Interview with Michael Saylor: Strategy is going to get into digital lending

Source: What Bitcoin Did; Compiled by: Felix, PANews

Recently, Michael Saylor, founder and executive chairman of Strategy, appeared on the What Bitcoin Did podcast and had an in-depth conversation with host Danny Knowles.

In the interview, Saylor pointed out that Bitcoin's true victory lies not in short-term price movements, but in the historic breakthroughs in fundamentals, from the restoration of insurance and the adoption of fair value accounting standards to the full acceptance of the banking credit system. He also shared Strategy's grand vision of building "digital credit" and responded to external doubts about DAT (Digital Bitcoin Trust). The following is a summary of the key points.

Fundamentals See Multiple Breakthroughs, Institutional Adoption is the Biggest Progress

Danny: Bitcoin is 17 years old now, and last year was a bit disappointing for Bitcoin, not what I expected, and for the companies issuing Bitcoin products as well, especially the second half of the year was really tough. Do you anticipate 2025 will be like that?

Saylor: I don't think it was a disappointing year. The only disappointing thing was the price at the end of the year. In fact, Bitcoin hit an all-time high in the first week of the last quarter (October). The whole community has a short memory, mainly talking about what happened in the last five days. In 2024, there were about 30 to 60 companies holding Bitcoin on their balance sheets, and by the end of 2025, that number will reach around 200. So in my opinion, the fundamentals look pretty good.

Bitcoin hit a new high, adding 100 companies to their balance sheets holding Bitcoin. If we list everything that happened in 2025, we'll find we reached an all-time high. First, insurance was reinstated in 2025. When we bought Bitcoin in 2020, the insurance company terminated our policy. We lost our insurance coverage. For four whole years, I had to insure the company. The company once had $20 billion, $30 billion, $40 billion in assets, but couldn't afford a $40 million insurance policy. This strategy wouldn't have existed if I hadn't insured the company with my personal assets. Profitability returned in 2025. We adopted fair value accounting, and now the company can finally make money. We've always faced the issue of corporate alternative minimum tax. Do publicly traded companies holding Bitcoin need to pay unrealized capital gains tax? This issue was resolved in 2025 with positive government guidance. Therefore, we were not impacted by the unrealized capital gains tax. Then, in 2025, Bitcoin was officially recognized by the government as the world's leading and largest digital commodity. Afterwards, the price of Bitcoin reached an all-time high. At the beginning of the year, even using a billion dollars worth of Bitcoin as collateral wouldn't secure a loan of five cents. But by the end of the year, most major U.S. banks began issuing loans using IBIT as collateral, with about a quarter of banks announcing plans to begin issuing loans using BTC as collateral. By early 2026, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley were both discussing buying, selling, and handling Bitcoin. The Treasury Department also provided positive guidance on including crypto assets on bank balance sheets. The chairmen of the U.S. CFTC and SEC also supported Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, the commercialization of the Bitcoin derivatives market on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) was witnessed. You also see a physical creation and redemption mechanism, where you can exchange $1 million worth of Bitcoin for $1 million worth of IBIT, and vice versa. There's no tax on exchanging $1 million worth of IBIT for $1 million worth of Bitcoin. So, if I list all the essential elements needed for the commercialization, globalization, and institutionalization of an asset, then by 2025, everything you want will have been achieved. And you'll even witness an all-time high, just not on the last day of the year. Predicting short-term prices is meaningless; the industry is moving in the right direction. Danny: What you've said are fundamentally positive factors for Bitcoin. I completely agree. But the current price is lower than last year. I don't know if this is a self-fulfilling prophecy, because people believe the four-year cycle is real, which is why they're selling Bitcoin. I think the four-year cycle is over. What do you think will happen in 2026? Saylor: I think trying to predict the market's movement over 100 days is futile. Like I just said, Bitcoin hit a new high 95 days ago, and you're complaining about Bitcoin's price volatility. Focusing on short-term events is a mistake; the core philosophy of Bitcoin is that you should have a lower time preference. Looking back at the history of all ideological movements over the past ten thousand years, those who were considered committed to doing something took ten years of effort. By the way, there are many people in the world who spent ten years doing something and still didn't succeed, then spent another ten or twenty years before finally succeeding. If your goal is to commercialize Bitcoin, then you shouldn't analyze or evaluate your success at a frequency of 10 weeks or even 10 months. What's the point of evaluating price movements in 2026? If you use a four-year moving average to assess Bitcoin's performance, you'll find it shows a fairly bullish trend. I think 2026 will be a significant year for Bitcoin, but you shouldn't try to predict the price in 90 or 180 days. The industry is moving in the right direction. The network is also moving in the right direction, and the past 90 days have simply been an opportunity for those with foresight to buy more Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the universal capital of the digital age, and treasury companies are far from saturated. Danny: I'm also very bullish on Bitcoin's development in 2026. What surprised me a bit in 2025 was the emergence of so many treasury companies. What do you think of companies that still use the simple strategy of "sell stocks, buy Bitcoin"? Saylor: Anyone in the world can use Bitcoin as part of an investment, but not everyone can own as much as I do. However, I don't doubt anyone buying Bitcoin. Every household, every company can buy Bitcoin. For loss-making companies, holding Bitcoin might improve their balance sheets; for profitable companies, it amplifies returns. Let's say a company loses $10 million annually, holds $100 million worth of Bitcoin on its balance sheet, and generates $30 million in capital gains. The question then becomes, what exactly are you criticizing about this company? Criticizing a company that buys Bitcoin is misguided. The focus isn't on buying Bitcoin, but on their continued losses. Why not direct your criticism at companies that are losing money and don't hold Bitcoin? Danny: I'm not criticizing any company, but I doubt whether the market can accommodate over 200 companies buying Bitcoin. Saylor: I don't understand why you would say that. It's like saying I'm skeptical about whether the market can accommodate 200 people buying Bitcoin. There are 400 million companies in the world. You think only 10 can buy Bitcoin. Why can't all 400 million companies buy Bitcoin? Don't they do other things? I think you're criticizing a company that makes a rational decision, which is a bit silly. What do you want them to buy instead of Bitcoin? What do you want to promote as an alternative to Bitcoin? Companies holding Bitcoin is like factories holding electricity infrastructure; it's a productivity tool, not just a speculative commodity. Electricity is universal capital that can power any machine; Bitcoin is universal capital in the digital age. Danny: My concern is that some companies might see this as a money-making opportunity rather than something truly interesting to develop. Saylor: This is also my general dissatisfaction with the Bitcoin community: they'd rather fight amongst themselves, rather criticize those who buy or support Bitcoin in ways different from their own. They spend so much time criticizing other Bitcoin holders and Bitcoin companies, but the truth is, 99% of people who like Bitcoin agree with you, only 1% disagree. So, instead of criticizing companies that act rationally, they should reflect on themselves. The issue isn't companies buying Bitcoin—how many companies can buy it? How big is the market? I'm asking how large the market can currently accommodate these purely financial companies, especially given the offensive nature of the question itself. Here's the problem: you define them as purely financial companies, but they aren't. Danny, what insults me is that you use this terminology to define who I am now, and who I will always be. Your stance truly offends me. Okay. Let me put it another way. How many companies are there on Earth? 400 million. How much space is there on Earth to accommodate companies? 400 million. So why worry about having 200? Danny: Okay, let's skip that, because I really don't mean any offense. Many companies have mNAVs below 1 right now, and Strategy obviously experienced a similar downturn in 2022. Do you think they can easily achieve positive price-to-book ratios again? Or will they continue to face some kind of headwind? Saylor: I think that's a short-sighted view. Companies exist to create value, so a company's value should be based on its operations. If I have a company in Japan that can sell credit instruments with a 6% yield, while other credit markets only offer 2%, how much is that company worth? Isn't it the most valuable company in Japan? So my point is that whatever companies do, their value depends on their intrinsic value. The key is how they do it. We chose to create digital credit. Do you know how much room there is for digital credit? Do you know how many companies issue senior credit? Do you know how many companies issue corporate credit? Do you think we'll saturate the market? Absolutely not. If you create a derivatives business backed by Bitcoin, theoretically you can do much better than a traditional derivatives business. If you create a Bitcoin-backed exchange, you can do much better than a regular exchange, and you can also create an insurance company. How many insurance companies on Earth use Bitcoin as collateral or capital? None. The industry is enormous.

There's another important legal point to point out. If you have an operating company, your equity value depends not only on what you're currently doing with your capital, but also on what you might do. Just because I haven't done it doesn't mean I can't.

Strategy is digital credit, leveraging dollar reserves to enhance corporate credibility

Danny: You just said you'd never be interested in becoming a bank, or that you probably wouldn't. A lot of people are speculating about your strategic direction. Why not?

Saylor: Because our business can theoretically expand almost infinitely.

We have a product called STRC Deferred Digital Credit Line. What's the perfect product? A publicly traded product with a 10% dividend yield and a V-value of 1 or 2. If we can capture 10% of the Treasury credit market, that's $10 trillion. So the total potential market size for my product is $10 trillion. Who wants it? Everyone wants it. Who wants a bank account to pay their bills? What if it drops to zero? We think our business philosophy is simple. Bitcoin is digital capital, Strategy is digital credit. Furthermore, the reason we don't do banking is to avoid distractions; we want to create the best digital credit product in the world. If you truly have a vision to transform the global monetary system, banking system, and credit markets, then don't get distracted. Meanwhile, competing with your customers is the most foolish thing to do. Danny: You start hoarding dollars and Bitcoin. Is this to become a liquidity pool for cryptocurrencies, or to alleviate concerns about interest payments when investing in preferred stock? Saylor: The reason for building up dollar reserves is to improve the company's creditworthiness and its image in the eyes of credit investors. People buy credit because they perceive Bitcoin and stocks as too volatile. If you're a stock investor, you want more Bitcoin and higher volatility. But if you're a credit investor, you want the most creditworthy asset. So, how do you improve your company's creditworthiness if you want to become the biggest player in the digital credit space? Holding dollar reserves enhances creditworthiness and makes products more attractive.