Michael Saylor - "We will never sell the bitcoin"

Phong Lee whispers in his ear - "If we never sell it then the preferred offerings can never rise above junk status and exclusively selling MSTR when mNAV is below 1.22 is dillutive"

Michael Saylor - "We will sell less bitcoin than we buy"

Matt,

Your content is always spot on when dissecting frauds/scams/spams. However, I will have to disagree with this assessment of Strategy, it's calculation of mNAV and its securities offerings.

To be clear, I do not conflate stocks with bitcoin. I do not think that Strategy has eliminated the risk from bitcoin exposure. In fact, I think the opposite. Strategy is a company that exposes investors to different kinds of custodial risk, whereas bitcoin only has a few. Bitcoin mostly has volatility and a small chance technical mishaps and cultural irrelevance.

Coinbase holding a lot of bitcoin is not a threat to bitcoin the same way OGs or billionaires are not a threat.

mNAV should be based on enterprise value because 100% of all the bitcoin belong to MSTR common stock holders.

Capitalists buy stocks. Capitalists hold sound money. Capitalists often include land in their personal and business operations.

I understand that public equities have been mostly corrupted, and that is one of the major reasons for Satoshi's creation to be released during the heart of the GFC. Most Capitalists include sound money in their portfolio ... it is not an exclusive obligation aa a bitcoiner nor as a capitalist.

Is this a Hoskinson moment?

Bitcoin is money for those who wish to use it as such. I use it as a peer to peer electronic cash system. It was birthed in the heart of the GFC where bailouts socialized losses and privatized profits. Satoshi as a free market thinker created a bank account with zero inflation that is as complex as running a BitTorrent client.

It happens to be a great way to save your money for the future because scarcity does matter for savings, and permissionless transactions matter for freedom.

As a free market thinker, I see nothing wrong with what Saylor is doing. He is trying to restore the financing mechanism that built the railroads of the US during the Industrial Revolution and was destroyed by taxes and inflation in the 20th century. He has created a custodial bitcoin onramp for people/institutions who never ran BitTorrent let alone their own private keys with Bitcoin... and they never will.

I do, I have, and I will because repeating the GFC is not fair to those who wish not to participate in fiat socialism.

Saylor has never taken TARP funds for a promised bonus, and has no intention of breaking the protocol with spam. Bitcoin is a fantastic cash system powered by a cash that can't be debated.

The user interface mimics a bank account which gold does not do and transactions can settle globally in a matter of minutes and with permanent finality in under 1 hour. As a peer to peer electronic cash system we need to get back to the basics and appreciate it for what it is trying to accomplish.

💯

I fully agree that in order for bitcoin to succeed it must be spent. Imagine if Lazlo never spent his bitcoin. Perhaps it would never have taken off. The US Dollar has value in the Eurodollar/Petrodollar system because it is spent into the global trade networks. If we spend bitcoin into the system, there will be more users and more will ultimately be held. Hoarding alone as a store of value will hit a wall when speculation dries up.

That being said...where can I spend my bitcoin? Not a lot has changed since Lazlo.

This what happens to you when you shitcoin

All true. But MSTR and preferred offerings are not bitcoin. They are certainly not bitcoin in self custody. The point that I am trying to make is people are free to take equity risk. There are many layers of risk with Equities such as currency risk, poor management risk, lousy business model risk, leverage risk, and a host of other risks baked in. Bitcoin just needs to keep existing g and be relevant.

I really enjoyed the BIP-110 and spam/scam content. Saylor's equity offerings are not a threat to the protocol so I am less in bashing a company that holds bitcoin trying to come up with ways to give investors of equities more choice, especially in the bank heavy preffered sector. While you reference rehypothecation as a legitimate threat, there is no credible indication that what Strategy is doing with it's holdings lead to that because there is no lending of bitcoin. There is only fiat revenue (preffered stock) and a company risk added to bitcoin (common stock). Not seeing this as a threat at the protocol layer.

All that said. Why are we walking away from BIP-110 material when that is supposed to be the only fix to our current dilemma?

Not clear why there is so much Strategy hate. Locking up 4 or 5 BTC for 1 BTC worth of STRC to pay it back in monthly installments forever is a risk that some people want to take. It isn't bitcoin and doesn't pretend to be and it isn't a threat to bitcoin either. The spam wars and the quantum FUD are worth far more of our time and attention because now we could be messing with the protocol.

I think it is genius. If my friend had the creditworthiness and market liquidity for the debt where I can confidently trade the principal value at par in the free and open market, then I would take the deal.

🤣