
Saylor shared Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto’s view that central banks will inevitably debase fiat currencies. “We just had the awful realization we were sitting on top of an $500 million ice cube,” he recalled in an interview at the time. MicroStrategy was accumulating tons of cash-and Saylor fretted that the Fed’s easy-money policies would severely erode his war chest’s value by eventually stoking inflation. Back in 2013, Saylor had trashed Bitcoin, tweeting that “its days are numbered.” But during the early days of the pandemic, Saylor experienced an epiphany. 11, 2020, Saylor reinvented himself and MicroStrategy overnight by grabbing the kind of earth-changing mega-idea he’d long been chasing: He announced on Twitter that MicroStrategy had “embarked on its Bitcoin strategy” by spending $250 million to buy 21,454 Bitcoin at less than $12,000 each.
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Did Wall Street cheer because the bedrock software business will fare far better when Saylor, distracted by Bitcoin, isn’t running things day-to-day? Or does having him as a full-time crypto evangelist actually lift Bitcoin’s prospects and hence brighten MicroStrategy’s future? Saylor’s journey from entrepreneur to evangelist has been controversial: “An Elon Junior without the business talent” The jump deepens the mysterious mythology of Michael Saylor. In a statement, Saylor attested that the new job will enable him to focus “on our Bitcoin acquisition strategy and related Bitcoin advocacy initiatives.” (Given that Saylor controls the voting stock, and will stay on executive chairman, it’s certain the decision was his, though the company did not respond to several requests for interviews with Saylor.) In a surreal twist, though the company announced a gigantic writedown of $918 million on its Bitcoin holdings, MicroStrategy’s stock soared the day after the news hit, rising 15% to $321 and gaining over $400 million in market cap. On August 2, the company announced Saylor would step down as CEO after three decades at the helm to take the role of executive chairman.

Over the past two years he has essentially bet his entire $500 million revenue company on the future of Bitcoin. He went on to offer a promising new product to Facebook, sell a cloud-based software platform he’d built in-house for over $100 million, pen a prophet bestseller on the mobile future, and collect multiple yachts, one of which starred in the wild party scene of an Entourage movie.īut Saylor’s most outrageous swing of all is one that’s playing out right now at MicroStrategy. His swift financial decline even turned him into an answer to the Trivial Pursuit question: “Who has lost the most money in a single day?” SafeMoon technically isn't a cryptocurrency but a DeFi token, according to its website.Years later, MicroStrategy would become ensnared in an accounting scandal that sent the stock plunging 62% in one day Saylor lost $6 billion in personal wealth. SafeMoon is a decentralised finance token Marketing materials: Firms may overstate the returns of products or understate the risks involved.ġ.Charges and fees: Consumers should consider the impact of fees and charges on their investment which may be more than those for regulated investment products.

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There is no guarantee that cryptoassets can be converted back into cash. Product complexity: The complexity of some products and services relating to cryptoassets can make it hard for consumers to understand the risks.Price volatility: Significant price volatility in cryptoassets, combined with the inherent difficulties of valuing cryptoassets reliably, places consumers at a high risk of losses.Consumer protection: Some investments advertising high returns based on cryptoassets may not be subject to regulation beyond anti-money laundering requirements.
