MicroStrategy CEO calls gold “dead money” and compares bitcoin to royal real estate

What’s new? On July 27, Michael Saylor, CEO of analytics software company MicroStrategy, spoke at the largest blockchain summit in Eurasia, Blockchain Economy Istanbul. The entrepreneur shared his vision for the future development of the industry and the advantages of bitcoin over gold, as well as answered questions about investments in Ethereum. The GetBlock Magazine team attended the summit and compiled the most important points made by Michael Saylor.

MicroStrategy is a business intelligence software company founded in 1989 by Michael Saylor, Sanju Bansal and Thomas Spahr. MicroStrategy invested $250 million in bitcoins as a backup asset in August 2020. As of June 28, MicroStrategy had 129 699 BTC on its balance sheet, purchased for just under $4 billion (at an average price of $30 664).

About the state of the industry

Saylor expects full implementation of global cryptocurrency market regulation in the next two years. The bankruptcies of major funds and companies (3AC, Celsius, Terra) were a trigger to accelerate the development of a regulatory framework. In turn, clear regulation of the market will entail the arrival of institutionalists, large companies and states in the crypto industry. The growth stage, according to Saylor, will last from 2024 to 2034.

About the price of bitcoin

BTC's price volatility is a “very good thing” because a stable bitcoin would become a direct competitor to fiat currencies. This would cause central banks to put pressure on the asset and lead to its complete ban. As for the price of bitcoin, it depends on three main factors:

• fiat currency inflation;
• implementation of bitcoin in various spheres of life;
• bitcoin technology (limited issuance, low fees, mining scheme).

Everything else, including market cycles or news background, is secondary.

About gold

Gold is corrupt and has become an unreliable asset for saving money. The head of MicroStrategy believes that what was good in the 19th century no longer works in the 21st. “Bitcoin is ten times better than gold,” Saylor stressed. It can't be manipulated, it can't be stolen or seized.

“Gold is dead money,” the entrepreneur believes. Bitcoins, on the other hand, are real money, which can be moved anywhere in the world in seconds by spending a few cents. At the same time, they are neutral. You can buy billions of dollars worth of BTC, but you can't change the asset or influence the code in any way. Bitcoin is “the most uncorrupted thing on earth,” which is why Saylor is a bitcoin-maximalist.

About Ethereum

When asked about investing in Ethereum, Saylor said he needed to wait at least 10 years after the last change was made to the protocol by the developers. It is important to be sure that the protocol will not be hacked and no one, including the network's co-founder Vitalik Buterin, will be able to change anything in the code at will. A simple example is the situation with Bitcoin Cash (BCH) cryptocurrency. The developers' decision to double the block size “quickly killed the project” and led to the collapse of the asset's value.

On his company's strategy

As soon as MicroStrategy faced a crisis in 2020, the team realized that “cash was losing up to 20% of its value each year,” and that the core business would not cover inflation. Investing in gold would be hopeless for saving money, unlike investing in bitcoin. Saylor stressed that if the company had invested in gold then, its valuation now would be $500 million. And investing in bitcoin led to a company valuation of about $5 billion.

“Go and buy bitcoin,” was how the entrepreneur put his strategy succinctly. He compared this asset to the royal real estate in Britain and the UAE, which is never for sale, always growing in value and being passed on to children and grandchildren.

To read experts' opinions on whether MicroStrategy will sell bitcoins following Tesla, see GetBlock Magazine's article.