It comes as MicroStrategy continues to accrue BTC at an astonishing space. Earlier this week, it emerged the software company had snapped up 7,002 BTC — paying $414.4 million.
MicroStrategy's boss Michael Saylor has declared that Bitcoin is the world's reserve asset — but has admitted it isn't ideal for making everyday purchases.
In a wide-ranging interview with CoinDesk, he also doubled down on a widely held assertion that BTC is an effective hedge against inflation, adding:
"You don’t want to pay for your coffee with your Bitcoin, you want to pay for your coffee with a currency."
This somewhat flies in the face of El Salvador, which has moved to embrace Bitcoin as legal tender. It's now accepted by retailers across the country — including McDonald's and Starbucks — meaning it's now easier than ever to swap cryptocurrency for a cappuccino.
It comes as MicroStrategy continues to accrue BTC at an astonishing space. Earlier this week, it emerged the software company had snapped up 7,002 BTC — paying $414.4 million for the privilege. An average price of $59,187.
At this point, it's worth zooming out to look at MicroStrategy's entire exposure to BTC. Overall, it owns 121,044 BTC, with a cash value of $6.8 billion. The average per-coin price paid for all this crypto stands at $29,534, resulting in a whopping profit of $3.2 billion on paper.
This means that MicroStrategy now owns 1 in 173 of the BTC that will ever exist — with Michael Saylor stating that the company will keep its crypto in reserve "forever." That's before we've even discussed the substantial amount of coins that the CEO holds personally.
Crypto investors will be hoping he stays true to his word, not least because MicroStrategy could cause untold downward pressure on the market if it decided to unload its BTC en masse.
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Speaking Out
Earlier this week, Saylor also made an appearance on Fox News and was interviewed by the right-wing host Tucker Carlson.
Explaining why the current fiat system is flawed, he used an analogy of an African country that uses glass beads as currency. All is fine and well until a European nation that can manufacture these beads at scale comes along, hyperinflating the currency. He added:
"It turns out that it's a lot easier to print money than it is to tax people. And so it's either inflation or taxation. Throughout the history of the world, from Roman emperors before, every single coining system – every monetary system ever established – collapsed because of inflation."
Of course, there's been a lot of money printing over the past 18 months as countries grapple with the coronavirus pandemic.
