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

[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?

You can read this thread and find out.

They have 92k BTC and they have authorization to buy BTC with another $500 million (whether they have bought yet or not is still not clear)

They ONLY buy and hold bitcoin, so fuck off with your asking about cryptocurrencies, they do not buy shitcoins... hahahaha.. nothing personal against you, fulcare.   

I just know they've been constantly on the news for buying. Since when are they buying?

Michael Saylor (and thus MSTR) is a newbie to bitcoin, so again you might want to study this thread in regards to the situation, and surely he is an interesting case in terms how quickly he studied the matter, how BIG he went in from the start in August 2020.., how much publicity he has been getting, some of his ongoing doubling down in terms of his buying of bitcoin and how much he seems to be ready, willing and able to share his strategies including giving free seminars on the topic of how to buy BTC (and put BTC on the treasury balance sheets) for BIGGER players.

Have they been early adopters?

Of course, "early adopter" is a relative term, so how the hell is anyone going to know for sure except with the passage of time in regards to how matters turn out.

Of course, the theory is that we remain in relative early stages, and so MSTR seems to be of this mindset in terms of considering how advantaged that they could become to attempt to front run BTC investing and in that regard to have a lot of advantages over other players who are either too slow to act or too non committed in terms of recognizing BTC's current value proposition.

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 might be correct, and they might not.  Surely, many regular bitcoiners believe that they are both right and quite smart to be attacking the matter quite aggressively in such a short period of time.  With the passage of time, we will see how well their aggressive approach works out for them.

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.

Seems that they are probably right, so then anyone studying the situation, whether an individual or an institution has to decide if the behaviors of MSTR is going to affect their own thinking about the matter.  If MSTR is trying to buy all the bitcoins, then there might be some considerations about whether to emulate or just step back and let them buy them all or take some moderated stance to accumulate a sufficient amount of BTC in order to feel comfortable with the possibility that they could be right  - or on the other hand, be prepared in case they might not be correct...

I would imagine that quite a large number of regular forum members have been preparing for BTC prices to go up for some time, so the behavior of MSTR is not totally shocking, even if it seems to be way more aggressive than even the most bullish of bullish members here.... Many times regular peeps do not have cashflows that are great like MSTR nor are they in a position to either leverage a company or to gain publicity for such leverage, so in that sense the behavior of MSTR ends up fitting in a special category that might not be the same as what longer term forum members had been capable of doing, but there likely are a decent number of longer term forum members who feel adequately prepared psychologically and financially for MSTR's seeming ongoingly aggressive approach to BTC.

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.

You are speaking gobble-dee-gook like some kind of butt hurt no coiner who doesn't know shit but wants to spout out some kind of out of touch theory.

I will admit that the behavior of Microstrategies fits into a kind of difficult to believe category, but if we are attempting to categorize the behavior and talk about the BTC price effects that it may have, we should be attempting to stick with reality rather than just making up shit that makes hardly any sense.

Another matter is that it seems to be difficult to know whether MSTR bitcoin buying is having much if any affect on short term BTC price.  Of course, any entity that continues to buy is going to put ongoing pressures on the buy price, but if others do not follow or if the selling (or even the use of financial instruments to short) are stronger than the buying pressures, then of course the BTC price will continue to go down, even if Saylor et al might be buying BTC in lump sums and even 10s of millions of dollars worth regularly on a monthly or so basis.

I would not proclaim to know whether $30,066 is our actual bottom for this particular correction or if there might be more room for more downity.  Looks like we are getting another test of buy support, and sure it is possible that MSTR has already bought.. but really difficult to know, especially if they have not yet announced.  At some point, I would consider that Saylor/MSTR would want to be a bit more strategic about their buys in terms of buying on dips - because at some point they must appreciate that they are HODLing a sufficient amount of BTC to prepare for UP... so in some senses they can help the whole ecosystem and themselves to be buying on dips, too... rather than just buying at whatever the BTC price happens to be at the time - which is what is recommended for a smaller HODLer who is still establishing base BTC accumulation levels - and so it should be logically apparent that even having had accumulated 92k coins or even perhaps over 100k coins by now, MSTR has accumulated a pretty decent base of coins relative to other assets that they might hold or even some cash that they may continue to have available besides the cash that they have borrowed, equity that they have reserved or other cash that might be coming in based on ongoing sales (that are likely to be continuing).

Ugh, thanks for your detailed response!

Believing Saylor that he only recently found out and got involved with crypto is naive if you ask me. I would rather think he personally already loaded his bags and then went all in on it publicly, too. A guy in his position is unlikely to only have found out about Bitcoin in 2020 if I got you right here. If you plan to go public with your buying strategy like Saylor did, it is more likely that he had a few big wallets already.

When I said cryptocurrencies, I am not referring to small and cheap shit coins, but I thought they may also have minor positions in coins like Ethereum, maybe a hand full of others. Anyway, they aren't just talking obviously, they are real about it.

[JayJuanGee]

[edited out]

Ugh, thanks for your detailed response!

Believing Saylor that he only recently found out and got involved with crypto is naive if you ask me.

Have you even read this thread, yet?

Ok.... maybe I am coming out a bit too strongly.. and I should give you a bit more of a chance for the time being, fulcare.

More or less Saylor made representations that he did not really even seriously think about bitcoin until around March 2020.. and then he began to study into it.

There is almost no evidence to NOT take him at his word, unless you are just wanting to exaggerate things, make things up or get involved with baseless conspiracy theories..

yeah.. everyone has a hidden agenda that is contrary to the story that he had already told us.

When Saylor started talking about bitcoin, someone pointed out a 2013 tweet that Saylor had made in which Saylor denigrated bitcoin, and so when Saylor was confronted with that tweet, he said that he could not even recall making that tweet... And, there is nothing inconsistent with him saying that he just started to look into bitcoin and even forgetting that he had said something negative about it in 2013.

I would rather think he personally already loaded his bags and then went all in on it publicly, too.

He said what he did in terms of buying bitcoin, and there is nothing inconsistent with that, either.

Saylor said something like while his company was studying into the bitcoin matter in July/August 2020, Saylor himself had front run his company by about a month and bought a bit more than 17k bitcoin for more than $160million and that would have been for around $9,500 per coin or something like that (and maybe in July-ish).  Right around the time that his company got into bitcoin with the first purchase in August 2020 Saylor started to be public about bitcoin. .and I think that he had a kind of instant fame.. including that he was already quite articulate about why he got into bitcoin right out of the gate.. and he has been more than transparent about a lot of the ongoing purchases of bitcoin by the company, and some folks asserted that he did not need to disclose his prior personal purchase of more than $17k BTC, yet I believe that he was trying to be overly cautious in some of the disclosures that he was making.. and sure it is possible that he bought more BTC than the 17k plus that he said that he bought.. but so fucking what?

I don't recall Saylor making any further disclosures about personal BTC purchases, but it seems that he has probably been buying bitcoin with his personal funds on an ongoing basis since about July 2020.. and deciding NOT to disclose such ongoing personal BTC purchases, but again, so what?   Again, I don't know.. I am just speculating that he probably continued to personally buy BTC in the past year or so (once he started)

A guy in his position is unlikely to only have found out about Bitcoin in 2020 if I got you right here. If you plan to go public with your buying strategy like Saylor did, it is more likely that he had a few big wallets already.

I doubt it is much different than what he already disclosed.

You are wanting to find fire, even though you are having trouble even finding smoke.. but whatever.. perhaps you need to study up on the matter a bit more, instead of just randomly speculating.. based on what you suspect and it does not even line up with the basic facts that are known or account for what is already known.

When I said cryptocurrencies, I am not referring to small and cheap shit coins, but I thought they may also have minor positions in coins like Ethereum, maybe a hand full of others. Anyway, they aren't just talking obviously, they are real about it.

All coins that are not bitcoin are shitcoins, including ethereum.  No need to go into that here.

So far Saylor has not gone down the shitcoin rabbit hole.. and he even stated that he is not interested in various shitcoins, including ethereum.. but sure, at any point, he could change his mind, but so far he seems to have stuck to his conviction that ONLY bitcoin is worth investing too.. in terms of any other projects that might also be in the space that have their own coin.. and part of his rationale is that if you have identified a leader in any sector (which is bitcoin in this case), then there is no need to invest in competitors that are not even close to the leader.  You can watch a short (30 minute) interview that Saylor did in January 2021 and several times goes over the concept of investing in the leader of a sector and NOT investing in various inferior competitors.

At around minute 17 of the interview Saylor talks about the disadvantages of diversifying into losers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ60ehVJYAs

[jaysabi]

And as I've said before, for MSTR's sake I hope bitcoin stays above their average purchase price, because it's a hell of a lot of money they've spent acquiring it, even now taking on debt in order to finance the buy. 

It would also be a good test of their resilience to hold for many years, it's easy when the price is rising, but the pressure starts to mount during big dips, would be interesting to see what his reaction would be.

I get that, but we're not talking about just Michael Saylor here; he isn't buying all of that bitcoin for himself, but for MSTR--and they're publicly traded, which means there's a board of directors and shareholders who might be extremely unhappy should bitcoin tank.  They might start to question why the money used to buy bitcoin wasn't used for their core business instead of using it for a bitcoin buying spree, which also increased the debt on their books.

Again, I truly am hoping that everything works out for MSTR (and for all bitcoin holders), but surely everyone can see what might happen should bitcoin enter a prolonged bear market.  MSTR might even be forced to sell, and that could well be a disaster for everyone else owning bitcoin.  Plus, the more MSTR buys the more centralized bitcoin becomes, even though they're far from cornering the market in it.  I'm hoping Michael Saylor knows when enough is enough.

It's been pointed out many times in various Saylor-related threads, but he has a super majority of the voting power of the company. The board and shareholders don't have the power to check him when it comes to doing what he wants to do.  His net worth is made up predominantly by the shares he owns of the company, so while he's buying bitcoin with the company's money, he's very much doing it for himself.  Everyone else at the company is along for the ride.

[fillippone]

Although, as for me, this is a controversial point. Perhaps, if Bitcoin had grown further, they would not have bought so much at that moment, but would have waited for the correction.

Not so sure, MicroStrategy has all the incentives in seeing bitcoin growing. They of course would benefit in first person of the rise in price, but of course the bigger effect would be the snowballing pressure of the FOMO.
So, for sure they didn’t like this correction.


As per the error made by Chinese, I couldn’t be more happy about this: the less Bitcoin has to do with China, the better.

[oHnK]

As per the error made by Chinese, I couldn’t be more happy about this: the less Bitcoin has to do with China, the better.

After the end of the relationship between BTC and China because of the fud they continue to create, I feel that future price increases will be more stable because the market is no longer worried about the China issue.  The Chinese government will also no longer have any influence in their statement, because the miners have been banned from operating.  Hopefully this passes soon and the crypto investment climate becomes even sexier. BTC is the best financial tech innovation, but everyone is blaming BTC for all acts of abuse such as money laundering or terrorism, even though BTC is the victim of exploitation, and not looking for solutions for this best innovation.

[fillippone]

 The Chinese government will also no longer have any influence in their statement, because the miners have been banned from operating.

I always regretted e the irony of having BTC, the ultimate anarco-capitalist store of value so deeply inter tangled with China, the ultimate statist-centralised-dictatorship.
The fastest this relationship ends, irrespective of the price, the better.

[JayJuanGee]

Bitcoin is going through hard times right now. A drop in price of 50%, mainly caused by news from China about the ban on mining. Michael Saylor commented on this. He said it was China's trillion dollar mistake:

China generated 10 billion a year because they owned 50% of the market share in mining. At the same time, on an annualized basis, the profit increased by 100%. Taking into account the promising growth of bitcoin in the future, these losses can be trillions.

Saylor sees the benefit of being able to buy cheap bitcoin due to Chinese measures. Due to the move, miners were forced to sell off their cryptocurrency, which caused a dump in the market as the supply skyrocketed. This is a good moment for investors. If it weren't for the Chinese, MicroStrategy would have paid several times more for their recent purchases.

Thanks for the video link and your commentary on it, Ratimov.

Although, as for me, this is a controversial point. Perhaps, if Bitcoin had grown further, they would not have bought so much at that moment, but would have waited for the correction.

I am pretty sure that you brought this point up previously, Ratimov.  You have a kind of ongoing skepticism regarding whether Saylor is good his word, and you seem to want to ascribe a kind of BTC price timing strategy that Saylor just does not seem to possess. 

The actions and the words of Saylor has been consistent, and Saylor said that he would have been willing to pay 2x or 3x more for the same coins that he bought at $37k, and I seem almost no reason to doubt him beyond retaining some healthy skepticism that we should have when anyone says anything.  But from my point of view, maintaining healthy skepticism does not rise to the level of either interpreting the opposite of what Saylor says when he has already repeatedly shown that when the BTC price rises he was buying at whatever price was on the table at the moment.  He hardly even seems to be attempting to buy dips.. He just buys whatever the BTC price happens to be which is a kind of DCA and front/loading concept.

As per the error made by Chinese, I couldn’t be more happy about this: the less Bitcoin has to do with China, the better.

After the end of the relationship between BTC and China because of the fud they continue to create, I feel that future price increases will be more stable because the market is no longer worried about the China issue.  

Bullshit, oHnK.. Don't be living in a fantasy.   China FUD is never going to end (or at least it has about a snowballs's chance in hell of ending.

Furthermore, stability is a fantasy too.

We have a war going on right now, which is largely the largest transfer of wealth in history.  Do you believe that such war is not going to happen without volatility?  That's crazy to expect that, even though you are not the ONLY one from whom I have heard those kinds of unrealistic wishes.

Another thing about "stability" is that we are still a low ass level of world adoption of bitcoin.  What do you believe world-wide bitcoin adoption to be?  Not more than 1%, right?

Yeah, we hear many proclamations about 10% of people know about bitcoin or have adopted it or have bought some of it.. right

Snap into reality.  Even educated people and even technologically well connected people either do not own much if any bitcoin, most of them have dumb ideas when it comes to bitcoin, and they believe things like doge coin bitcoin and ethereum are almost the same thing... That's what level of dumb we are dealing with, and there are a lot of motives to keep normies as dumb as possible and for as long as possible... Who the hell is scooping up all the bitcoin?  Guys like Saylor, and sure there are others, but at least Saylor is telling people why he is doing it and not doing it in secret and perhaps some normies might learn from this?  Perhaps?  perhaps?  Don't hold your breath, it is going to take a long time for bitcoin adoption, even if there is good information out there, but many peeps have trouble understanding the good information and absorbing it. 

A couple of days ago, I heard Pomp interview Harry Campbell, and for sure Campbell is a really smart guy talking about Uber and Lyft and also talking about bitcoin at the end of the podcast.  Within about the last 5-10 minutes of the podcast, when Pomp asked Campbell what he thinks about bitcoin, Campbell said that he likes bitcoin a lot, but he recognizes that he is "too late"  blah blah blah... And Pomp really did not respond very well, and sure Pomp was trying to be nice and diplomatic, so I am not really blaming Pomp for his response, but he should have immediately, directly and unambiguously corrected Campbell, and said something like:  "You are a real smart guy Campbell, but when it comes to bitcoin, you are a dumbass.  You are not too late."  hahahahaha.. something like that. 

Anyhow, my point is that there is a lot of nonsense coming from people who seem to be otherwise really smart but seem to truly believe that they are too late to bitcoin, and in the meantime several of these people are likely going to be having to buy bitcoin in the supra $200k levels because they are not recognizing the value of getting into bitcoin now and they are not even on the verge of buying bitocin anytime soon including when we go up to $500k, they are going to need another cycle or two before they end up "having to buy" at whatever is "then the existing price."

The Chinese government will also no longer have any influence in their statement, because the miners have been banned from operating.  

Surely, I agree with you that the Chinese influence is likely to be way, way, way less if they actually do what they say that they are doing... but the influence of China is not going away any time soon.. (whether they are ongoing naysayers, bitcoin attackers or otherwise) that's for sure.

Hopefully this passes soon and the crypto investment climate becomes even sexier.

What do you want to pass?  I doubt that anything related to bitcoin is going to be clean for quite a long time to come.  Bitcoin is a world-wide phenomenon with a lot of opinions about which way it should go, but we know in the end, the maths and science that is already embedded into bitcoin's existing code (to date) has a lot more sway than various attacks, or support or attempts to ignore it.  Bitcoin remains a rolling dynamics situation, so if we do not have one dynamic, then we are going to have another dynamic.  Having dynamics and drama connected with bitcoin comes with the territory, especially if bitcoin continues to gain market cap and market share.. which surely seems to me to be the current and ongoing bitcoin direction whether people, institutions or countries like it or not..

BTC is the best financial tech innovation, but everyone is blaming BTC for all acts of abuse such as money laundering or terrorism, even though BTC is the victim of exploitation, and not looking for solutions for this best innovation.

Let them blame all that they want. In the meantime, stack sats.   You will thank me later.    #justsaying. 

[Dabs]

It would seem MSTR simply buys bitcoin as soon as it has at least $10 to $15 million in cash. Essentially has they are paid or make profits they set aside that amount for purchasing bitcoin.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

The actions and the words of Saylor has been consistent, and Saylor said that he would have been willing to pay 2x or 3x more for the same coins that he bought at $37k, and I seem almost no reason to doubt him beyond retaining some healthy skepticism that we should have when anyone says anything. 

I happen to believe Mr. Saylor and his enthusiasm about bitcoin.  I've seen a couple of interviews with him, and to me there's no doubt he's very passionate about it--but saying he'd pay 2-3 times more for bitcoin than he did is kind of weird for a CEO to say, even if it is MSTR we're talking about.  I just keep wondering what their shareholders think about all of this.  I should probably see if there's some kind of chat board for owners of MSTR stock and if so, what they're saying.

My guess is that a lot of them are bitcoiners, and maybe that's the whole reason some of them bought the stock in the first place. Owning shares of MSTR is partially a play on bitcoin and partially on MSTR as a company that does everything it did prior to scooping up all of that bitcoin.

Anyhow, I don't fault Ratimov for being skeptical--especially since some of the big players in the crypto space have turned out to be charlatans.  You just never know.

[JayJuanGee]

The actions and the words of Saylor has been consistent, and Saylor said that he would have been willing to pay 2x or 3x more for the same coins that he bought at $37k, and I seem almost no reason to doubt him beyond retaining some healthy skepticism that we should have when anyone says anything.  But from my point of view, maintaining healthy skepticism does not rise to the level of either interpreting the opposite of what Saylor says when he has already repeatedly shown that when the BTC price rises he was buying at whatever price was on the table at the moment.  He hardly even seems to be attempting to buy dips.. He just buys whatever the BTC price happens to be which is a kind of DCA and front/loading concept.

When I wrote that post yesterday, I was based on an analysis of the Bitcoin purchase by MicroStrategy during the spring-summer 2021 period.
And if you look at the historical data of their Bitcoin purchases, then it looked like this. When the bitcoin price correction took place, MicroStrategy bought an impressive $489 million: https://twitter.com/michael_saylor/status/1406946140344442882?s=21

If you look at their purchases when the bitcoin price was high enough, then they are not so impressive compared to the June tranche:

March 1 - $15 million purchase: https://twitter.com/michael_saylor/status/1366375915559792640?s=20
March 5 - $10 million purchase: https://twitter.com/michael_saylor/status/1367824821011296257?s=20
March 12 - $15 million purchase: https://twitter.com/michael_saylor/status/1370360546986430467?s=20
April 5 - $15 million purchase: https://twitter.com/michael_saylor/status/1379042960994668548
May 13 - $15 million purchase: https://twitter.com/michael_saylor/status/1392814015181635584?s=21
May 18 - $10 million purchase: https://twitter.com/michael_saylor/status/1394625128257007618?s=21

Based on this data, I suspected that during the pump MicroStrategy buy bitcoin for a symbolic amount (by their standards) to maintain demand and in order to be in sight, so to speak, continue to try to maintain the same MicroStrategy effect that they launched in the past year. And they make the main purchases only when it is most profitable for investment, that is, during a correction. After all, Sailor himself says that he is glad that China dumped bitcoin.

But after reading your post today, I revised the data and saw the February tranche, in which MicroStrategy bought bitcoin for a billion at a rather high price of $52 700. This fact breaks my previous statement and shows that the company buys bitcoin always and at any price. And this is a fact. The rest, I think, will already be speculation.

It seems that your last paragraph is correct, that MSTR is largely buying Bitcoin with whatever cash that comes available as it comes available - and presumably they are holding back enough cash to pay their known pending or even there known soon into the future bills - and hopefully they are not juggling too much of their short-to-medium dollar denominated expenses into bitcoin.  We do know that a couple of months ago, they had agreed to pay their board members in bitcoin, but as far, as I know that paying in bitcoin policy has not extended to employees (or any of their other labor/service/parts contracts that they have to presumably pay on a regular basis). at least not so far.

Maybe I don't know the data well enough either, but I had thought that MSTR was holding off some of their BTC purchases to conduct monthly, but your list of dates of purchases in March, April and May does not really show that.. it shows a bit buy BTC whenever the cash is available and more strongly supporting my assertion that they hardly seem to give any shits about BTC price and just seem to want to get in as soon as possible, no matter what the BTC price (which seems a bit crazy, even to the most BTC bullish of bulls).

Regarding the timing of their BIGGER purchases, such as the $489 million one or some of the other ones that employ those various kinds of "debt instruments", it seems that they might be just announcing those separately, and perhaps they might hold back on some of their company BTC purchases while that kind of money is pending to come available - or maybe they are still buying BTC with their regular cashflow, but just reporting it separately - I do kind of suspect that so far they have not been engaging or employing their regular buys while the funds of such BIGGer buy is coming available.. and maybe it is mostly a logistic matter rather than anything that they are doing with focus and purpose because we know that they have discretion to do whatever Saylor wants, and if Saylor were to order the company to jump, the question would not be whether to jump, but rather how high the jump should be. 

The actions and the words of Saylor has been consistent, and Saylor said that he would have been willing to pay 2x or 3x more for the same coins that he bought at $37k, and I seem almost no reason to doubt him beyond retaining some healthy skepticism that we should have when anyone says anything. 

I happen to believe Mr. Saylor and his enthusiasm about bitcoin.  I've seen a couple of interviews with him, and to me there's no doubt he's very passionate about it--but saying he'd pay 2-3 times more for bitcoin than he did is kind of weird for a CEO to say, even if it is MSTR we're talking about. 

I don't see what is so weird about that statement.

Pretty much he is saying that they (MSTR) were planning to buy BTC no matter what, and the BTC price dropping during this most recent period merely provided a bargain for MSTR.

I just keep wondering what their shareholders think about all of this. 

The details of what the shareholders think is irrelevant in terms of whether they might be buying their own BTC or whether they believe that they already have enough BTC exposure thorugh their holding of MSTR shares.  In other words, their relevant action in terms of whether they hold shares or not is all that matters, so by definition if they hold shares, they are all on board.. if they are thinking about selling and blah blah blah.. who fucking cares, it does not matter until they sell, so if they sell, then that shows that they are not on board, and they are also no longer on board, so presumably anyone who buys their sold shares would be on board.  Saylor did his part (duties) to tell them what he was doing before he did it, and to disclose any additional plans that he has or any additional actions that he is taking, as he takes them or as he changes his plans.. which his only changes, so far, seem to have been to continue to double down on bitcoin in various ways.

I should probably see if there's some kind of chat board for owners of MSTR stock and if so, what they're saying.

Fair enough.

My guess is that a lot of them are bitcoiners, and maybe that's the whole reason some of them bought the stock in the first place.

That seems correct.

Owning shares of MSTR is partially a play on bitcoin and partially on MSTR as a company that does everything it did prior to scooping up all of that bitcoin.

yep. 

Anyhow, I don't fault Ratimov for being skeptical--especially since some of the big players in the crypto space have turned out to be charlatans.  You just never know.

No problem with skepticism either as long as such skepticism is not making shit up, or giving way too much weight to fringe theories or mostly irrelevant facts in order to support skeptical theories.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

If Bitcoin collapses, they won't sell. MicroStrategy still remain true holders without speculative pretenses.

While I admire Michael Saylor for his seemingly infallible belief in bitcoin, I once again wonder what the shareholders of MSTR would think if bitcoin collapsed to a point where it was nowhere near the price they bought it at.  Unless the company is somehow hedging their massive bitcoin bet, that would be a major ding to MSTR's balance sheet--and as I've also said before, he might be CEO now but there is a board of directors he's accountable to, and a CEO position is never one that can't be filled by someone else's shoes.

I did take a look at MSTR's price chart on Friday, and it looks like the stock is pretty much steady.  This week might show whether their bitcoin position's value has any effect on the stock, because btc did drop pretty significantly over the weekend.  Not a massive drop, but given how much of it they own they've lost a lot of money on paper.

Michael Saylor talks about bitcoin as a digital property rather than a fiat counterpart. He compares Bitcoin to real estate or gold as a form of ownership, only in the digital world.

Hmm.  I thought he bought it for MSTR as an alternative to fiat (though I could be thinking of another company).  Either way, I agree with him.  Bitcoin certainly can be used as a currency, but it's most often used as an investment and I believe it's considered one in the legal sense.

[skarais]

Something tells me that shareholders are more concerned with the price of shares in the stock market than the price of bitcoin. MicroStrategy bought bitcoin, sort of, to hedge against macroeconomic risks. They began to regularly invest in bitcoin, created the MicroStrategy effect, and this, among other things, was reflected in their recognition and, consequently, growth on the stock exchange. I don't remember the date, but there was a report somewhere that the price of their shares began to rise after they became recognizable on the network, thanks to bitcoin.

Earlier Michael Saylor said that MicroStrategy can sell all bitcoins at any time. My guess is that this scenario would be triggered if their affairs in the stock market went extremely bad.

As for investing in bitcoin, I think the investment strategy is designed for many years. Saylor's recent speculation about China that they lost a trillion dollars to their mining ban also confirms the idea that Michael is looking far ahead and his investment may survive several crypto winters.


It is for this reason that Saylor constantly reminds that they are not going to sell bitcoin. They don't care about the price, be it very high or very low.

This may be one of Sylor's investment strategies to convince other investors involved in bitcoin investment, both institutional and individual investors, not to sell and are willing to stay in their investments. If Microstrategy's massive investment in bitcoin is their way of obtaining a hedge against macroeconomics, then I think profits are to be expected. It's natural that Sylor says he doesn't care about bitcoin price, whether high or low, because maybe he still benefit from the current price.

China's mining and trading ban effect has caused the value of MicroStrategy investments to drop and I'm not sure Sylor will survive if bitcoin dump to the $10,000.

[JayJuanGee]

Something tells me that shareholders are more concerned with the price of shares in the stock market than the price of bitcoin. MicroStrategy bought bitcoin, sort of, to hedge against macroeconomic risks. They began to regularly invest in bitcoin, created the MicroStrategy effect, and this, among other things, was reflected in their recognition and, consequently, growth on the stock exchange. I don't remember the date, but there was a report somewhere that the price of their shares began to rise after they became recognizable on the network, thanks to bitcoin.

Earlier Michael Saylor said that MicroStrategy can sell all bitcoins at any time. My guess is that this scenario would be triggered if their affairs in the stock market went extremely bad.

As for investing in bitcoin, I think the investment strategy is designed for many years. Saylor's recent speculation about China that they lost a trillion dollars to their mining ban also confirms the idea that Michael is looking far ahead and his investment may survive several crypto winters.


It is for this reason that Saylor constantly reminds that they are not going to sell bitcoin. They don't care about the price, be it very high or very low.

This may be one of Sylor's investment strategies to convince other investors involved in bitcoin investment, both institutional and individual investors, not to sell and are willing to stay in their investments. If Microstrategy's massive investment in bitcoin is their way of obtaining a hedge against macroeconomics, then I think profits are to be expected. It's natural that Sylor says he doesn't care about bitcoin price, whether high or low, because maybe he still benefit from the current price.

China's mining and trading ban effect has caused the value of MicroStrategy investments to drop and I'm not sure Sylor will survive if bitcoin dump to the $10,000.

Keep in mind that Saylor is both the vastly dominant shareholder and controller of Microstrategies, so he has already been in bitcoin for nearly a year and has done quite a few things in the bitcoin space that goes beyond his company's various seemingly creative and seemingly persistent investment strategies - and also some levels of educational campaigns with seminars starting in early this calendar year and also getting involved in mining discussions which surely he may well end up getting involved in that too.. because he seems unable to control himself in that way (and not even saying that there is anything wrong with the guy... he's just an aggressive businessman who seems to have developed a strong interest and believe in bitcoin and it even seems to be in his interest (from his perspective) to be sharing his strategies and spreading the word and setting himself as a kind of example and model for others to follow whether we are talking about various kinds of businesses or rich individuals or even regular individuals - even though regular individuals might NOT be served as well by his kinds of strategies if they either do not have strong cashflow that they understand pretty well and Saylor even seems to be a kind of potential market mover in some kinds of ways - and surely regular peeps do not tend to be in any way approaching levels of Saylor's level of influence - not that the bitcoin price is going to automatically go in his favor).   

In any event, your concern about the effects on Saylor or his business in the event that bitcoin were to go to $10k, seem a bit lacking in terms of how vulnerable you believe Saylor's business to be.  When we are getting all worked up about potential short-term price falls, we should attempt to keep in mind that even though Saylor price per bitcoin (at least for MSTR) is in the $26k per BTC arena, he also bought quite a few bitcoins at prices below $13k.. and there is likely quite a bit of forward sight in terms of considering what obligations that he has to service the debts that he has taken on in order to make many of his BTC purchases that were way more something like where a bottom could go (if $10k were even very possible when the 208-week moving average is getting close to $14k).  So we know that he has some debt service contracts that may well be coming due in a wee bit over 4 years, but he has other debt service contracts that are close to 7 years from now, so to me it seems to be way the hell too premature to either be suggesting that Saylor might even be phased by dips to $10k (that are highly unlikely, without presuming that the $10k price might not be sustained for several years.. which also seems quite unlikely, if you even want to go their with your painting of a dire scenario that seems to have very low chances of happening and then also without accounting for the fact that he would not even be incurring potentially heavy debt burdens on the bitcoin that he owns until about 4-7 years from now.. so your scenario seems to be quite out there... even presuming that it could happen for a short term but then almost having to presume that bitcoin is dead or near dead (of bitcoin being in sub -$10k for 4-7 years) for Saylor or his company to really get put into a panic mode... and I am not even sure if that would be enough because we might need to see some interim details as well for the next 4-7 years before attributing such a high value to negativeness of BTC price going to $10k  - again, likelihood?  again 4-7 years of such?

By the way, it can be taken for granted that on a personal level, I am no way in hell as close to the level of sophistication of Saylor or the various consultants that he might have in his circle - even though he may well be a kind of final decider regarding the level of risk to take or the level of allocation or leverage to use, but even in my own personal circumstances, I started buying BTC at $1.2k in November/December 2013, and my highest priced bitcoins were not really in profits (and consistently so) until March 2017, so that is over 3 years, but even by the time that March 2017 came, my average price per BTC was $500-ish based on my continuing to buy BTC when the BTC prices were lower in those 3 years-ish... so sometimes actions can be taken along the way in order to help mitigate whereever a company (or person) might be at time X in order to potentially be in a better place at time X + 4-7 years without even necessarily selling any BTC along the way.. even though selling some BTC might not be out of the set of options - and there are some BTC in his stash that are profitable to sell at $13k - if he were to choose to do that, even though it might raise his average price of the remaining stash.. perhaps?  perhaps? 

I guess that part of my point is that the mere fact that a narrow interpretation might assess BTC to be in profits or not or even to be 50% the average value, but there can still be ways of both accounting and even achieving ongoing cashflow or management of cashflow that allows to both get through the seemingly tougher period and perhaps even come out way the hell on the positive side for so damned long that peeps are second guessing the value and blah blah blah.. and remember that in late 2015 my own BTC were averaging around $500 per BTC, but the BTC price had still been stuck in the $250s.. and then BTC prices went from $250-ish to nearly $20k in the next two years and perhaps causing me to appear like a genius from people looking at the then profits of hanging onto all of those (used to be unprofitable BTC), and then even holding through the phase of going from 39x profits at $19,666/$500 to only 4.165x profits at $3,124 / $750 (presuming that mistakes were made), and then maybe only being at 31.5x profits at $31,500/$1k (presuming that more mistakes were made).

Some people still may well consider that having a position of 31.5x profits (at this particular time, around 6 years later) is pretty damned attractive compared to having had been around 50% in the red when BTC prices were bounding around $250 for much of the whole year of 2015.  So if individuals can hold through such periods of being in the red, and shit, Saylor (Mstr) started out being way the fuck in profits, and they just kept buying, buying and buying, and they brought their own average cost per BTC up, but they are still currently in profits, so seems to be a better starting point as compared with someone buying in late 2013 and taking three years for those initial buys to get into profits..

Of course, there are no guarantees, even in bitcoin, but still there seem to be way the hell more risky bets out there, too.. for some peeps who might not even understand what bitcoin is or what the hell Saylor and MSTR is doing and how they are playing their cards including what cards they have and the name of the game that they are playing (I know mixed metaphors sometimes might not come out too well).

[The Sceptical Chymist]

It is for this reason that Saylor constantly reminds that they are not going to sell bitcoin. They don't care about the price, be it very high or very low.

And I'm saying Michael Saylor's job as CEO may not be as secure as you think, especially if bitcoin were to drop to a price low enough that it starts adversely affecting MSTR's stock.  It doesn't matter if Saylor thinks it's his company.  MicroStrategy is publicly traded, and if a strategy starts causing stockholders to lose money, they'll be out for blood.  And when that happens to any corporation, who do you think is the first person out the door?  The CEO.

Note: I'm not hoping bitcoin drops or that MSTR's profits or valuation decrease or that Michael Saylor lose his job.  I hope none of those things happen.  But we're talking about one man who happens to be at the helm of a company that might not care for his vision for bitcoin should the price of bitcoin sink.  The fact is that he doesn't own MicroStrategy.  

And look at how much debt MSTR has taken on since the 2nd quarter of 2020:



And while I said MSTR's share price is stable, it isn't exactly in an upward trend:



Time will tell what happens with MSTR, but my point is to keep in mind that all of this bitcoin was not purchased with Michael Saylor's own money--it was MSTR's money, and even though he's CEO and chairman of the board (I think), he's as dispensable as any CEO should shit hit the fan.

Edit:

Could get yourself into trouble if you make predictions based on facts that might apply in some other company situation, but those same facts may well not be present in the Saylor / MSTR situation.

This is a long thread, and I'll admit I haven't read every post in it.  If there are different types of shares, e.g., voting/non-voting, then I could be mistaken--but that would only be applicable if Michael Saylor owned a majority of those shares--or if the voting shares were owned by someone in his corner.  I'll see what I can do about reading through the posts in this thread to see if anything was said about that.

[JayJuanGee]

It is for this reason that Saylor constantly reminds that they are not going to sell bitcoin. They don't care about the price, be it very high or very low.

And I'm saying Michael Saylor's job as CEO may not be as secure as you think, especially if bitcoin were to drop to a price low enough that it starts adversely affecting MSTR's stock.  It doesn't matter if Saylor thinks it's his company.  MicroStrategy is publicly traded, and if a strategy starts causing stockholders to lose money, they'll be out for blood.  And when that happens to any corporation, who do you think is the first person out the door?  The CEO.

Note: I'm not hoping bitcoin drops or that MSTR's profits or valuation decrease or that Michael Saylor lose his job.  I hope none of those things happen.  But we're talking about one man who happens to be at the helm of a company that might not care for his vision for bitcoin should the price of bitcoin sink.  The fact is that he doesn't own MicroStrategy.  

And look at how much debt MSTR has taken on since the 2nd quarter of 2020:



And while I said MSTR's share price is stable, it isn't exactly in an upward trend:



Time will tell what happens with MSTR, but my point is to keep in mind that all of this bitcoin was not purchased with Michael Saylor's own money--it was MSTR's money, and even though he's CEO and chairman of the board (I think), he's as dispensable as any CEO should shit hit the fan.

Seems to me that all publicly traded companies are NOT equal, so there are some devils in the details regarding design of shares....Could get yourself into trouble if you make predictions based on facts that might apply in some other company situation, but those same facts may well not be present in the Saylor / MSTR situation.  There have already several posts on this same point in this thread and perhaps some other threads.. including some of some of Fillippone's posts that likely need not be repeated for some peeps who choose not to read or attempt to study and understand actual facts on the ground (could I be wrong.. and MSTR is just some random publicly company in which Saylor is just some random CEO, perhaps perhaps.. I doubt it.... I am not even saying that some traditional financial forces or even government forces.. or some minority shareholders (purely trying to stir shit) might not want to make an example out of him.... and bring up bogus criminal/civil charges.. or some other nonsense that Saylor becomes unable to defend,...  but we do not currently have those kinds of facts in front of us so seems way too premature to be presuming those kinds of outlier scenarios, yet).

[oHnK]

Seems to me that all publicly traded companies are NOT equal, so there are some devils in the details regarding design of shares....Could get yourself into trouble if you make predictions based on facts that might apply in some other company situation, but those same facts may well not be present in the Saylor / MSTR situation.  There have already several posts on this same point in this thread and perhaps some other threads.. including some of some of Fillippone's posts that likely need not be repeated for some peeps who choose not to read or attempt to study and understand actual facts on the ground (could I be wrong.. and MSTR is just some random publicly company in which Saylor is just some random CEO, perhaps perhaps.. I doubt it.... I am not even saying that some traditional financial forces or even government forces.. or some minority shareholders (purely trying to stir shit) might not want to make an example out of him.... and bring up bogus criminal/civil charges.. or some other nonsense that Saylor becomes unable to defend,...  but we do not currently have those kinds of facts in front of us so seems way too premature to be presuming those kinds of outlier scenarios, yet).

I think we are too bold to be a CEO of a big company on the policies that have been done.  I don't think any of us are better than Saylor either because if we were better I guess we wouldn't be so busy talking about it in this thread.  We are just like football fans who think we know best what players should do even though we don't play professional football.  So far, Saylor is whales who are quite stable in all of his statements, but as players, we still have to have our own strategy for bad things that happen.  Risk mitigation is definitely owned by a Saylor, and it can't be denied.

[JayJuanGee]

Seems to me that all publicly traded companies are NOT equal, so there are some devils in the details regarding design of shares....Could get yourself into trouble if you make predictions based on facts that might apply in some other company situation, but those same facts may well not be present in the Saylor / MSTR situation.  There have already several posts on this same point in this thread and perhaps some other threads.. including some of some of Fillippone's posts that likely need not be repeated for some peeps who choose not to read or attempt to study and understand actual facts on the ground (could I be wrong.. and MSTR is just some random publicly company in which Saylor is just some random CEO, perhaps perhaps.. I doubt it.... I am not even saying that some traditional financial forces or even government forces.. or some minority shareholders (purely trying to stir shit) might not want to make an example out of him.... and bring up bogus criminal/civil charges.. or some other nonsense that Saylor becomes unable to defend,...  but we do not currently have those kinds of facts in front of us so seems way too premature to be presuming those kinds of outlier scenarios, yet).

I think we are too bold to be a CEO of a big company on the policies that have been done.  I don't think any of us are better than Saylor either because if we were better I guess we wouldn't be so busy talking about it in this thread.  We are just like football fans who think we know best what players should do even though we don't play professional football.  So far, Saylor is whales who are quite stable in all of his statements, but as players, we still have to have hour own strategy for bad things that happen.  Risk mitigation is definitely owned by a Saylor, and it can't be denied.

I agree with your overall points, oHnK, but I would NOT agree with any characterization that we are like a bunch of quasi-blind participants.. the sports fan analogy does not seem to capture it - and sure Saylor has become famous in the bitcoin space quite fast, but surely does not mean that some of us might not have better insights than him in various regards, but in the end, sure he has to make choices about how to manage his company, and even though he has tended to have been quite public about a large number of his moves, plans and ideas in regards to bitcoin, he has quite a large level of discretion regarding how to employ his various plans and strategies - and we need not agree with him or with each other..

We can criticize some aspects of his various talking points or his strategies or even question some of his seemingly somewhat novel financial tools (or try to understand what he is doing in comparison to what other companies might be doing or what individuals are doing... he gives us quite a bit of ammunition and ideas) and he has given us a lot of good talking points - even if several of us might seem to NOT agree about various aspects of what he seems to be doing and there might also be some questions regarding the level of the understanding of some of us either regarding what Saylor/MSTR is doing and what bitcoin is, as well.

I would also NOT conclude that all members in the forum have equally good ideas (or bad) ideas, because it seems to me that some people have better ideas than others whether they understand the facts better, have better logic or just put the matters together better (maybe some peeps have better or worse english skills, too), and I am not even claiming myself to have superiority in a lot of aspects.. because I am also attempting to learn as I go.. too - perhaps beyond willingness to debate matters and to spout out various ideas that I have from time to time.

Now when push comes to shove there remains another aspect in regards to how to personally use whatever information that we might learn in this thread and if learning such information might help to cause any of us to take a better position in regards to bitcoin, whether changing our investment strategies, changing our allocations, deciding to invest into bitcoin or not, or whatever other actions that we learn, take or plan to take.. and sometimes, maybe we just learn to hone some of our arguments better... perhaps?

Surely some members have more active bitcoin portfolios than others, and I have even heard that failure/refusal to take a position in bitcoin may well be taking a position, but some people are surely just learning about bitcoin in recent times as well, so we cannot expect everyone to have the same levels of knowledge or even experiences with bitcoin (Many times I am surely feeling that I lack quite a bit in my technical and programming skills, even though I feel that I have learned some things about those topics too.. maybe not as much as I should, but whatever, there are ONLY so many hours in a day, too).

There is another aspect of genuiness, shilling and trolling that sometimes can be going on, too, and I personally do not feel any need to call any of the recent participants of this thread into that category, but sometimes we do end up going down that area of discussion too in terms of our ways of getting into topics in these kinds of threads and trying to filter between what we might perceive to be the difference between good information, bad information and sometimes disinformation...  and sometimes personal attacks might start to fly too.. and I have not seen too much of that, so far, even though sometimes that happens.. been there and done that plenty of times...

Sometimes members have differing approaches to their ways of interacting on the forum, and sure may as well engage in some of those kinds of conversations here, too (if they come up) because they are out there in other forums and information sources as well, and frequently they bleed into some of our forum threads, but surely if anyone seems to be devolving into behaviors that are violative of the forum rules or engaging in personal attacks, then there are some of us who are more than willing to report that kind of behavior too, even if sometimes those kinds of matters can also be handled in the thread prior to even needing to be reported.. and sometimes they resolve themselves.. sometimes.

There is a lot of great information in this thread and even links to other related sources, and I am NOT even proclaiming that every participant needs to understand all the information or read all 22 pages of the thread, but at the same time, sometimes our discussion can get to higher levels when we might not have to repeat some aspects of the topics or even some matters that might have been pointed out in OP or soon thereafter, over and over that seem to be something that should be learned at some point.

At the same time if some newbie were to come into this thread and reference some specific past post in his/her post, and say that s/he did not understand what the hell is going on with MSTR and Saylor in the context of bitcoin and some of the ideas of some past post(s), there are likely going to be several members in this thread who are ready, willing and able to attempt to address the issues of the post rather than directly asserting that the newbie has to read and understand all aspects of the 22 pages of this thread first.  ... by the way, there are a lot of people who come into threads late, and still end up bringing up good points, even if those points have been previously discussed.

[oHnK]

I would also NOT conclude that all members in the forum have equally good ideas (or bad) ideas, because it seems to me that some people have better ideas than others whether they understand the facts better, have better logic or just put the matters together better (maybe some peeps have better or worse english skills, too), and I am not even claiming myself to have superiority in a lot of aspects.. because I am also attempting to learn as I go.. too - perhaps beyond willingness to debate matters and to spout out various ideas that I have from time to time.

Yes I also think so, maybe my previous analogy is too much but I want to specialize my previous comment that what I say is on the analysis of Saylor's company management or the management decisions taken by the CEO of MSTR.  If we judge what he decides or what will happen to his position if this or if and think it's wrong, it's legitimate, but are we not too brave because what we judge is an experienced CEO not just an ordinary person  I'm sure there are friends here who have even known BTC longer than Saylor, and it's only natural to comment on the MSTR CEO's policy to be correlated with BTC development, and that's something I support so that in the future we can give each other an idea of ​​what potential  BTC will have in the future.  After all, the progress of BTC will represent the entire crypto market because we all know the proportion of BTC's market cap in the market.

[JayJuanGee]

I would also NOT conclude that all members in the forum have equally good ideas (or bad) ideas, because it seems to me that some people have better ideas than others whether they understand the facts better, have better logic or just put the matters together better (maybe some peeps have better or worse english skills, too), and I am not even claiming myself to have superiority in a lot of aspects.. because I am also attempting to learn as I go.. too - perhaps beyond willingness to debate matters and to spout out various ideas that I have from time to time.

Yes I also think so, maybe my previous analogy is too much but I want to specialize my previous comment that what I say is on the analysis of Saylor's company management or the management decisions taken by the CEO of MSTR.  If we judge what he decides or what will happen to his position if this or if and think it's wrong, it's legitimate, but are we not too brave because what we judge is an experienced CEO not just an ordinary person  I'm sure there are friends here who have even known BTC longer than Saylor, and it's only natural to comment on the MSTR CEO's policy to be correlated with BTC development, and that's something I support so that in the future we can give each other an idea of ​​what potential  BTC will have in the future.  After all, the progress of BTC will represent the entire crypto market because we all know the proportion of BTC's market cap in the market.

Again, overall I agree with everything that you are saying, oHnK, but I feel a need to emphasize the fact that Saylor has chosen to be so public about his various strategies and explaining why in a lot of ways provides a lot of fodder in which members of all kinds of intelligence levels, whether greater, lesser or equal to Saylor can chime in about Saylor's investment choices and how he communicates about those choices.

I personally consider Saylor to have had been a very good bitcoin advocate, even if I might not agree with everything he says or even some of his approaches.  I doubt that we can automatically equate Saylor to being above average in intelligence merely because he has a lot of money or he is a CEO of a company, but I do believe that he has shown through both actions and words that he actually is very intelligent and even innovative and he figured out various aspects of bitcoin in a very fast way (calling him a quick study may be pretty accurate).

Even if we grant that Saylor is very smart, that still does not mean that he made the right investment choices for himself, his company, for others or even for the benefits of bitcoin - even though it seems to me that in the long run we are quite likely to see that his plan is going to play out well for him and his company... and perhaps for bitcoin too. 

For sure, we know that bitcoin does not need marketers, but bitcoin still does get a decent number of folks who either decide to market bitcoin for free or they find ways to profit from marketing bitcoin, but bitcoin is also distinguishable from a decent number of shitcoins that do have marketing budgets and strategies that seem to be part of their coin promotion - and likely any marketing and promotion of bitcoin is a lot less coordinated, and sure there can be and has been a lot of disagreement through the years about what bitcoin was, is or should be... yet bitcoin plods on with a kind of consensus mechanism that seems to make it very difficult to change - absent the building of very large majorities agreeing to change it.. so there might be some ways that Saylor/MSTR could also change or attempt to change bitcoin by trying to persuade or influence changes... and we will see how those kinds of matters play out.. but in the meantime, bitcoin still seems to be a very great investment - and not everyone is going to come to the same conclusions regarding whether to invest or how to invest, and surely a lot of regular peeps are not going to either have cashflow, access to credit or even abilities to build credit in order to realistically attempt to employ strategies similar to Saylor, even if they wanted to try such bitcoin investment (or do we call it gambling?) strategies.

By the way, if we consider investing/gambling on a spectrum rather than absolutes, I have said this before in this thread, but I would characterize Saylor/MSTR as way more gambling than I would be ready, willing and able to employ, and surely each of us are going to make differing choices and have differing particulars to be able to exercise our discretion in differing ways, which makes those kinds of weighing of choices to be good discussion because there is likely no completely correct answer because they are/should be individually tailored, and some choices about actions are going to playout better than others - but still does not mean that there is ONLY one good choice or best choice for everyone because the balancing of individual factors** is going to affect how to approach and strategically allocate BTC.

**individual factors are cashflow, timeline, other investments, view of bitcoin as compared with other investments, risk tolerance, and time, skills and abilities to learn, strategize, plan and tweak or reallocate from time to time based on learning and experiences (including decisions regarding the employment of trading tactics, financial instruments, leverage, etc).

[Dabs]

Saylor claims to really only know about BTC since last year, 2020. He did tweet about it in 2013, but he claims he completely forgot about it back then. Sounds believable as there are no other words coming from him until around 2020.