Executive Chairman, MicroStrategy Inc.
Michael Saylor: Bitcoin Will Hit $1 Million In a Decade & 30% Yearly Growth Forever | Full Interview
Join Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman of Strategy and the world's leading corporate Bitcoin advocate, in this interview in Abu Dhabi December 2025 Michael shares his unshakeable conviction on why Bitcoin is superior to gold, traditional treasuries and even the S&P 500 as a long-term asset.
Saylor explains why every company and country should consider holding Bitcoin on their balance sheet, calling it "digital capital" that appreciates far faster than money markets or gold, potentially delivering 30-40% annual returns while empowering economic freedom in an increasingly digital world.
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About Michael Saylor
Michael Saylor, executive chairman of Strategy, has continued to promote Bitcoin as "digital capital" and to argue for the expansion of credit markets backed by Bitcoin. In mid-2026, during a bear market that saw Bitcoin drop from $120,000 to $60,000, Saylor defended his company's sale of 32 Bitcoin, stating that the company had net purchased roughly 250,000 Bitcoin over the same period. He characterized critics who objected to the sale as "Twitter trolls" and argued that "never sell your Bitcoin" is advice for individual investors, not for a publicly traded company structured to issue credit. Saylor has introduced and promoted a company instrument called STRC (Stretch), a preferred stock that he described as a "digital credit" product offering an 11.5% tax-deferred yield. He stated that the product is designed to funnel capital from traditional credit markets into Bitcoin, and described it as the "killer app" for a corporate Bitcoin treasury. Saylor has repeatedly said that Bitcoin could eventually reach $7 million per coin, arguing that the total capital need for a global digital asset could be $100 trillion. He urged regulatory reforms such as revising Basel rules to allow banks to hold Bitcoin. He described Strategy's role as a "shock absorber" in the market and said the company would continue to be the world's largest corporate buyer of Bitcoin. Saylor also stated he was prepared to sell Bitcoin to fund STRC dividends if necessary, though he said the company would buy "10 to 20 more" for each one sold. He dismissed speculation that Strategy posed a systemic risk to the market, and said he expects a capital rotation back into Bitcoin by the end of 2026.
Transcript (59 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
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Interviewer0:00
Michael, thank you very much for joining us today.
M
Michael Saylor0:02
It's a delight to be here.
I
Interviewer0:04
Tell me more why you are in Abu Dhabi. What do you want to achieve?
M
Michael Saylor0:08
Well, this region has always embraced digital technology. This is a banking center. It's a sophisticated, innovative culture and is open and inclusive. My company is the biggest holder of Bitcoin in the world and Bitcoin represents an economic protocol for economic empowerment and many people call it digital gold. We think of it as digital capital and it represents the digital transformation of the capital markets. And so I'm here to speak with policy makers, with regulators, with bankers, with sovereign investors, with private investors, and with all of the interesting tech interested technical enthusiasts about the opportunities for digital capital and digital credit and digital equity.
I
Interviewer0:58
Okay. On that point, why do you think it's important for companies or countries, especially companies outside crypto, why it's important for them to hold Bitcoin on their balance sheet?
M
Michael Saylor1:12
Yeah. Well, for 3,000 years, people used gold as commodity capital and Bitcoin is digital gold. And if you wanted to make gold better, you would make it possible to teleport it, you would limit it so no one could make any more of it and you would program it on a computer. Bitcoin is that digital capital asset which is better than gold and programmable and it's been appreciating about 45% a year for the past 5 years. Gold is appreciating about 15% a year. So you cannot capitalize a company on securities portfolios. You normally have to run a company treasury on money markets. Money markets deliver about 3% performance a year. So your choice is either 3% from money markets or 45% from digital capital. And that being the case, every single company in the world would benefit from flipping from the 3% money markets to the 45% digital solution.
I
Interviewer2:11
Building on that, Michael, how do you define strategy today? And how dependent is the company on capital markets to survive?
M
Michael Saylor2:23
Yeah, strategy is the leading issuer of digital credit in the world as a digital credit vehicle. Think of it as a structured finance company. And we're the first company to begin to securitize this new asset class. Imagine a company showed up in New York City and they were the first company to go public and then issue public securities, equity and preferred stocks to build buildings and then their stock and their securities became a way that people could invest in real estate. We have created equity and preferred equities that the public can buy. There are actually five preferred equities that float and then there's one common equity and we take the capital that we raise and we buy Bitcoin with it. Now we're not dependent on the capital markets but we are powering the capital markets. The company's idea is pretty simple. It's we simply buy Bitcoin. We hold it forever. Now when we sell a preferred stock, we pay a dividend on the preferred. The way we pay the dividend is either we sell equity in the company if it's appreciating faster than the Bitcoin or we just sell the Bitcoin. And so in theory you could build a company like ours and make it private. You could just sell private securities. You could hold the Bitcoin and then when your real estate portfolio, your property portfolio appreciates, you would sell some of it. But it's a much better idea when you're public because the truth is the equity investors want to buy that equity and the credit investors want a liquid credit and if you want to create it you need a capital asset that you can put on your balance sheet in the middle and that capital asset is Bitcoin.
I
Interviewer4:06
Two points from what you said. You never sell Bitcoin is still absolute or not? Because you just mentioned it's an option.
M
Michael Saylor4:16
I believe that people shouldn't sell their Bitcoin and I'm very famous for that. But if you're a real estate investor and you raise capital from the public markets and you bought $60 billion of real estate and the equity markets close to you, you would simply sell your highly appreciated real estate or your high basis real estate to meet your corporate debt obligations. So generally our view is we will either pay our dividends out of our dollar reserves. We have about one half billion dollars worth of USD, 1.44 billion, and we could do that for about a year and a half, 21 months, or we would sell the equity if it's at a premium to our NAV or we would sell the Bitcoin if the equity was at a discount to the NAV or we would sell derivatives. We can sell call options and engage in the basis trade because we have 60 billion dollars of unpledged collateral that we can use in that activity.
I
Interviewer5:10
So this is when it comes to your debt obligations and dividends obligations. Do you think that Bitcoin price would outgrow those commitments going forward or not?
M
Michael Saylor5:22
The important numbers are if Bitcoin goes up 0% a year for the next hundred years, we have about 75 years worth of dividends. If Bitcoin goes up 1.4% or more, then we can pay the dividends forever. If we sell credit instruments equal to 1.4% of our capital assets, we can pay the dividends funded in Bitcoin and we can increase the amount of Bitcoin we have forever. And if Bitcoin goes up more than 10.5% a year, we have escape velocity. The equity outperforms Bitcoin. And what you'll find is the company's like a rocket, right?
I
Interviewer6:01
You're very confident. Michael, let me challenge you here a bit. Standard Chartered pushed its 500,000 Bitcoin target to 2030. Is this just a delay or it is hard for Bitcoin to reach that number?
M
Michael Saylor6:20
Bitcoin was going up 80% a year with 80 vol five years ago when I got in the business. It's 45% a year, 45 vol right now. I expect it to decelerate until it's about 20 vol, 20 ARR over the next 20 years. It's going to be a higher performing asset than the S&P index. It's going to be more volatile than the S&P index. As long as you have a time horizon of more than four years, you could reasonably buy the asset and you'll do better than the S&P. If your time horizon is less than four years, you should buy the credit instruments because they strip the volatility off. Our credit will pay you a 10% dividend without that volatility, but you'll lose the other 20%. If you're an equity investor, you ought to buy the equity because you'll outperform Bitcoin. If you don't trust anybody and you're a commodity investor, you should buy the Bitcoin because it's about 30% a year for the next 20 years.
I
Interviewer7:19
30%.
M
Michael Saylor7:20
That's what I expect.
I
Interviewer7:22
Wow. So what is the number? What's your outlook for Bitcoin over the course of five years? Give me a number though.
M
Michael Saylor7:30
Well, I can't give you the math in my head. What I would...
I
Interviewer7:33
You just mentioned the 38% number.
M
Michael Saylor7:36
I think it's definitely going up at a rapid rate. Right now it's 40. It'll probably appreciate about 40% a year, 30% a year, in that range over the next five years.
I
Interviewer7:48
Every year 40% increase.
M
Michael Saylor7:51
Yes. Yeah. It's going to outperform the S&P because it doesn't have the risk factors of the S&P. It's going to outperform real estate because you can't teleport real estate. You can't program real estate on a mobile phone. And it's going to outperform gold because you can't make any more Bitcoin. And so it has none of the liabilities of conventional capital asset classes. It has all the benefits of a digital monopoly like a Google or an Apple. And it also has all the benefits of a commodity because it's an asset without an issuer. So it doesn't have the risks of an equity. And that's why it's a very compelling asset to build a new credit market on. And that's why every company and every investor ought to be thinking about do they want to buy digital capital, do they want to buy digital credit, do they want to buy digital equity? It's something you should be considering this year.
I
Interviewer8:41
I think you made so many CEOs and decision makers in the world probably question themselves if they're doing the right thing or not and that will lead to my next question. Michael, how do you want strategy and yourself to be remembered in 20 years?
M
Michael Saylor9:00
Well, we think that Bitcoin represents the highest form of property rights the human race has yet encountered. For the first time in human history, you can tightly bind economic energy to the individual or the company or the family or the country. You can put the money in your head. So our number one mission is to spread the hope, the promise of Bitcoin to the 8 billion people on the planet. Bitcoin gives you a way out. If you can't trust the bank, if you can't trust the currency, if you can't trust the government, or if you just want digital capital that you can move at the speed of light a million times a second, Bitcoin's the future. So, we want to be remembered for advocating for institutional adoption and global adoption of Bitcoin as a digital capital asset that you use to base the digital transformation of all financial markets.
I
Interviewer9:53
Michael, looking back, is there anything you regret doing or not doing?
M
Michael Saylor9:59
I think more Bitcoin. Please don't tell me that. I think that everything that we've done along the path in our life conspired to get us here. And so I feel fortunate and blessed to have the opportunity to do what I'm doing right now.
I
Interviewer10:14
Let's do this fast. Please first answer that comes to mind. All right. Bitcoin at $1 million. Inevitable or impossible?
M
Michael Saylor10:25
Inevitable.
I
Interviewer10:26
When?
M
Michael Saylor10:27
Probably within a decade.
I
Interviewer10:28
Within a decade. So in 10 years, gold in 20 years, relic or still relevant?
M
Michael Saylor10:34
I think it will be relevant but marginalized. It won't grow as fast as Bitcoin will grow. Bitcoin will grow faster.
I
Interviewer10:42
Who's going to be the next safe haven? Bitcoin or gold? Because Bitcoin was once seen as safe haven.
M
Michael Saylor10:51
I expect Bitcoin to emerge as the dominant digital monetary network in the world and it is the world's reserve capital. So I think it'll grow from the two trillion to 20 trillion to 200 trillion over the next 20 to 30 years. I don't think gold will do that. I think that Bitcoin will be 10x bigger than gold.
I
Interviewer11:13
One word to describe fiat money.
M
Michael Saylor11:14
Conventional currency.
I
Interviewer11:18
And what is the misconception about Bitcoin?
M
Michael Saylor11:20
I think the misconception is that it's a speculative asset and it's really a protocol for economic empowerment for the entire human race.
I
Interviewer11:30
One habit every successful investor should do.
M
Michael Saylor11:35
I think every successful investor should study Bitcoin and then should decide whether or not they can plug their company or their fund or their country or their family or their individual portfolio into it either via Bitcoin the commodity or via a security that's exposed or indexed to Bitcoin or via credit instrument that's powered by Bitcoin.
I
Interviewer12:00
So this for investors but to our audience what do you tell them about Bitcoin? What percentage you should keep in a portfolio?
M
Michael Saylor12:11
I think you take money that you don't need for the next four years, call it long-term capital, and you should allocate your long-term capital to some mix of your favorite equity capital, real estate capital, digital capital. Perhaps you might find some other trophy art or something capital. If you're a conventional investor and you don't have a strong opinion, but you think it's real, you should have 5% to 10% of your portfolio in it. If you're a digital investor or a technology investor, it ought to be a much larger percentage. If I was a tech investor, I think the big trends of the world are digital intelligence and digital capital, which means that you probably want to own the companies that are going to create the billion robots that do everything and the cars that drive themselves and all the AIs that do all the thinking for us. And that's going to be very valuable big tech equity. And then you ought to own digital capital because the AIs and the robots are going to want the Bitcoin.
I
Interviewer13:09
Anything that keeps you up at night, Michael?
M
Michael Saylor13:13
No.
I
Interviewer13:13
Really? But honestly, you're not worried about anything?
M
Michael Saylor13:17
The continued challenge to communicate the promise of Bitcoin and digital empowerment to the world that was built on 20th century ideas and conventions. What we need to do is take the world from the 20th century into the 21st century. And there's a lot of inertia and a lot of institutional inertia that is very human. And so we just have to explain to every bank, every investor, every company, every politician, every individual why their world is better with digital capital than it would be without.
I
Interviewer13:53
If you have an extra $1 million, Michael, where will you invest and give me a percentage, please?
M
Michael Saylor14:00
Bitcoin. I bought 960 million of Bitcoin last week. I bought nothing of any.
I
Interviewer14:04
That's the company money. I want to know your money.
M
Michael Saylor14:07
I would buy Bitcoin.
I
Interviewer14:08
The whole million dollar.
M
Michael Saylor14:10
Whenever I have money, I buy Bitcoin. I don't sell the Bitcoin. I just buy the Bitcoin because for me, if you believe in Bitcoin, Bitcoin, as I said, I expect it to go up 30% a year. That's the risk-free rate. So every investment I could consider would have to be 30% without risk for me to consider it. So if you promised me 40% returns for the next 20 years on a monopoly, that would be about equivalent to what I'd get from Bitcoin, but I couldn't be sure. So I'd probably still buy the Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a digital monopoly on capital growing 30% a year. You can buy it at one times revenue. Any CEO, any investor given a chance to buy a monopoly growing 30% a year at one times revenue would think that's the best deal they've ever had in their life. We've done that deal over and over again. I will do that deal over and over again. And I would tell everybody else it's the best deal in the world if you're a financial investor.
I
Interviewer15:10
Thank you, Michael.
M
Michael Saylor15:11
Thank you.
I
Interviewer15:11
Thank you very much. It's very difficult to argue that. Honestly,
M
Michael Saylor15:16
I'm a Bitcoin maximalist.
I
Interviewer15:17
I know. I know you are. Thank you.
M
Michael Saylor15:19
Now you know why. Thank you. Thank you for joining us.
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Narrator15:23
Vampire Dracul here. If you found value in this video, please smash the like button. Let me know your favorite part of the video by commenting below. And most importantly, don't forget to subscribe and ding that bell. Until next time, keep it real.