In the past month, the NASDAQ-listed company MicroStrategy bought $425 million worth of Bitcoin. CEO Michael Saylor brought out BTC’s unique qualities to serve as a hedge as the primary reason.
However, not too long ago, Saylor’s opinion differentiated substantially as he claimed that Bitcoin’s “days are numbered.”
MicroStrategy’s CEO expressed his rather adverse verdict regarding BTC on Twitter in December 2013. When forecasting the asset’s upcoming demise, he argued that Bitcoin’s fate would be the same as online gambling.
#Bitcoin days are numbered. It seems like just a matter of time before it suffers the same fate as online gambling.
— Michael Saylor (@michael_saylor) December 19, 2013
Seven Years Later: Change Of Heart
Fast-forward less than seven years, and Saylor’s views seem entirely different. The company that he founded three decades ago and still runs as CEO, MicroStrategy, has purchased significant amounts of the primary cryptocurrency.
The NASDAQ-listed firm bought its first batch of 21,454 coins (worth $250 million) in August 2020. A month later, it doubled-down on its BTC asset allocation and purchased 16,796 bitcoins more ($175 million.) Thus, the company’s total Bitcoin exposure grew to 38,250 bitcoins or $425 million.
Saylor commented that “this investment reflects our belief that Bitcoin, as the world’s most widely-adopted cryptocurrency, is a dependable store of value and an attractive investment asset with more long-term appreciation potential than holding cash.”
“Since its inception over a decade ago, Bitcoin has emerged as a significant addition to the global financial system, with characteristics that are useful to both individuals and institutions. MicroStrategy has recognized Bitcoin as a legitimate investment asset.” – company CEO added.
Quite the one-eighty turn in less than seven years.
Not The First
Bitcoin is already accustomed to such unpleasant predictions as it has been declared dead at least 382 times. However, the asset has so far proved all these critiques wrong, including outliving one website that announced it dead years ago.
MicroStrategy’s CEO is not the first to alter its mind entirely about Bitcoin. Another prominent CEO – Jamie Dimon, heading the giant American multinational bank JPMorgan Chase & Co, named BTC a “fraud” years back.
Yet, he then apologized for it, and JPM has been continuously positive regarding the primary cryptocurrency. One example popped up in June this year when a bank report said that Bitcoin proved its resilience during the COVID-19 crisis.
CNBC TV Host Jim Cramer is also a part of the “I doubted Bitcoin, but now I’m all for it” club. During the year-long bear market in 2018, he named it an “outlaw currency.” However, the US Federal Reserve’s actions during the aforementioned crisis have convinced him otherwise. As far as hedging tools go, he placed BTC right next to gold – the asset most-widely regarded as a safe haven.
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