Michael Saylor is hands down one of the fiercest Bitcoin advocates on the planet. Earlier this year, the Strategy founder predicted Bitcoin could reach $13 million by 2045. Even his so-called “bear case” puts the price at $3 million.
That’s a far cry from where we are now. Although Bitcoin has taken big strides during this month’s rally, it’s still well below the all-time highs hit after President Trump’s inauguration — let alone Saylor’s long-term targets.
Saylor has a theory for what’s holding it back: a massive rotation among Bitcoin holders that’s weighing on price.
“I think we’re going through a rotation right now,” Saylor told Natalie Brunell on the Coin Stories podcast. “Lots of non-economically interested parties are rotating out of the asset, and a new cohort of investors is entering.”
That includes governments, lawyers, and bankruptcy trustees who inherited Bitcoin but never intended to keep it.
“They kind of had to hold it for a year or two as they worked through their process. And when they saw this massive market rally… they just thought, well, this is a good exit point to get liquidity,” Saylor said.
Why Bitcoin is ‘only’ at $100K
Bitcoin briefly topped $109,000 on Jan. 20 — just hours before Trump’s inauguration — before falling to $76,000 in April. It has since bounced back above $100,000, but Saylor says the price still doesn’t reflect strong ETF inflows, bullish signals from Washington, a wave of corporate adoption, and a major ideological shift on Wall Street.
According to Saylor, the culprit is less committed investors who have taken this opportunity to exit the market. “And I think a whole new class of investors is entering by way of ETFs and Bitcoin treasury companies,” he added.
Strategy — the company formerly known as MicroStrategy — is leading the charge. It now holds 555,450 Bitcoin worth over $57 billion, more than 50% above its average purchase price of $68,569, according to Saylor Tracker data.
Saylor believes more companies should follow suit instead of relying on traditional capital return models, such as buybacks and dividends.
“If you simply start sweeping your cash flows into Bitcoin, or convert your dividend into a Bitcoin buy, or convert your stock buyback into a buyback of Bitcoin, then your enterprise value over time would double,” he said.
“Your organization would be valued partially on future expectations, but partially on the assets you own.”
Not the Fortune 100, the Forgotten 12,000
Saylor isn’t looking to the Apples and Amazons of corporate America to drive the next wave of Bitcoin adoption.
“There are 12,000 public companies in the U.S.,” he said. “Most of them… the market has lost interest in. And they’re competing against Google or Amazon or Microsoft or Apple.”
But by adopting Bitcoin, he said, “the way that you actually get back on top… is you ride the next big wave.”
He was also blunt about how fast Bitcoin perception in D.C. has flipped. “I was surprised that the U.S. embraced Bitcoin as radically as it has over the last six months,” he said. “I didn’t expect nearly all the Cabinet members to be so enthusiastic.”
Even so, Saylor offered a note of caution: Bitcoin is still a risk asset that is not yet immune to market shocks.
“In any macro panic, the most liquid leverable asset is Bitcoin,” he said. “It is volatile because it is useful. And in times of panic and contraction… it will correlate for a short moment with other assets. But then it will bounce back, and it will break that correlation, decouple, and rally higher.”
While Bitcoin has shown flashes of independence from stocks in the past, it still tends to move largely in sync with the broader market.
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