Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Let's keep this conversation
Speaker 1: on crypto going because so called digital asset treasury firms
Speaker 1: have announced plans to raise a combined seventy nine billion
Speaker 1: dollars so far in twenty twenty five just for bitcoin purchases,
Speaker 1: according to advisory firm Architect Partners. But that trend is
Speaker 1: expanding into smaller tokens as well. And I'm pleased to
Speaker 1: say that joining us now is Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Sailor. So, Michael,
Speaker 1: it feels like, of course, MicroStrategy strategy as it's now known,
Speaker 1: really started this crypto treasury company trend that we're seeing now.
Speaker 1: I know that you broadly are supportive of seeing that,
Speaker 1: seeing competitors come out and also raise their own crypto treasuries.
Speaker 1: But how do you feel about the trend that now
Speaker 1: it's moving more into alt coins, it's moving away from bitcoin.
Speaker 1: Do you think that that's a sustainable setup now?
Speaker 2: I still think the vast majority of the capitol flowing
Speaker 2: in the space is flowing into bitcoin. We've gone from
Speaker 2: about sixty companies capitalizing on bitcoin to one hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty companies just in the past six months, So I'm
Speaker 2: laser like focused on bitcoin. I think bitcoin is digital capital.
Speaker 2: I think it's going to outperform the S and P
Speaker 2: Index over the indefinite future. And I think it's the
Speaker 2: clear global monetary commodity in the world right now. So
Speaker 2: it's the lowest risk, highest return, most straightforward strategy if
Speaker 2: you want to outperform the S and P and if
Speaker 2: you want to inject vitality and performance into your balance sheet.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like you're not concerned that perhaps the
Speaker 1: fact that we're seeing these other digital asset treasury companies
Speaker 1: come to the four here expand into all coins, You're
Speaker 1: not concerned that that's going to detract attention away from
Speaker 1: what strategy is doing.
Speaker 2: You know, I think there's an explosion of innovation across
Speaker 2: the entire crypto economy, and on the margin, it's really
Speaker 2: good for everybody in the digital asset space right now.
Speaker 2: I think the big idea is one hundred trillion dollars
Speaker 2: plus of capital and the traditional equity capital markets and
Speaker 2: traditional credit markets, and what we're focused on is delivering
Speaker 2: digital asset backed equity and digital asset backed credit. And
Speaker 2: I think those credit instruments and equity instruments are just
Speaker 2: going to outperform the traditional fiat credit and traditional fiat
Speaker 2: equity instruments all around, and capital is going to flow
Speaker 2: into the digital economy due to that.
Speaker 3: Michael, explain the assets, the unique assets to which you
Speaker 3: offer investors access, because it's not just you know, bitcoin
Speaker 3: treasury company, you have, you think, a unique selling point
Speaker 3: compared to other others trying that strategy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the real compelling idea of a bitcoin treasury company
Speaker 2: is we hold a huge stock of bitcoin, about seventy
Speaker 2: four billion dollars worth of bitcoin. Bitcoin's a twenty one
Speaker 2: year duration asset. You got to hold it for twenty
Speaker 2: one years if you want the full potential, and it's
Speaker 2: about fifty boll and fifty aoar. Most people don't want
Speaker 2: that amount of volatility, even though it's got that performance,
Speaker 2: and who wants to wagh twenty one years? So what
Speaker 2: we've done is we've created structured bitcoin in the form
Speaker 2: of strike STRK. We give you the bitcoin upside, a
Speaker 2: guarantee dividend and principal protection, and that's an alternative for
Speaker 2: people that don't want the roller coaster. We've created a
Speaker 2: long duration senior credit instrument called STRIFE. Think of it
Speaker 2: as a twenty one year bitcoin back bond pays about
Speaker 2: eight and a half percent dividend yield right now for
Speaker 2: people to just want that quarterly dividend yield and a
Speaker 2: seniority in the capital structure. And then you've got a
Speaker 2: high yield, long duration instrument called STRIFE. It's actually paying
Speaker 2: like eleven and a half percent divid in yield right now,
Speaker 2: and so that's for people that want high yield forever
Speaker 2: and they'd rather have eleven percent quarterly than take that's guaranteed.
Speaker 2: Then the roller coaster a bitcoin. And then the most
Speaker 2: exciting thing we've done just a few weeks ago. It's
Speaker 2: the biggest IPO of the year. It's called Stretch STRC,
Speaker 2: and STRC is like a monthly bitcoin backed bill, and
Speaker 2: so think of it as a bitcoin alternative to treasury
Speaker 2: bills or money market funds. It's nine percent divid in
Speaker 2: yield monthly cash pay and if you just want to
Speaker 2: park short term cash and get paid nine percent dividends
Speaker 2: and have it powered by bitcoin, you're not taking duration
Speaker 2: risk on the interest rate, you're not taking the bitcoin volatility.
Speaker 2: And that's our most successful offering to date.
Speaker 1: Well, Michael, I do want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about your financing. You touched on it a lione
Speaker 1: little bit. One of the other trends that you've started
Speaker 1: is issuing convertible notes to fund your bitcoin purchases. You've
Speaker 1: also been issuing preferred stock as well. When it comes
Speaker 1: to just straight micro strategy shares, we know that it's
Speaker 1: very popular with retail. We know convertible notes have been
Speaker 1: popular with more of the Wall Street crowd. Do you
Speaker 1: have any insight on who the end buyer of your
Speaker 1: preferred stock is?
Speaker 2: Well, right now, we've had really extraordinary demand from retail
Speaker 2: are in our last offering. I mean we started with
Speaker 2: about thirty or forty million of retail demand on the
Speaker 2: first preferred, and then it increased the sixty million on
Speaker 2: the second preferred, and then one hundred and twenty million
Speaker 2: on the third preferred, and about six hundred million on
Speaker 2: the fourth preferred, So retails off the charts. We've also
Speaker 2: got a lot of institutional long investors people that are
Speaker 2: holding it. Look, if you like bitcoin or if you
Speaker 2: like mstr these are all pretty compelling for any pol
Speaker 2: A capital you've got. And then of course a bunch
Speaker 2: of hedge funds also got very excited about this. There's
Speaker 2: lots of different ways to trade these against each other,
Speaker 2: so a good mixture of institutional as well as retail
Speaker 2: investors buying into all these preferreds.
Speaker 1: And Michael, I'd also love to get your thoughts on
Speaker 1: some of the other big news from today. A lot
Speaker 1: has certainly happened on this Friday, but one of those
Speaker 1: is what's going on in the gold market right now.
Speaker 1: You have the Trump administration ruling that gold bars will
Speaker 1: be subject to tariffs as well, these reciprocal tariffs, so
Speaker 1: imports of gold will be tariffed, and that's really sending
Speaker 1: shockwaves through the gold ecosystem. Gold and bitcoin are often
Speaker 1: compared to one enough of their bitcoin called digital gold,
Speaker 1: for example. I wonder if you think this has any
Speaker 1: ripple effects positive or negative for bitcoin.
Speaker 2: It does. Bitcoin is digital gold. That's going to accelerate
Speaker 2: the migration of capital from physical gold to digital gold.
Speaker 2: You know, bitcoin lives in cyber space, no tariffs in
Speaker 2: cyber space. The big appeal of bitcoin is it's not physical,
Speaker 2: it doesn't have weight. You can settle anywhere with anybody
Speaker 2: in a few minutes. And so gold has always been
Speaker 2: too heavy, too slow, you know, and you can't really
Speaker 2: ship it across an ocean, and if you do now
Speaker 2: you're getting terriffs. So I really think it just reminds
Speaker 2: everybody why the digital version of gold is better than
Speaker 2: than actual physical gold. And I think it's going to
Speaker 2: catalyze a new wave of institutional adoption of bitcoin.
Speaker 1: All right, Crypto is stateless. It's hard to tear if
Speaker 1: Michael have to leave it. They're really enjoyed speaking with
Speaker 1: you though. That is Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor