“It’s mostly paranoid crypto anarchists who say that.”
With these eight words issued in “Markets with madison“This week’s podcast, Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor has angered almost everyone in Bitcoin.
The shinobi called him “ghost“It was Carvalho confused. Savitsky claimed this will Start the next fork wars.
Quite simply, Saylor said something bad. He broke the taboo. He said that it is better to trust your Bitcoin in state custody than to keep your private keys, and then went further, describing all companies working on custodial projects by calling them effectively sellers of bullshit.
It was, shall we say, a big “oof,” a “footgun,” the scene in the cartoon where the hero gets hit with the anvil.
Here’s Adam Simica’s clip of the full video:
Saylor believes you’re a paranoid crypto anarchist if you hold your private keys and don’t trust the government. 😏 pic.twitter.com/6owj7LzrdM
– Adam Simecka (@AdamSimecka) October 20, 2024
However, ironically, I will admit that it is perhaps the most interesting thing Saylor has ever said?
For years, Saylor and the Cyber Hornets were “Grut and the Minions,” with Saylor using his pulpit to spout whatever bullshit was in vogue, without adding anything of his own.
Other people said things, and then Saylor said them again. He was a “people’s champion,” a “common man,” a role that even his mundane AI-generated tweets seemed to assert in his tagging of artists, always under random pseudonyms.
So, regardless of the anger, I have to say, at this time, I am hesitant. Sure, as someone who lived through the Fork Wars, I find Savitsky’s position romantic (it’s nice to think we’re in the middle of a larger conflict), but perhaps it’s too soon to cry wolf.
Instead, I found myself (for once) actually trying to understand what Saylor was saying.
As far as I can tell, there are actually three ideas at play here:
- This is a new thesis on how to boost Bitcoin adoption using public markets – Saylor frames self-preservation as not a problem to be solved through innovation, but rather an issue to be improved. His view: It doesn’t matter how people own Bitcoin, it only matters that they own it. His preferred vehicle for this is the stock market, and he appears to want to exploit it as a massive means of buying and selling exposure to Bitcoin.
- This thesis may actually solve the problem of how to fight the cryptocurrency market – This is also one of the most compelling things about Bitcoin’s “second season,” the idea that you can “collaborate with the crypto machine” as a way to engage retail. Here, it appears that Saylor wants to marshal his army of Bitcoin stocks for this purpose, and in his view, retail will start buying Microstrategy and Metaplanet, rather than meme coins, chasing, as they always do, Bitcoin beta.
- It’s a new thesis about convincing the government to embrace Bitcoin A world in which Bitcoin is considered the reserve asset of regulated entities looks like a world in which strict laws become less applicable. After all, in this world, Bitcoin would have a direct link to the US economy (at least the version most politicians care about). You have to admit: “You can’t ban Bitcoin, that will hurt the stock market,” and that has a beautiful resonance.
Of course, the commentators are probably right. Saylor’s incentives appear to be going off the grid. He may be putting his company and its quest to collect Bitcoin above all else, and it’s worth questioning his motives at this moment.
Some argue that self-custodialism, if nothing else, is the essence of Bitcoin, the fact that you can’t trust anyone but yourself to hold and protect your wealth.
Then again, in Saylor’s view, inflation is the real bogeyman, the decline in purchasing power, the much larger issue.
Could it be that this is a giant government psychological operation, that Saylor flew too close to the sun, and there’s an army of regulators twisting his arm to say this?
Microstrategy certainly works with intelligence agencies, but even then, intelligence agencies and their pension funds need somewhere to invest. A world characterized by a Bitcoin overload is almost certainly a world in which these funds will be buying Bitcoin as well.
But I have to say, as someone who never found Saylor interesting… for now, I’m at least paying attention.
I’ll start there.
This article is a takes. The opinions expressed are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.