Michael Saylor is one of the most influential voices in Bitcoin.
We don't have any particular target. We accumulate Bitcoin as we raise capital, and the balance sheet of the company is more than 840,000 Bitcoin. We own more than 4% of all the Bitcoin that will ever exist. In the year 2035, 99% of all the Bitcoin will have been mined. I think we're in a gold rush between now and the year 2035. The way we describe it is Bitcoin is like a fighter jet, and digital credit like STRC is like a passenger jet.
So for people watching and wondering, are we too early? Is it too late?
I think the crypto economy is maybe $3 trillion right now.
And for everyone watching, if that doesn't motivate you to go out there and read up on Bitcoin, I don't know what will.
Michael Saylor is one of the most influential voices in Bitcoin, arguably the person who did more than anyone to put Bitcoin on the corporate balance sheet. In this conversation, we'll look at where Bitcoin goes from here, what the launch of STRC means, and how Michael sees Bitcoin's role in a world increasingly shaped by AI and abundance. So, Michael, first of all, a huge thank you for joining today.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Thank you so much for taking the time. Now, starting off and jumping straight into all things Bitcoin. In the last week, we have seen indicators like crypto ETF flows for Bitcoin hit net positive inflows, and also Strategy's 2026 Bitcoin investor guide picking up traction online. And I'm curious to hear, Michael, first of all, in terms of Bitcoin, are we so back? And also, what metrics would you use to determine a bull market?
Yeah. I think Bitcoin found its support levels around the low 60s a few months ago. We normally look at the 200-week moving average, and we look at the premium or the discount to that 200-week moving average. So there seems to be pretty good support when Bitcoin hits the 200-week moving average. Right now, we bounced off it and we're a bit above it. And I think there were negative institutional flows during the summer as a lot of capital went into the AI trades, into the SpaceX deal and the Google fundraising. And between Google and SpaceX and Anthropic and OpenAI and then Nvidia and all of the hyperscalers and all of the data centers raising capital, that's like a trillion dollars of flow. So that has been a capital magnet. Now, I think that that trend has reached a stable point, is starting to reverse, and I think people are realizing that they can't fund AI with infinite money. And so a lot of that institutional capital that flowed out of the crypto economy is starting to flow back in.
Fantastic. And we'll get to that a little bit later in terms of the AI and crypto convergence. But before we do, I'd like to ask you about the undeniable case for Bitcoin, which was the title of your 2025 Binance Blockchain Week keynote. So, if we look from December 2025, fast forward to today, what did you think would happen in terms of Bitcoin and then that ripple effect that that gives to the wider industry, and what did we actually see unfold?
Well, I think Bitcoin is emerging as digital capital worldwide. So it's a long-term store of value. Call it digital gold if you like. And the key drivers of its adoption as digital capital and its monetization are the securitization of it. So there's a lot of wrapped Bitcoin, and all the ETFs have been very successful, like iBit. And the second driver has been the formation of equity capital on top of it through Bitcoin treasury companies like Strategy, Strive, and Metaplanet. The third driver, and this has been a big trend for the past 12 months, has been the formation of digital credit. And digital credit are credit instruments that offer lower volatility and more predictable yield and cash flow off of Bitcoin. And those are instruments like STRC and SATA. And that digital credit business has gone from nothing to about $15 billion over the course of 12 months.
And then the final driver of Bitcoin monetization and adoption is the formation of bank credit. So as banks begin to custody Bitcoin, and when they custody it, they'll extend credit against it. And so you could imagine if in the real estate business it was impossible to get a loan or a mortgage, then the value or the price of your real estate would be lower. And then as the banks start to extend mortgages, and as the mortgage rates fall, and as the credit terms become more generous, the price of the real estate, all other things being equal, tends to increase. So the banks have all the money they can. They can create money out of thin air. If they finance real estate, real estate prices go up. If they finance art, art prices go up. If they finance your equity investments like Apple or Google stock, the price of the stocks go up. And as they finance Bitcoin, the price of Bitcoin goes up. And so that is a trend that's emerging now. And it's probably something that we'll see as the primary price driver over the next 36 months.
And you mentioned digital credit there. And we have a lot of people that are watching the cryptocurrency markets. They watch you in Strategy in terms of buying Bitcoin, and now also are watching you building digital credit. Can you talk us through that? Obviously, we've seen Strategy has always been known for accumulating Bitcoin. So let's talk us through the evolution of the capital structure evolving, and why you decided to go from just buying Bitcoin to building this digital credit that you've mentioned.
Well, you could think of Bitcoin as crude oil, and then you could think of digital credit as gasoline. There are just a lot of engines that run on gasoline. They don't run on crude oil. There's energy in Bitcoin. But if you want to extract the energy, you need to crack it or you need to distill it into something that's more digestible for the financial machines of the world. So for example, Bitcoin has been returning about 35% ARR per year for the past six years. But it gives you that return with a 40 or 45 volatility. Most investors can't feed 45-vol assets into their portfolio. It blows up the engine. It's like just pouring pure crude oil into your car engine. You can't run on it. What they want is something that's got much less vol, 10 vol, 5 vol. So digital credit steps down that 35% performance to say 12% performance, but it strips 80 to 90% of the volatility off of the underlying capital asset. So another way to say it is there's a much larger market for something that pays you 10% yield with 10 vol than there is for something that pays you 40% with 40 vol. Even though if you're a vol junkie, you're much better off to invest in the 40 ARR, 40 vol asset, but you're going to be on a roller coaster for a decade and you have no cash flow. So you got to hold your breath for a decade and get on the roller coaster. That's something for the ambitious pioneer.
Most of the world runs on credit. They either want the 10% ARR with the 10 vol, or they want a bank account that pays them 7% with zero volatility. And so that's, you know, money markets pay you three and a half percent right now in dollars, and there's $30 trillion sitting in those money markets. There are trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars, and that's considered to be the safe investment. So of course, if you want to grow the entire crypto economy, then you can't sell retirees something that gives them no cash flow and a roller coaster ride pulling 9 Gs for the next decade. Their 70-year-old retirees are not buying that, right? So what you have to do is create a product for them. And you know, the way we describe it is Bitcoin is like a fighter jet, and digital credit like STRC is like a passenger jet. So I want to get on the plane in Dubai. I want to fly to New York. I want to put my coffee on the table, and I don't want you to spill a drop while you take off and land. And of course, if you're an acrobatic pilot, you would think that's so boring. That's putting me to sleep. There's no way I want to do that. But of course, 99% of the population just wants a comfortable ride to their destination. And the way you do that is you strip the volatility off of the underlying capital asset by over-collateralizing it and managing your capital markets programs around that asset so that you provide a new class of investors with a comfortable ride.
And these are really great analogies for everyone and for the people that are on Binance that are listening in. So you've given the STRC breakdown versus potentially kind of Bitcoin as the fighter jet. If someone already understands gold as an example, how should they think about what STRC is designed to do differently versus a tokenized gold, as an example?
