What to know:
- Strategy Chair Michael Saylor envisions Bitcoin as a $200 trillion asset class by 2045, transforming it into a global settlement layer for the AI-driven internet age. He believes U.S. adoption of a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve will cement its dominance, forcing worldwide adoption.
- Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), has leveraged $33 billion to amass over 500,000 bitcoins, using innovative financial instruments like convertible bonds and preferred stock to fuel its corporate bitcoin treasury and financially engineering a self-sustaining price escalation cycle.
- Saylor suggests burning his bitcoin holdings will bestow "economic immortality."
It’s the year 2045. Digital assets move at the speed of light. AI agents interact millions of times a second, using bitcoin as a base currency. Bitcoin is now a $200 trillion asset class, a settlement layer for the AI Age of the Internet.
This is the future imagined by bitcoin evangelist Michael Saylor, the executive chairman of Strategy (MSTR). Saylor pioneered the bitcoin corporate treasury – turning his flailing software firm into a Nasdaq-listed $85 billion leveraged bitcoin powerhouse.
CoinDesk recently sat down with Saylor, Bitcoin’s ultimate maximalist, for a two-hour interview to break down his vision for global bitcoin domination.
Since the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, bitcoin has maintained a 26% gain, peaking at a $2.1 trillion market cap, and touching a January all time high of $109,000. Strategy, a Wall Street proxy for bitcoin, remains strong with about a 50% gain, despite dropping approximately 30% from November highs amid a broader decline in U.S. equities, the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield, and oil.
The United States went from regulating crypto by enforcement and covertly de-banking digital asset firms, dubbed “Operation Chokepoint 2.0” by the industry, to declaring that the U.S. will become a bitcoin superpower and the crypto capital of the world. For Saylor, the sea change means doors that were previously closed are opening. Governments and traditional institutional investors around the world that used to be afraid of engaging with digital assets are now curious.
Saylor said he is fielding invitations to speak at all the elite gatherings: South America’s 100 wealthiest families, Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, Morgan Stanley’s prestigious tech conference, CPAC, and the White House. He has gone from encouraging corporations to adopt bitcoin treasuries to advising nation states on establishing strategic bitcoin reserves.
Bitcoin has reached “escape velocity,” he said, because once the U.S. government begins to acquire it aggressively, the U.S. will become a beneficiary and force every country to adopt bitcoin as the global capital.
