:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/dlnews/OT5OJ5SZV5CMJB5MY5IKHR3FLE.jpg)
- MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor said Monday that Bitcoin will become the world’s most valuable commodity.
- Bitcoin surpassed silver over the weekend to become the world’s eighth-largest asset.
- MicroStrategy bought $820 million worth of Bitcoin on Monday.
Michael Saylor, a co-founder and chairman emeritus of business software company MicroStrategy, said Monday that Bitcoin will surpass gold as the world’s most valuable commodity.
Saylor, a long-time Bitcoin bull, made the comment as the cryptocurrency notched its fourth record all-time high in a week.
‘None of the defects’
“It’s gonna eat gold,” Saylor said in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“It’s got all of the great attributes of gold, and it’s got none of the defects,” he said.
He made the comments as Bitcoin crossed $72,000, on Monday, reaching a new all-time high. Its market value is now $1.4 trillion whereas gold’s is $14.6 trillion.
The cryptocurrency’s price hike took it past silver, which has a market cap of $1.3 trillion.
Saylor didn’t provide a timeline as to when he thinks Bitcoin will topple gold from the top spot, but back in 2022, he predicted that it would happen some time “this decade.”
He made that calculation based on the idea that Bitcoin would surge to $500,000 a coin.
MicroStrategy has acquired an additional 12,000 BTC for ~$821.7M using proceeds from convertible notes & excess cash for ~$68,477 per #bitcoin. As of 3/10/24, $MSTR hodls 205,000 $BTC acquired for ~$6.91B at average price of $33,706 per bitcoin. https://t.co/YayyKtpz8d
— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) March 11, 2024
MicroStrategy purchased 12,000 Bitcoin worth $821 million between February 26 and March 10, according to a Monday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company finalised an offering of senior convertible notes on Friday for $800 million, which MicroStrategy said funded the preceding weeks’ cryptocurrency purchases.
MicroStrategy holds 205,000 Bitcoin worth $14.7 billion, making it the world’s leading private holder of the cryptocurrency, according to Bitcoin tracker Bitcoin Treasuries.
Saylor said the recent success of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds is an example of Bitcoin pulling capital away from traditional equities, which he called “risk assets.”
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas reported Bitcoin ETFs’ total value at $55 billion on Monday, compared with the just under $100 billion in value across all gold ETFs reported by ETF Store President Nate Geraci. That means Bitcoin ETFs have acquired over half of the gold ETF market’s value in two months.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs first appeared in the US after the SEC approved them on Jan. 10.
Bitcoin “is an asset class, as it goes into other funds, it’s going to become structural,” Saylor said.
Crypto market movers
- Bitcoin is up around 4.3% since Wednesday, trading around $72,500.
- Ethereum is up 3%, at just over $4,000.
What we’re reading
- As Ethereum L2s multiply, new layer 3 blockchain aims to stitch them together — DL News
- Coinbase Report Urges Caution On Emerging Crypto AI Sector — Milk Road
- Arbitrum DAO Removes Proposal to Fund Tornado Cash Developers’ Legal Defense — Unchained
- Bitcoin ETFs leapfrog Grayscale’s haul in ‘scary fast’ surge — DL News
Tyler Pearson is a junior markets correspondent at DL News. He is based out of Alberta, Canada. Got a hot tip? Reach out to him at ty@dlnews.com.