Michael Saylor says the only reason Bitcoin isn’t trading above $150,000 right now is because short-term holders with no long-term conviction are dumping it for quick cash.
The Strategy chairman said that on May 9, during an interview on the Coin Stories podcast with Natalie Brunell, where he said, “We’re going through a rotation right now.” Saylor blamed governments, lawyers, and bankruptcy trustees for holding large amounts of Bitcoin, then offloading it the second prices jumped. “They just thought this was a good exit point to get liquidity,” Saylor said.
Saylor, the executive chairman of Strategy, believes these sellers don’t have a ten-year mindset and are blocking the price from moving higher. But he also said new long-term investors are stepping in through ETFs and corporate treasuries.
Saylor argued that a full transition of ownership needs to happen before Bitcoin can break the next level. “Every crisis recruits a new class of Bitcoin believers,” he said.
Saylor says corporations without Bitcoin are sitting ducks
Saylor said forgotten public companies are quietly adopting Bitcoin because they’ve realized no one gives a shit about them anymore.
Out of 12,000 public companies in the US, only 100 dominate trading volume. The rest are invisible, according to him. If you’re not Apple, Amazon, or Google, you’re ignored. Saylor said Bitcoin offers these smaller firms a way to stay alive.
He thinks it’s about balance sheets. Old strategies—dividends and buybacks—just weaken companies. “They’ve been decapitalizing,” Saylor said. “And when the storm hits, they have nothing to fall back on.” Instead of spending excess cash on stock buybacks, he said firms should convert it to Bitcoin. “You can digitally transform your balance sheet,” he added.
Saylor called Bitcoin the first reserve asset of the 21st century. Treasuries ran the 20th. Gold belonged to the 19th. But now, in his words, it’s Bitcoin’s time. No tariffs, no supply chains, no tax complexity, no operating overhead. It’s just there. “Bitcoin becomes more valuable the more chaotic the world gets,” he said.
Saylor calls Bitcoin the only asset worth leveraging
Saylor also had advice for average people trying to make serious money. “You want to 10x your money? Buy Bitcoin. You want 100x? Use someone else’s money. You want 1000x? Use someone else’s money and lever it,” he said.
But he added that most people should just keep their jobs and use mortgage debt—long-term, fixed-rate—to buy Bitcoin. “It’s the cheapest permanent capital,” Saylor said.
He told people to skip the yachts, Ferraris, and early mortgage payments. “Every Bitcoin you don’t buy now is a $13 million cost,” Saylor said, adding that by 2045, he sees Bitcoin hitting that price. A $100 million Ferrari could end up costing six Bitcoin, so “buy the six Bitcoin instead,” he said.
Saylor said Bitcoin is like “the sucralose of finance”—a universal sweetener that can improve any portfolio. He said it’s the best-performing asset globally and offers unmatched financial energy. It works with equities, bonds, insurance portfolios, and fixed-income structures. “You can improve the outcome of any financial action with Bitcoin,” he said.
When asked about the government, Saylor said he wasn’t surprised the US hasn’t bought Bitcoin directly but was shocked by how fast the White House changed its tune. With Trump back in office, he said nearly every cabinet member is pro-Bitcoin and that the new strategic Bitcoin reserve was unexpected.
Saylor didn’t expect the Treasury to declare Bitcoin as digital gold or hear the President say, “Never sell your Bitcoin.” Still, Saylor said the real push will come from small and mid-sized firms, not the government. “They have the most to gain, the least to lose, and they can move fastest,” he said.
He explained that Bitcoin is volatile because it’s global and always available. “It’s the only thing you can short with 50x leverage on a Saturday morning,” he said. That’s why it gets hit first in a panic. But he pointed out that it always bounces back and decouples from other assets.
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