MicroStrategy’s Saylor Challenges BlackRock, Vows to Increase BTC Holdings

Amid rising Bitcoin prices and record inflows into Spot Bitcoin ETFs, a battle is taking place which would have been impossible 3 months ago. BlackRock and MicroStrategy (MSTR) are ramping up their BTC supply in a race to be the biggest holder of the number one crypto.

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Don’t believe that’s a thing? Then listen to the man who has become one of the biggest Bitcoin proponents—and that only as recently as the Pandemic. During Covid, Michael Saylor started his deep dive into the rabbit hole that is Bitcoin and blockchain and he has been a fan ever since.

So much so, that he now says he will never sell Bitcoin. Recently, the MicroStrategy Executive Chairman spoke in an interview on Bitcoin. When asked what the end game is for all the Bitcoin held by MSTR he said:

Saylor Does Not Have Plans To Sell—Ever

Saylor doesn’t plan on doing what many investors do, that is, take profits—instead, Saylor wants to hold on to Bitcoin indefinitely. He said the purpose of BTC is capital preservation, which he believes only Bitcoin can achieve over a long time period, think 100 years or more. He doesn’t think land, property or any company can do that.

All this paints a very clear picture of the commitment of Saylor toward Bitcoin. Which is why he announced that MSTR is going to raise a further USD $500m (AUD $754m) to buy—you guessed it—more Bitcoin.

This comes after last week the company upped their original plans of raising USD $600m (AUD $905m) to buy BTC to a whopping USD $800m (AUD $1.2bn).

Meanwhile, BlackRock’s portfolio managers have not been twiddling their thumbs and have been busy scooping up record sums of BTC themselves. According to data from iShares updated March 12, IBIT holds 215,625.77 BTC, compared to MSTR’s 205,000.

Considering that in the most recent trading day IBIT accumulated USD $848m—at current market prices this is roughly another 11,664 Bitcoin for IBIT—it looks like MSTR may be losing the race.

At the time of writing Bitcoin was trading for USD $72,702.20 (AUD $109,712.21), slightly up by 1.3% in the past 24 hours.