What’s flying higher than bitcoin? The software company buying up bitcoin.
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Bitcoin prices have surged 40% since Election Day. MicroStrategy has climbed even faster.
The software company turned itself into a bitcoin buying machine in 2020 and now holds some $32 billion worth of tokens. For many individual investors, the stock is a more popular bitcoin play than the cryptocurrency itself and they are willing to pay up for it. With a $95 billion market value, MicroStrategy is trading at about three times the value of its underlying bitcoin.
The shares have soared more than sixfold this year and 85% since Nov. 5, with traders betting that the digital-assets industry will flourish under President-elect Donald Trump. Bitcoin prices are hovering just below $100,000.
“MicroStrategy found a way to outperform bitcoin," Michael Saylor, the company’s founder and executive chairman, said in an interview. “The way that we outperform bitcoin, in essence, is we just lever up bitcoin." And Saylor says he is just getting started. He unveiled an audacious plan just days before the election to hire investment banks to raise $42 billion in capital over three years through stock and bond offerings to buy more tokens.
His company had $4.3 billion in convertible debt outstanding as of Oct. 29. MicroStrategy’s mix of bitcoin maximalism and Wall Street-style financial engineering has paid off for its investors, but skeptics question whether it is sustainable.
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