​EXCLUSIVE: Phong Le Reveals The Plan To Reach 1M Bitcoin On The Balance Sheet!

I'm doing awesome. Thanks for having me.

Well, I'll start with there's a lot that has changed in the last year. You were just asking me what's my favorite Bitcoin era. And it's always the current present one, right? Because there's just so much innovation, so much change. You know, a year ago, we were at this event, Bitcoin Vegas 2025, and the big emerging conversation was Bitcoin Treasury companies, DATs, whatever you want to call them. And we went from having four to 200 around the world in the course of literally a year. And that was fantastic, right? A DAT for every country, for every market, different purposes, even ones that hold other cryptocurrencies. Fantastic. Great. And now here we fast forward to literally just a year later and we have this emergence of a brand new asset class built on the back of Bitcoin which is what you just mentioned: perpetual preferred called Stretch. And what's awesome and exciting about Stretch is, you know, Bitcoin, digital capital, it's a tough concept. Here we sit in the echo chamber of Bitcoin Vegas, everyone here gets it. You go outside in the real world, it's a difficult concept to grasp. You need to understand finance, corporate finance, macroeconomics, cryptography, computer engineering, computer science, all these things, right? And so we put on top of that digital equities, right? Which are these digital asset treasury companies. So basically publicly traded companies that put Bitcoin on their balance sheet. A little bit easier because people sort of get, "Ah, I can buy a stock, a four-letter ticker on the NASDAQ or New York Stock Exchange, and it has access to Bitcoin." It's a little easier. But if you go out into the real world, there are a lot of people who don't invest in equities. They don't invest in stocks, right? Or don't have access for whatever reason. So we said, how do you strip it down and make it even easier? And forget about the word perpetual preferred and all that kind of stuff for a sec. What is Stretch? Stretch is an ability to take your money and put it into an equity security, an account that pays you at 11 and a half percent monthly, right? And that's the most basic form of Bitcoin as we simplify it more and more over time. And of course with that simplification from Bitcoin to digital asset treasury companies to Stretch, it gives more people access to Bitcoin. And to your point, as we raise money into Stretch, what do we do? We feed it back into the Bitcoin ecosystem and it's allowed us to accumulate over 800 of, you know, 10,000 Bitcoin and a lot of that accumulation has occurred because of Stretch.

Yeah. There's a lot of websites, there are prediction market guesses on when we're going to reach a million. I'll tell you, I don't know when we're going to reach a million, right? Obviously, we're going to continue to try to grow Bitcoin per share by selling as much Stretch into the market as possible. And you know, the million is just a number, right? It's not like we stop at a million.

No.

Yeah. So very simply, what do we do, right? We take, we sell Stretch, which is a perpetual preferred product. You can buy it on the NASDAQ, go into Robin Hood, you buy Stretch. All right. And every month you get paid at the end of the month. So for example, if you hold Stretch on April 15th, on April 30th, you get paid 11 and a half percent annualized. So about a percent a month. That's sort of what happens to the shareholder of Stretch. What happens to us is that money you put into Stretch, let's say you buy 10 shares and you buy $1,000, right? And as the demand for Stretch outstrips people selling Stretch, we raise that money and then we put that $1,000 into Bitcoin. So how do we actually pay the dividend? What happens with Bitcoin is our prediction as it goes up 30% a year, right? And we hold Bitcoin, right? And as it goes up 30% a year, we're able to pay the 11-12%. So we basically get the spread, the 18.5%, in between. That's basically what happens. An individual isn't able to do that at scale. A small company can't do that at scale. But we can do that at scale because we have so much Bitcoin. And that's basically the process. We have unrealized gains on our Bitcoin through our equity. The equity value increases as those unrealized gains occur. And so we can take those gains of the equity to pay out to our investors. It's a beautiful thing.

I'll tell you, a couple of things. One is, as everyone realizes, the innovation, the intelligence, the intensity that comes with Michael Saylor comes through very front and center and it's obvious when you spend time with him or you watch him on TV or on X or YouTube or whatever it is. He's also an extraordinarily kind and caring person. And I don't think people quite realize that. And of course, for who he is, there is a veneer, but once you get past that veneer, Mike's one of the nicest people, really caring. He expresses his caring in different ways. I'll tell you another story that I shared the other day is, you know, he takes all that caring and he puts it into his life's work, Bitcoin, Strategy, and he gives it back in that way. Every now and then, Mike loves his analogies and his metaphors, and he'll sometimes give me, "Fong, it's like raising kids, right?" And I have three kids. And I'll let him give me his analogy. I'm like, "Mike, what do you know about raising kids, dude?" And of course, I think once he's like, "I was a kid once." So, no, he's just a fantastic, kind, caring person.

Well, I'll start with whenever you're doing something that's different, that's popular, that people are talking about, haters will emerge, right? And haters get more attention than lovers, unfortunately, in today's sort of eyeball soundbite economy, if you will, right? And so there are people out there. Let's say for example, 70% of people like Strategy, 30% hate Strategy. Of that 30% of haters, at least 80% of them, so at least 24% of all the people who talk about Strategy hate just to hate, right? They're not educated, they don't really understand the company, they don't understand what Bitcoin is, they don't understand what a digital asset treasury company is, they don't understand what perpetual is, they just hate. Why do they hate? Because that gets them attention, right? They're perpetual haters out there. And so I just dismiss those folks, right? They're the folks that when you see someone post something on X, the first thing they do is they swear and they say that's terrible, and it's within one second of something getting posted. They're not even reading the thing. Their immediate reaction is to hate. Then you know, I'll call it the 6% of people who talk about Strategy who are haters who actually have a foundation for a reason, based off of education, research, to not like what we're doing. You have to listen to them, you have to learn and understand, okay? So what are they saying, right? Why are they saying it? Because within that, there are nuggets of truth and you have to understand, it can change your position, it can change your product, it can change your philosophy if you understand those nuggets of truth. So there are some useful haters, there are some perpetual haters, and there are their lovers. And you need to listen to the useful haters and the lovers and those in between, just ignore them.

The hottest Bitcoin take and the one that might get me in trouble. I mean, my hottest take right now obviously is Stretch. And I truly believe we've created a product that is fit for everybody, right? Like literally everybody from somebody who is an ultra high net worth individual in their 60s to living paycheck to paycheck in their 20s to me when I was 16 mowing lawns, right? And of course that gets us in trouble because people think, "Well, this is a security, you know, and you're talking to people like this is fit for everybody." Yeah, you got to do some learning, but it is truly a product that we created that should be fit for everybody.

Usually, it'll hit a million dollars when I wake up in the morning. The first thing I do, I wake up in the morning. I look at my, I should say first thing I do, I look at my wife and think how much I love her. And then the second thing I do is I look at my phone. I look at Bitcoin price. And if I wake up and Bitcoin price hits a million dollars, I will probably go on X and see what I've missed overnight about people talking about Bitcoin price hitting a million dollars. So it'll be a little X party happening and I'll join the X party.

I can't. You know, the 100K party was a lot of fun. The million dollar party is going to be with Elon on the moon. It'll happen soon enough that we probably won't have civilizations on the moon yet.

Oh, I've been wrong many times. I'll have to think about that. I mean, when Mike first presented the idea to me of putting Bitcoin on our balance sheet in 2020, I was pretty convinced it was a good idea, but I was not as convinced of how much of our dollars we should convert into Bitcoin as Mike was. He, when he comes up with an idea, he tends to have great conviction and go all in. And I wanted to take it easy and I listened to our shareholders and a lot of feedback, which sometimes when you know something's right, you gotta go all in. So the first time I was wrong was thinking that we should have put just a small fraction of our balance sheet into Bitcoin, which is the common idea you diversify with 5-10%. And we ended up putting essentially 100% of our excess cash into Bitcoin. And so I was wrong then and I'm glad that Mike was right.

Yeah, it's, you know, I'm a pretty even keel guy on the outside. And I like to think that I don't internalize stress, but there are things that sort of get to you. And similar to the Bitcoin haters, when things get to you, and it call it maybe once a week or once a month something really gnaws at me, it is good to internalize it, realize why, and use that energy like a judo move into making good decisions, right? Because if something gets to you and it's really gnawing at you, it's not because it's wrong or it's people telling you things that are just wrong and you should move on. Normally, at this stage in your life, I have a pretty good meter of what is right and wrong. And when something gets to you, it's because you're doing something potentially wrong. And so, how do you take that and feed it into what is the right solution? Right? When you're getting attacked or when you made a decision that people are telling you is the wrong decision, the worst thing you can do is dismiss it. You have to take it as positive fuel towards a better outcome. And so that gets me to the point where I'm pretty even keeled with life. But when there's a negative issue, realize that you have to solve it. It's a problem to be solved versus something to continually stress and fight against. And so take the negative and turn it into an opportunity for a positive. If you could go back to your younger self, looking back at everything that you have accomplished, what would you tell yourself?

Life is a gift. And success is a gift. And in my 20s, I often look back at when I was 15 years old and I was preparing for this test or about to play this football game or about to talk to this girl. I wish I could go back in time and do it over, right? And at this point in my life, there isn't much. And this brings me a sense of great happiness. I don't think I'd do anything over. I could go back a year and maybe have made this different financial decision or 10 years and said this thing differently to one of my children. But those are small things. I have a great sense of satisfaction that the path that my life has taken has led me to this moment and I wouldn't change anything about it. Right? And that gives you conviction as you move forward. I've lived maybe half my life, that the decisions and things that happen going forward will happen for good reason. And I certainly realize that a lot of that is based off of experience and making decisions based off of the wealth and knowledge you have and the people around you, and of course a lot of that's just luck. I've been an extremely fortunate and lucky person across all aspects of life. And so with that, what would I tell my former teenage self? It'll all work out. Don't sweat it.

You know, when my kids were growing up and they were in elementary school, they might remember this. I would pick them up from school, the two older ones, and I'd ask them, "What did you do today where you worked hard? And what did you do today where you were kind?" And those are the two things that I just wanted out of the kids: work hard, be kind. And I would say those are good life mottos. Always work hard, do your best, and be nice when you can.

What's always heartwarming is, as we talk on a more personal note, when I'm at an event like this or when I meet people who have found Bitcoin, who have found Strategy, and now who found Stretch, they're just really, really good people. And sometimes Bitcoin, for those who don't spend time within Bitcoin, have this sort of jaded view towards the asset class. They have a view that this is a political asset, that it's for gamblers, risk takers. And I challenge you, if that is your biased view informed by largely a lack of information, to go meet some Bitcoiners, right? Just meet some folks and you'll start to realize that, back to the life motto, they're hardworking folks who are exceptionally kind and generous with their time and with their energy. So my suggestion to everybody, and I realize most of you who will watch this are Bitcoiners, go find some people who don't know Bitcoin and just encourage them to talk to people who are in the Bitcoin space, as opposed to coming towards it with any preconceived notion. Just talk to people with an open mind.