MicroStrategy CEO: I can't come up with a better investment idea than Bitcoin
Jun. 15, 2022 10:59 AM ET MicroStrategy Incorporated (MSTR) COIN, RIOT, MARA, BTC-USD, ETH-USDBy: Brian Stewart, SA News Editor 107 Comments
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MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor defended his company's massive bet on Bitcoin ( BTC-USD) in the face of a substantial market downturn that has taken the cryptocurrency to its lowest level since late 2020.
"Over any timeframe, ... Bitcoin is the best performing asset. I can't come up with a better idea," the head of MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) told CNBC.
Saylor argued that over the long haul, Bitcoin offers a significant way to preserve value, even if its near-term price sees significant ups and downs.
"If your time horizon is one month, Bitcoin looks like a volatile asset. If your time horizon is 10 years, it looks like a risk-off store of value," he contended.
The MicroStrategy CEO compared Bitcoin to real estate and certain trophy assets as "scarce desirable property."
Saylor added any Bitcoin investor should target a timeline of at least four years. Less than that, he argued, a holder of the cryptocurrency becomes a trader, subject to short-term volatility.
"I don't think you should trade anything unless you're a professional," he said. "So, my advice to anybody investing in Bitcoin is unless you're a professional high-speed trader with proprietary software, you ought to hold it for at least four years."
In terms of his company's Bitcoin holdings, Saylor said concerns about a margin call for loans collateralized by the cryptocurrency have been "much ado about nothing" that has only served to make the CEO "Twitter famous."
"We feel like we have a fortress balance sheet we're comfortable with and the margin lot is well managed," he concluded.
MicroStrategy ( MSTR) holds more than 129K in Bitcoin ( BTC-USD) purchased for a total of about $4B. The stock has been hit hard by the recent meltdown in the crypto market.
While the software company has non-Bitcoin cash flow from its core operations, it has become closely associated with crypto in the minds of many investors. As Bitcoin approaches $20K and other big-name cryptos, like Ethereum ( ETH-USD), suffer large-scale declines, MSTR has plunged 70% so far in 2022. It has been joined by other names closely associated with the crypto market, like Coinbase ( COIN), Riot Blockchain ( RIOT) and Marathon Digital ( MARA). |
