MicroStrategy

In August 2020, Michael Saylor announced that MicroStrategy — the business intelligence software company he’d founded in 1989 — had purchased 21,454 Bitcoin for $250 million.

The stated reason: the US dollar was being debased so rapidly by pandemic-era money printing that holding cash was a losing position. Bitcoin, he argued, was a better treasury reserve asset than dollars.

The financial press reacted with confusion and scepticism. A publicly listed company putting its entire treasury into a volatile cryptocurrency was unprecedented. Shareholders were concerned. Analysts were puzzled.

Saylor didn’t stop. Over the following years, MicroStrategy continued buying Bitcoin — through debt raises, through equity offerings, through every mechanism available to a public company. By 2024, MicroStrategy held over 200,000 Bitcoin, making it the largest corporate holder in the world.

The company’s stock became, functionally, a leveraged Bitcoin proxy. When Bitcoin rose, MicroStrategy shares rose more. When Bitcoin fell, they fell harder. Saylor had transformed a struggling software company into the world’s first Bitcoin treasury company.

Whether his strategy ultimately succeeds or fails — that story is still unfolding. What he did unambiguously was open a door. After MicroStrategy, other companies began adding Bitcoin to their balance sheets. The conversation about Bitcoin as a corporate treasury asset — unthinkable before 2020 — became mainstream.

One CEO’s conviction changed how the corporate world thought about Bitcoin.

Tomorrow: Michael Saylor’s personal conversion — from Bitcoin sceptic to its most vocal advocate.

— The Daily Bit