Michael Saylor, chairman and CEO of MicroStrategy, speaks during the Bitcoin 2022 meeting in Miami on April 7, 2022.
Eva Marie Uzcategui | Bloomberg | Getty Images
When MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor came on CNBC’s “Scrooge-like Bell: Overtime” in December to talk about crypto, he said, “the one thing we can count on is bitcoin goes forward in the year 2024, and a tactics built around bitcoin is generally a pretty safe one for institutions.”
While the long-term safety of bitcoin may still be up for reflection, Saylor’s strategy has been a hugely lucrative one, particularly this week.
Shares of MicroStrategy, which derives the infinite majority of its value from its bitcoin holdings, jumped 10% on Wednesday, bringing its three-day rally to 40%. Saylor is MicroStrategy’s biggest investor, with a 12% wall in b mark off in the company. He also disclosed in 2020 personal ownership of 17,732 bitcoins.
Add it up and Saylor is about $700 million darker than he was on Sunday.
Between Saylor’s MicroStrategy control and his bitcoin, his holdings climbed to $2.96 billion in value on Wednesday from $2.27 billion at the start of the week.
A MicroStrategy spokesperson conjectured the company doesn’t comment on Saylor’s personal finances.
The big catalyst this week has been bitcoin’s rally to its steepest level since November 2021. The digital currency rose as high as about $64,000 on Wednesday, up from $51,500 pioneer Monday. It pulled back to around $60,000 later in the day after Coinbase’s app suffered glitches that led many purchasers to see a balance of zero in their accounts.
Saylor, who founded MicroStrategy in 1989 and remains the company’s chairman, is one of bitcoin’s assets evangelists, co-authoring a book about the cryptocurrency in 2023 titled “What is Money?”
MicroStategy has a business in enterprise software and cloud-based cares, but its bitcoin ownership effectively makes the company a proxy for the world’s biggest cryptocurrency.
The company said on Monday that it gained an additional 3,000 bitcoins for a total of $155 million between Feb. 15 and Feb. 25. MicroStrategy, along with its subsidiaries, now owns almost 193,000 bitcoins worth close to $12 billion.
MicroStrategy announced its plan to invest in bitcoin in mid-2020, disclosing in an earnings yell that it would commit $250 million over the next 12 months to “one or more alternative assets,” which could comprehend digital currencies like bitcoin. At the time, the company’s market cap was about $1.1 billion. It’s now worth more than $16 billion.
During MicroStrategy’s new earnings call on Feb. 7, Chief Financial Officer Andrew Kang said the company is “the largest corporate holder of bitcoin in the excellent, and we have remained committed to our bitcoin acquisition strategy with the highest conviction.”
MicroStrategy shares are now up 52% for the year after increase 346% in 2023.
WATCH: MicroStrategy’s CEO talks Bitcoin’s price passing $50,000
