoiners want Bitcoiners to be "nice" to them just like the Alt-coiners and scammers. They fail to take into account that they are nicer because they want your money and time.

Personally, I believe that I am sufficiently nice to every single member, even members that I do not like... which actually I try not to hold grudges, so if members share good ideas, I don't mind recognizing those kinds of substantive contributions.

Of course, some folks (readers of the thread versus members who might actively participate), might perceive that some of us longer term bitcoiners are being too meanies to some of the members who are seeming to throw out random bitcoin naysayer theories or even purposefully engage in tactics to avoid substantive interactions - so maybe they might be trying to sell some kind of idea, shill a product or just derail the thread with off-topic nonsense, so I believe that it is likely a good thing to "call out" such members even though the interaction can seem to cause more clutter in and of itself.

Regarding some shitcoiners who come to bitcoin threads and then they might try to relate their shitcoin to the thread, and sometimes those kinds of attempts to present shitcoin ideas are considerably off-topic, even if they might be tolerated for a while, but sure it could lead to a bit of hostility and confrontation because they are off topic and largely derailing.

On the other hand, there may be some claims that bitcoiners are too meanie to shitcoiners, and in some sense they might be wanting to ploy bitcoiners into recognizing their shitcoin as if it were a plausible alternative or even for the bitcoiner to acknowledge that their shitcoin scam is acting in good faith.  If they get the bitcoiner to treat their shitcoin in such a mutual respect and equality kind of way, they have won half the battle.  

We see this kind of nonsense with Ethereum on a very regular basis, but Ethereum is not the ONLY shitcoin that attempts to just put out nonsense talking points to suggest that it has a right to being talked about as if it were some kind of mutually respected equivalent product that is merely offering something different (but equal blah blah blah).. so to suggest nonsense about equal but different... ... and I personally am not even going to concede that much when engaging with those kinds of talking points because those shit projects that are barely even working (except to perpetuate scams) do not deserve such concessions..   I am not even saying that you might not be able to make a shitton of money, especially in the short term when that illiquid nonsense is pumpening.. but merely having pumpening potential does not cause a shit coin to become valuable.. especially for long term HODLers.. and sure similar ideas exist with doggie coin or the various bcashes, various ethereum competitors and way to many to name, for sure.. getting into ICOs and purported Defi and NFT nonsense, too.. oh my?  oh my?..  

Oh there are also nonsense propositions that if you recognize and diversify into various shitcoins because they happen to be the top 5, 10, 20, 100, or whatever on Coinmarket cap, then you are actually filtering out less valuable projects and presuming merely because such shitcoin might be showing up in the top whatever of the Coinmarket cap that it means something of potential value or that it is within a similar camp as bitcoin, just whatever fraction of value based on whatever market cap it happens to show.. .. in other words, various ways to deceive and to create misleading impressions of false equivalencies in comparison to bitcoin.  

Bitcoiners aren't "nice" because there is no Bitcoin corporation trying to push Bitcoin to them.

Of course that is another problematic area in which quite a few shitcoiners do end up employing paid persons to propagate their nonsense, and sure we might not even be able to know who is paying some of the accounts spewing out nonsense, whether it is some shitcoin, some shitcoin consortium or maybe a government or a bank.. and one of the weirdnesses (or maybe awkwardnesses) would be that these various deceiving and misleading entities may well find alliances with each other because they want to topple or at least try to slow down dee king.

It has always been inspired by Satoshi's "If you don't believe or don't get it, I don't have the time to convince you, sorry".

That is true, but I believe that sometimes there still can be some value to spend some time to attempt to clarify the record or just not to leave some of those misleading statements out there on public threads.

I am pretty sure that there are not too many examples where Satoshi was actually showing some level of impatience - but there are also ONLY so many hours in the day, too.

Of course I was not even participating in various Bitcoin forums in 2010 or earlier, and I only started looking at Bitcoin forums in late 2013 - yet even with me, I can appreciate that there is so much more quality information that is available in various forums, b ut still sometimes it can take a while to figure out which sources of information are  better than others, which can be quite a task for newbies, and sometimes newbies end up getting mislead and confused if some subjects are not at least attempted to clear up (or to attempt to show another point of view).

That kind of straight-forwardness is off-putting to many and they just love to close their mind to further argument, like @Jaysabi is doing here.

Sometimes guys like that do end up coming around, but sometimes they do not, so some members could get thrown off -- and I understand even with my own style, some members will sometimes get confused by the length of some of my responses.. so I do try to show that I am open to discussion and try NOT to get emotional about responses of other members because that would likely even make the matter more confusing.

Surely, I would not mind finding out if there might be some way that I am getting confused by the concept of hedging, and surely many of us already know that there can be advantages with having some volatile assets in our investment portfolios.. and surely one of the problems (if "problem" is the right word choice?) with bitcoin is that over the years of its existence so far, it has a vast majority of days in which it is volatile to the downside, so anyone investing into bitcoin has to be careful in terms of making sure that s/he is "in" during those volatile days to the upside because they are very difficult to know when those upside days are actually going to come and come and come and then fail to correct for a decent period of time.  

Another volatility "problem" with bitcoin is that if you zoom out, you should be able to fairly obviously recognize that historically and in the long term, bitcoin's volatility has been so much disproportionate to the UPside that there ends up being almost NO other asset class that even comes close to it, especially the longer that you zoom out.  Even though there is no guarantee that bitcoin's future price performance is going to look like its past price performance and even if it seems that the evidence quite strongly supports that with the passage of time, bitcoin's volatility is going down, but at the same time, bitcoin seems to continue to be a very great asymmetric bet.. with ongoingly great upside performance possibilities (even though again, not guaranteed).

[The Sceptical Chymist]

By the way, this post is not meant as a personal attack, even though i use strong language.. I am talking about the ideas contained in your post, not you specifically.

I take no offense; I'm no expert in economics or hedging, so opposing viewpoints are welcome (at least for me).

I just saw a link to this WSJ article about bitcoin (it's behind a paywall unfortunately), which mentions that MSTR is selling bonds in order to buy bitcoin.  They're actually taking on debt in order to increase their bitcoin holdings, which I find to be incredible.  Again, I have no clue what their shareholders think about this, but it's a massively ballsy move to do that--that CEO is obviously so bullish on bitcoin that he's betting on it going up much more than whatever interest those bonds pay.  And man, for his sake I hope he's right.  If bitcoin were to suddenly tank, I'm pretty sure there would be some kind of shareholder revolt.

[JayJuanGee]

By the way, this post is not meant as a personal attack, even though i use strong language.. I am talking about the ideas contained in your post, not you specifically.

I take no offense; I'm no expert in economics or hedging, so opposing viewpoints are welcome (at least for me).

I just saw a link to this WSJ article about bitcoin (it's behind a paywall unfortunately), which mentions that MSTR is selling bonds in order to buy bitcoin.  They're actually taking on debt in order to increase their bitcoin holdings, which I find to be incredible.  Again, I have no clue what their shareholders think about this, but it's a massively ballsy move to do that--that CEO is obviously so bullish on bitcoin that he's betting on it going up much more than whatever interest those bonds pay.  And man, for his sake I hope he's right.  If bitcoin were to suddenly tank, I'm pretty sure there would be some kind of shareholder revolt.

Maybe it is good that we cannot read behind the paywall ?  Not to be so gloom about the misinformation that sometimes can come through some of the mainstream renditions of what is going on.

In some senses, I become more dependent on members such as fillippone and maybe even some others to tell me what is really going on or to issue an updated chart in order to distinguish what is different from offer 1, versus offer 2, versus offer 3 versus what I believe is going to be Microstrategy's offer 4.

The first three are listed in the below chart listed by fillippone with the latest $500 million (which I am characterizing as offer 3) being listed as a kind of redundancy that may well get filled in later in terms of what is the split between what portion the American investors took of the $500 million versus the non-Americans.  Also, you can see from the chart that usually the MSTR buying and announcement comes several days after the "issue date," which was yesterday, which would imply that this week MSTR is in the process of buying BTC for that offer 3 - unless this time is different.. which we do not have evidence to say that this time really is different... in terms of the order of the buying coming after the issue date.

My understanding in terms of the $1 billion amount of offer 4 that was announced through an s-3 yesterday is a form of stock offering that seems to suggest that either MSTR would be selling some Class A shares that they already own.

The latest that I checked today their stocks are $614 on the open market, suggesting that MSTR would have to sell around 1.6 million MSTR shares to reach $1billion.. and my understanding is that those class A shares have 1/10 the voting power of class B shares, and Saylor owns most of the class B shares (see the OP of this thread for voting rights descriptions). 

Again, I cannot figure out if they are just selling some company shares that they already own or if they might be issuing some new shares or maybe both?

I surely have misunderstood the significance of various other earlier MSTR announcements, so I would not be surprised if I don't understand the actual details of this potential $1billion situation very well either.

[amishmanish]

That kind of straight-forwardness is off-putting to many and they just love to close their mind to further argument, like @Jaysabi is doing here.

Sometimes guys like that do end up coming around, but sometimes they do not, so some members could get thrown off -- and I understand even with my own style, some members will sometimes get confused by the length of some of my responses.. so I do try to show that I am open to discussion and try NOT to get emotional about responses of other members because that would likely even make the matter more confusing.

That pretty much summarizes your approach. You spend considerable effort in engaging and i have taken inspiration from the conviction many a times. And LOL@ the self-awareness.. .

Again, I cannot figure out if they are just selling some company shares that they already own or if they might be issuing some new shares or maybe both?

I surely have misunderstood the significance of various other earlier MSTR announcements, so I would not be surprised if I don't understand the actual details of this potential $1billion situation very well either.

In the earlier sales and raises, it was always explicitly mentioned that the proceeds will be used for buying up Bitcoin. This time, it hasn't specified that it'll just be Bitcoin. Additionally, this also seems to be a prospectus about what Microstrategy actually does as an enterprise. It also is looking to link Bitcoin to their analytics software business. Sample this:

We believe that our bitcoin acquisition strategy is complementary to our enterprise analytics software and services business, as we believe that our bitcoin and related activities in support of the bitcoin network enhance awareness of our brand and can provide opportunities to secure new customers for our analytics offerings. We are also exploring opportunities to apply bitcoin-related technologies such as blockchain analytics into our software offerings.

This seems to be a well-timed marketing push to generate interest in the company when all eyes are on them. This pretty much is Saylor's business strategy. While it is great that he is going all-in, I feel apprehensive that performance of Saylor and the company is getting linked to Bitcoin, at least for the short term.

[JayJuanGee]

That kind of straight-forwardness is off-putting to many and they just love to close their mind to further argument, like @Jaysabi is doing here.

Sometimes guys like that do end up coming around, but sometimes they do not, so some members could get thrown off -- and I understand even with my own style, some members will sometimes get confused by the length of some of my responses.. so I do try to show that I am open to discussion and try NOT to get emotional about responses of other members because that would likely even make the matter more confusing.

That pretty much summarizes your approach. You spend considerable effort in engaging and i have taken inspiration from the conviction many a times. And LOL@ the self-awareness.. .

Again, I cannot figure out if they are just selling some company shares that they already own or if they might be issuing some new shares or maybe both?

I surely have misunderstood the significance of various other earlier MSTR announcements, so I would not be surprised if I don't understand the actual details of this potential $1billion situation very well either.

In the earlier sales and raises, it was always explicitly mentioned that the proceeds will be used for buying up Bitcoin. This time, it hasn't specified that it'll just be Bitcoin. Additionally, this also seems to be a prospectus about what Microstrategy actually does as an enterprise. It also is looking to link Bitcoin to their analytics software business. Sample this:

We believe that our bitcoin acquisition strategy is complementary to our enterprise analytics software and services business, as we believe that our bitcoin and related activities in support of the bitcoin network enhance awareness of our brand and can provide opportunities to secure new customers for our analytics offerings. We are also exploring opportunities to apply bitcoin-related technologies such as blockchain analytics into our software offerings.

This seems to be a well-timed marketing push to generate interest in the company when all eyes are on them. This pretty much is Saylor's business strategy. While it is great that he is going all-in, I feel apprehensive that performance of Saylor and the company is getting linked to Bitcoin, at least for the short term.

At this point I am tentatively thinking that their first three offers were various kind of debt instruments, and this last offer is issuing or selling  Class A stock (minority voting).... , and the last one seems to have some flexibility contained therein, in terms of timing and in terms of going "up to" $1billion of issuance.  I believe that they described that they had spent $100k on the filing fee, so they are likely to use the option to sell "up to" $1billion in Class A stock through such cash generation.

Furthermore, even if they had bought bitcoin with the previous three instruments and intend to buy bitcoin through the fourth way, the last one of issuing/selling Class A stock does seem to require them to describe their business through the s-3 and perhaps it is optional whether their description attempts to connect why they have transitioned the business from a primarily software business to what might be characterized as a business that is bitcoin obsessed.., yet I would imagine that any kind of public company needs to attempt to perform the fine dance of disclosures in such a way that no one can really claim that they are being mislead or deceived regarding what the company does or plans to do, even if they are in a process of transitioning a business in ways that might not be completely locked into a specific kind of activity - not that anyone is going to describe themselves as being in the business of being crazy and obsessed in regards to bitcoin, even if they (MSTR/Saylor) are both attempting to continue to perform some of their traditional competencies (and they surely have cashflow doing those traditional services) but at the same time to establish through the s-3 disclosure that they are NOT just buying bitcoin blindly, but also are considering various possible ways to connect both businesses (their traditional competencies and perhaps competencies that they are still developing and considering related to their bitcoin acquisitions in the last year).

[Daltonik]

After the decision to spend $1.5 billion to buy additional bitcoins, MicroStrategy's share price rose by 5.36% against the market, Tesla's quotes fell by 2.97%, Coinbase by 2.88%.

An interview with MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor was released on CNBC https://twitter.com/CNBCFastMoney/status/1404916326527811595

[fillippone]

Again, I cannot figure out if they are just selling some company shares that they already own or if they might be issuing some new shares or maybe both?

I surely have misunderstood the significance of various other earlier MSTR announcements, so I would not be surprised if I don't understand the actual details of this potential $1billion situation very well either.

According to my sources, they don't own many of their shares.
So I think they will raise new capital, offering shares.
Common people's "Bitcoin EFT".

I guess how long it will take until they just stop selling their software, as they are pretending to be a software company, and not only an envelope for bitcoins.

[JayJuanGee]

Again, I cannot figure out if they are just selling some company shares that they already own or if they might be issuing some new shares or maybe both?

I surely have misunderstood the significance of various other earlier MSTR announcements, so I would not be surprised if I don't understand the actual details of this potential $1billion situation very well either.

According to my sources, they don't own many of their shares.
So I think they will raise new capital, offering shares.
Common people's "Bitcoin EFT".

I guess how long it will take until they just stop selling their software, as they are pretending to be a software company, and not only an envelope for bitcoins.

One thing is to operate profitable versus unprofitable divisions, and another thing is to operate two profitable divisions, and maybe one division has a lot more volatility and the other division has more of an ongoing cashflow in the territory of $100million plus per year.  Of course, a business could grow away from being interested in one area even though it is profitable, but I am currently speculating that the steady cashflow aspect of one aspect of their business is not a bad thing in terms of complementing their abilities to raise cash if needed.  

They could operate in various kinds of fluctuating and flexible manners for years, if they do not get themselves into trouble or over extend themselves, and surely many of us have already considered their approach to be quite risky and daring and Saylor seems to enjoy his fame and various innovations in regards to the way that he is structuring his business.. and again hopefully ways that do not get him or his business in trouble in the coming years in this seemingly crazy-ass market, and sure if he ends up gambling correctly and we get another wave up from here in the bitcoin price in the next six months or could possibly drag out for a year or more from now, then the whole matter could play out well for him and his company financially and even in terms of being continued to be recognized as a thought leader in the bitcoin arena (even though really he is ONLY less than a year into the bitcoin scene in terms of becoming bitcoin famous).

Look at the date that you started this thread, fillippone.  It was August 11, 2020.. and really Saylor had just made some of his first large bitcoin purchases on behalf of his company but we heard that he had bought some stash of BTC for himself in around June or July but was not public about much of the matter until around the time that you started this thread.. and Saylor became famous almost immediately for the way that he went about making his first purchases and articulating his studying into the matter and deciding to act and the various seeming double downing that he has been making in ongoing ways ever since.. Seems that Saylor must get some enjoyment in how famous he has become in relatively recent times.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

So I think they will raise new capital, offering shares.

The article I linked to a few posts above says that MSTR is selling bonds, i.e., taking on debt, in order to buy bitcoin.  So basically they're buying bitcoin using a credit card with an enormous credit limit.  I was a bit shocked when I read that, because no company has ever done that before (that I know of at least).

I guess you could now say MSTR is balls-deep in bitcoin.  I hate that juvenile term, but it's been said before on this forum many times and it's absolutely fitting in this case.  MSTR would have a hell of a hard time unwinding their position in bitcoin without crashing the market, that's how deep they're in to it.  It's almost as if the CEO wants to corner the market in bitcoin, like the Hunt brothers did with silver in 1980.

[JayJuanGee]

So I think they will raise new capital, offering shares.

The article I linked to a few posts above says that MSTR is selling bonds, i.e., taking on debt, in order to buy bitcoin.  So basically they're buying bitcoin using a credit card with an enormous credit limit.  I was a bit shocked when I read that, because no company has ever done that before (that I know of at least).

Did you listen to Saylor in that above linked interview in Daltonik's post?

It is good to hear it from the horse's mouth, and surely Saylor concedes and even seems to be boasting about the various kinds of innovate financing approaches that they are taking.  The first three instruments seem to be various kinds of debt, and sure you can call them a kind of credit card, and the latest one seems to be issuing stocks. so sure you could call that debt too if you want, but still each of the financial instruments are designed in differing kinds of ways that could cause obligations to pay back, but if someone buys stock, then there is no obligation to pay that back, the buyer is gambling on the company or at least buying into the company with a kind of expectation that the value of the stock will go up after they buy it.. whether they are investing short term or long term... but if the whole company or the value of the stock goes to zero,  it would not have to pay back the stock, unless there were some kind of circumstances to show the company responsible for the gambling that other people (investors) decided to take.

I guess you could now say MSTR is balls-deep in bitcoin.  I hate that juvenile term, but it's been said before on this forum many times and it's absolutely fitting in this case. 

That is a fair characterization.  Many of the financial companies are talking about 1% or 2% investing into bitcoin, and Paul Tutor Jones recently advocated 5% investing into bitcoin.  Back in August 2020, Saylor had put around 50% or more of cash reserves into bitcoin and many people thought that was a bit much, but then he kept doubling down and doubling down, so of course, the use of various kinds of debt instruments may well cause calculations that he is more than 100% into bitcoin if measuring his various kinds of investments or even cash reserves, but he is taking company assets and leveraging them, and even company good will and leveraging that, but part of the problem of asserting that he is overly leveraged is that the price of bitcoin keeps going up, so on paper the valuations are way less than 100%, but of course, if the BTC price goes crashing down, as you suggest to be possible (and most of us know it to be quite possible from experience), then his valuations may well be negative.  Even in the case that MSTR valuations are negative, they have already established at least a 5 year plan, so the evaluations could stay negative for long periods of time, but the more important and material time would be where the valuations might be or anticipated to be around the 5 year timeline... or maybe even further out, unless you believe that MSTR might be forced into some kind of liquidation event before the 5 year plus timeline that they have already projected.

MSTR would have a hell of a hard time unwinding their position in bitcoin without crashing the market, that's how deep they're in to it. 

That statement is filled with a few pretty BIG presumptions, The Pharmacist.  Of course, there are market scenarios in which what you are saying would be true, but we are currently NOT in such a market scenario and also there is no sign or indication that Saylor either wants to sell or plans to sell BTC any time soon or even at a loss, for whatever that's worth.  Actually, part of Saylor's issue (or might we call it a "problem"?) is that he does not even seem inclined to want to sell at a profit.  He seems to just want to keep buying bitcoin.. and gosh if we get a bitcoin run in this upcoming scenario.. lets say anywhere between $250k and  $500k, I would prefer that he shaves off some profits at that point in time, and he seems disinclined to want to sell, even in those kinds of circumstances but surely, he should not be telling us when he sells before he does it, and hopefully he sells some as the price is going up rather than selling as the price is going down which seems to be what people fear that he would do but is really not in his interest to engage in such a behavior (and surely, it seems pretty dumb to presume Saylor gone rogue scenarios, even though sure, anything could happen, but seems better to be presuming more likely scenarios rather than less likely scenarios)..

It's almost as if the CEO wants to corner the market in bitcoin, like the Hunt brothers did with silver in 1980.

Actually cornering the market could be a part of his objective, but he has a considerable ways to go before even getting close to that.. .. but surely, let's say that the $500 million purchase puts him to around 104k BTC, and then another $1billion puts him around 125k BTC, and maybe his personal stash is 25k BTC, so that would be 150k BTC, which surely is a pretty large stash of BTC.  If he gets up to 210k BTC that would be around 1% of the ever potential bitcoin supply, but we know that some of those coins are lost, so sure maybe he gets up to 1.5% of the BTC supply.  So has he cornered the BTC market?  He already is a pretty damned BIG player in BTClandia.. and so do any of us care?  Should we care?  What's he going to do with that supposed power?  Pump sand dump the market?  Threaten to dump if he does not get his way?  I think that it is problematic to be presuming malevolent motives, if that's where you might be going with some of this worry, The Pharmacist.

Personally, it seems a BIG SO WHAT? to me.  Of course, with more bitcoin, then he could develop more in the bitcoin space and have more money (value) to influence people or to try to influence people, but again, so what?  To me it is seeming like a way to attempt to frame a positive as if it were a negative, and bitcoin seems to be already built around creating of various monetary incentives.. and getting rich or attempting to get rich is not something that would have been unknown to satoshi or part of something that might push use cases or competition incentives in bitcoin.  So if Saylor tries to get more bitcoin then others might try to out Saylor, Saylor.. and since Saylor is Saylor, he would not want to be out Saylored.

 

[fillippone]

So I think they will raise new capital, offering shares.

The article I linked to a few posts above says that MSTR is selling bonds, i.e., taking on debt, in order to buy bitcoin.  So basically they're buying bitcoin using a credit card with an enormous credit limit.  I was a bit shocked when I read that, because no company has ever done that before (that I know of at least).

This is the essence of capital markets. Capital markets serve the issue of transferring capitals in place, and time, from who is long capital (the investors) and he who needs the capital (the borrower). I mentioned the time, as there must be an (at least equal- bar the negative rates nightmare) opposite flow in the other direction in the future, to repay the investor for the (credit) risk he's taking.

Equity and debt are two different, yet similar ways of transferring capital. The point is that both of them represent a "debt" of the issuer toward the investor, something that must be repaid in the future.

So yes, every company in the world is using this gigantic credit card. MSTR is using this to buy bitcoin, the first in history. The plan has worked out for the moment, and the "bank" has raised their credit limit, as they continue to issue new debt at a substantial discount. This is not granted for the future, if the market lowers the credit they give to MSRT, as starts doubting of their capability to repay back such debt.

It's almost as if the CEO wants to corner the market in bitcoin, like the Hunt brothers did with silver in 1980.

I think JJG already answered quite profusely on this, but I want to add a reason on why this couldn't be the case if everything goes according to MSTR plan:



To summarise, if bitcoin grows in value in the next few years, the amount of bitcoin they will have to sell to repay their debt is going to be only a tiny fraction of the amount of bitcoin they bought, being their debt dollar denominated.
If you think, it's the exact same scheme people were using in 2007 with housing markets: "buy a house with debt, use the house selling price to repay the debt cashing in the difference, rinse and repeat in bigger size".

[amishmanish]

To summarise, if bitcoin grows in value in the next few years, the amount of bitcoin they will have to sell to repay their debt is going to be only a tiny fraction of the amount of bitcoin they bought, being their debt dollar denominated.
If you think, it's the exact same scheme people were using in 2007 with housing markets: "buy a house with debt, use the house selling price to repay the debt cashing in the difference, rinse and repeat in bigger size".

The thought is scary and got me thinking of reasons why this parallel shouldn't be drawn. I'll posit that underlying assumption of The Housing Bubble was that House prices always go up. While a lot of Bitcoin enthusiasts love to have similar notions, most market participants understand that this assumption is not correct. They are mostly ready to manage their positions at the first sign of trouble. This is because Bitcoin is a far more liquid asset than housing.

Additionally, those in a position to take on debt based on Bitcoin positions are only a very few, maybe just corporations and not necessarily individual buyers as in the case of housing. Within the decentralized Lending scenario, where this is a thing on individual scale, the BTC is often over-collateralized or simply locked for a very small interest rate.

So yeah, thankfully, the similarities are few.

[ziyaaa]

I have heard that MicroStrategy is preparing to buy 500 million dollars worth Bitcoin. They really want to make a big profit with Bitcoin. They say that they support Bitcoin against cash but their reason is not just that for making an investment into it of course.

[fillippone]

This time I expect them to be at least as efficient as they were lat time: so I expect them to complete the buys in a couple of days, with announcements made public late Tuesday Wednesday.

I am pretty disappointed, I didn’t expect it would have took so long for Microstrategy to buy those bitcoin. I am wondering if they changed their buying strategy. Also, weak BTC price should help them buying without squeezing up the price.

[thecodebear]

Have they announced yet if they bought the half billion dollars of Bitcoin? Seems like normally they do it right after they get the money.

[thecodebear]

By the way, this post is not meant as a personal attack, even though i use strong language.. I am talking about the ideas contained in your post, not you specifically.

I take no offense; I'm no expert in economics or hedging, so opposing viewpoints are welcome (at least for me).

I just saw a link to this WSJ article about bitcoin (it's behind a paywall unfortunately), which mentions that MSTR is selling bonds in order to buy bitcoin.  They're actually taking on debt in order to increase their bitcoin holdings, which I find to be incredible.  Again, I have no clue what their shareholders think about this, but it's a massively ballsy move to do that--that CEO is obviously so bullish on bitcoin that he's betting on it going up much more than whatever interest those bonds pay.  And man, for his sake I hope he's right.  If bitcoin were to suddenly tank, I'm pretty sure there would be some kind of shareholder revolt.

I mean it's a pretty safe bet as long as they have cash flow to pay the interest. I think the interest rate was set at 6.xx%. And bitcoin on average goes up by 100+% a year the past 5 years, and considering it just dropped 50% it's a great time to do this sort of thing. Apparently there was like $1.5 billion trying to buy in, but Saylor limited it to $500 million in order to be able to handle the interest payments.

I do note that the last time they raised money for buying Bitcoin there was literally no interest paid out on it. I think Saylor is probably getting close to the end of his Bitcoin buying sprees if they went from paying no interest to paying 6+% on this one. They've got the $1 billion equity sale over time that they filed for which they plan to use partially for Bitcoin buying as well. I wouldn't be surprised if some of that equity sale will be used to have an emergency fund of cash to cover interest payments so they don't have to sell any of their Bitcoin and let their balance sheet just keep ballooning. I'm guessing that'll be the last of their big bitcoin accumulation buys, though I'm sure they'll keep DCAing $10-$15 million at a time.

[perryxi2]

whether they really buy or just a Fud that makes BTC price go up for them to profit, when they bought a bunch of BTC when it Dumped to $ 30k recently.

[fulcare]

By the way, this post is not meant as a personal attack, even though i use strong language.. I am talking about the ideas contained in your post, not you specifically.

I take no offense; I'm no expert in economics or hedging, so opposing viewpoints are welcome (at least for me).

I just saw a link to this WSJ article about bitcoin (it's behind a paywall unfortunately), which mentions that MSTR is selling bonds in order to buy bitcoin.  They're actually taking on debt in order to increase their bitcoin holdings, which I find to be incredible.  Again, I have no clue what their shareholders think about this, but it's a massively ballsy move to do that--that CEO is obviously so bullish on bitcoin that he's betting on it going up much more than whatever interest those bonds pay.  And man, for his sake I hope he's right.  If bitcoin were to suddenly tank, I'm pretty sure there would be some kind of shareholder revolt.

I mean it's a pretty safe bet as long as they have cash flow to pay the interest. I think the interest rate was set at 6.xx%. And bitcoin on average goes up by 100+% a year the past 5 years, and considering it just dropped 50% it's a great time to do this sort of thing. Apparently there was like $1.5 billion trying to buy in, but Saylor limited it to $500 million in order to be able to handle the interest payments.

I do note that the last time they raised money for buying Bitcoin there was literally no interest paid out on it. I think Saylor is probably getting close to the end of his Bitcoin buying sprees if they went from paying no interest to paying 6+% on this one. They've got the $1 billion equity sale over time that they filed for which they plan to use partially for Bitcoin buying as well. I wouldn't be surprised if some of that equity sale will be used to have an emergency fund of cash to cover interest payments so they don't have to sell any of their Bitcoin and let their balance sheet just keep ballooning. I'm guessing that'll be the last of their big bitcoin accumulation buys, though I'm sure they'll keep DCAing $10-$15 million at a time.

Is it publicly known how much Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general they are holding in total? I just know they've been constantly on the news for buying. Since when are they buying? Have they been early adopters? It is just impressive to see how bullish they are and how they repeatedly say that this is still the early stage of crypto. They are probably right given the astonishing pace of innovation we have seen so far and we can still expect to continue throughout the future.