Michael Saylor doesn’t think Bitcoin is ‘going to be currency in the US ever’

Published at: July 16, 2021

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor thinks that Bitcoin (BTC) is more like digital property than digital currency.

He was speaking on the July 15 edition of the Coin Stories podcast with host Natalie Brunell. Asked if he thought that Bitcoin was a threat to the United States dollar, Saylor replied:

“I would call it a digital property; it’s a threat to property; it’s particularly a threat to other forms of property. Gold is property; real estate is property. I don’t think the United States government is threatened by real estate or buildings or companies or gold.”

The comments follow on from Saylor’s assertions earlier this week on Scott Melker’s Wolf Of All Streets podcast, in which he stated that “I don’t really think that Bitcoin’s going to be a currency in the U.S. ever. Nor do I think it should be.”

“And what it’s doing is it’s demonetizing other forms of property,” he added as he outlined that people are now weighing up whether to purchase Bitcoin instead of opting for traditional investments, such as real estate, stocks, starting a business or buying gold.

MicroStrategy has been gradually accumulating Bitcoin since August 2020, and the firm now holds 105,085 BTC worth around $3.3 billion at today’s prices.

Saylor told Brunell that even if Bitcoin crashes in the short term, MicroStrategy has no intention to sell and is prepared for the volatility that will occur in the future.

He emphasized the key is to hodl through periods of market downturn and FUD, and he pointed to giants in the tech space such as former Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer, who didn’t sell his stocks when the price crashed in the past:

“What was the brilliant thing that Steve Balmer did in order to be worth $100 billion? You know, he didn’t sell Microsoft.”

Saylor also referenced a quote from Warren Buffet that asserts that “If you aren’t willing to own a stock for 10 years, don’t even think about owning it for 10 minutes,” and cited that even Amazon’s stock has recovered from 80% crashes in the past.

“One iPhone 12 in a hundred years will be worth nothing, so the product that Apple is selling isn’t gonna last 1,000 years. The product that Bitcoin is selling is 1/21 millionth of all the money in the world. That doesn’t have to change, it just kinda has to not break,” he said.

The MicroStrategy CEO did note, however, that if the price of Bitcoin is lower than what it is today four years from now, he will have to reconsider his strategy.