Saylor Calls MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Play ‘Tremendous Success,’ Promises More BTC Buys

MicroStrategy (MSTR) CEO Michael Saylor called his multibillion-dollar bitcoin BTC$67,128.77 trove “a tremendous success” in driving shareholder value, in an investor letter released Thursday.

“Adopting bitcoin as our primary treasury reserve asset set us apart from conventional competitors and elevated our brand,” he wrote, calling the nearly two-year-old strategy “complementary” to the company’s decades-old analytics business.

“We will continue to vigorously pursue both strategies,” he said.

MicroStrategy has spent $3.97 billion acquiring 129,218 bitcoins for an average of $30,700 apiece, he wrote. With bitcoin trading nearly $10,000 above that, the trade remains well in the green – though not nearly as much as when BTC was touching $69,000 all-time highs.

Saylor’s acquisition strategy has grown increasingly creative. What began as an experiment with excess cash amassed during the coronavirus lockdown has yielded share sales, convertible note offerings and crypto-collateralized loans – all to buy more bitcoin. MicroStrategy is Wall Street’s biggest balance-sheet bitcoin bull, Saylor said.

Thursday’s investor letter shed some light on the quirks of corporate bitcoin buying sprees.

For one, Saylor continues to “personally provide” the executive teams’ liability insurance coverage. MicroStrategy ditched its corporate plan last June because the “novelty” of its bitcoin buying strategy drove rates too high.

Executives’ bonus payouts are influenced in part by their contributions to the bitcoin strategy, the documents said. And MicroStrategy’s four outside directors continue to receive their boardroom fees in bitcoin instead of cash, a rarity in corporate America.

All this at a company with an undisputed king. Michael Saylor holds 68.1% “total voting power” at the company he founded in late 1989. He is one of Wall Street’s longest-serving executives.