MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor on Bitcoin Volatility

MicroStrategy’s CEO and co-founder, Michael Saylor, has urged investors to hold onto bitcoin despite its volatility. Speaking in an interview about the company’s earnings report, Saylor explained that while the software business is stable and generates cash flow, the company’s belief in bitcoin as the ultimate digital scarcity network has led them to acquire and hold onto it for the long-term.

The largest publicly traded holder of bitcoin, MicroStrategy has progressively built up its position in the cryptocurrency over the past two and a half years. Saylor acknowledged that when the price of bitcoin traded down from $6,000 to $16,000, the company took a loss, but as the price has risen over the past 12 weeks, the position has traded up to $2 billion in fair market value.

Saylor attributed bitcoin’s recent recovery to two drivers. The first is macroeconomic concerns about inflation, which cause people to lose confidence in currencies and seek out alternatives. The second is the failure of traditional banks, which has led people in the Western world to remember that bitcoin is a bank in cyberspace run by incorruptible software. Saylor believes that the phrase “be your own bank” has emerged as an investment idea in the United States but is really a matter of financial survival elsewhere.