Bitcoin Advocate Michael Saylor Defends Telling People to Mortgage Their Houses

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor has defended his controversial comment about Bitcoin investing in a recent interview with Fox Business.

"The critics always cherry-pick, and they beat up on you at certain times," he said.

Last March, when Bitcoin was changing hands at roughly $57,000, Saylor encouraged investors to liquidate their assets in order to buy Bitcoin on leverage in an interview.

The MicroStrategy CEO went as far as urging people to mortgage their houses so that they could invest more. The irresponsible remark came back to bite Saylor following the recent market crash.

In the most recent interview, Saylor says that recommending that someone take out a mortgage is not bad financial advice. In fact, he claims that it would be "a lost opportunity" not to get that cheap money.

Saylor has pointed to the fact that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is now at 5.78% compared to 2.57% last year.

Despite the fact that the Bitcoin price crashed to $17,500 last week, Saylor continues to believe that it is a low-risk investment in the long term.

Earlier this month, MicroStrategy's Bitcoin bet, which was initially extremely successful, went awry. The company is now sitting on more than $1 billion worth of losses. However, MicroStrategy denied receiving a margin call against its Bitcoin loan. Saylor said that it was "much ado about nothing."

As reported by U.Today, the MicroStrategy CEO also urged the government to regulate alternative cryptocurrencies so that institutional investors would become more comfortable with Bitcoin.