Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy Chairman, said: Bitcoin BTC
+2.05%
January’s ETF approval was not only significant, it solidified Bitcoin’s scale as an asset class.
“The most important thing that happened during this epic was the approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF,” Saylor said on the What Bitcoin Did podcast. “It was about crossing the chasm of Bitcoin being a $10 trillion to $100 trillion asset class, rather than Bitcoin being a hundreds of billions of dollars asset class.”
Saylor expressed support for the approval while also criticizing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s broader approach to cryptocurrencies.
“Meanwhile, the SEC has basically been very intrusive and waged war on the entire cryptocurrency industry, suing every cryptocurrency exchange and every entrepreneur, and we have had very minimal acceptance of Bitcoin,” he added.
Seiler pointed to two factors to explain his reasoning. He claimed that the SEC was delaying approving options trading for the spot Bitcoin ETF (one of two potential big developments for ETFs). He added that the SEC only allowed cash creation instead of in-kind redemptions. This means that investors cannot directly exchange Bitcoin for ETF shares. “So both make spot ETFs inferior,” he noted.
He also mentioned the SEC’s Rule 121, which requires banks to list digital assets on their balance sheets, which is not the usual procedure for assets under management. Saylor argued that this made it impossible for banks to store Bitcoin.
“We have minimal acceptance of Bitcoin. But other logical things would be to have banks store it, have people hedge it, and trade Bitcoin for securities. These are normal and customary in other assets. They were rejected. So we are going at a very slow pace,” he said.
In the interview, Saylor also emphasized that cryptocurrencies are becoming an increasingly political issue, arguing that candidates who are positive about cryptocurrencies could win more votes in the upcoming US elections. This was clearly highlighted by presidential candidate Donald Trump’s sudden adoption of Bitcoin last weekend.
MicroStrategy also continued to increase its Bitcoin vault. The last purchase was in March, when it acquired an additional 9,245 BTC, bringing its total holdings to 214,246 BTC (worth $15 billion).
Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet delivering news, research and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor in The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the cryptocurrency space. Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget is an anchor LP of Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to provide objective, impactful and timely information about the cryptocurrency industry. Below are our current financial disclosures.
© 2023 The Block. All rights reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not provided or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial or other advice.