While the world is still focused on prices, Saylor is already playing a bigger game

In February 2026, Bitcoin fell nearly half from its historical peak of $137,000, and market sentiment plunged to freezing point. On social media, voices of pessimism rose and fell; some said the narrative of Bitcoin was collapsing, while others began to question whether the institutions that had initially bet on it would face liquidation.

At this moment, Michael Saylor, the Executive Chairman of Strategy, remained calm like an elder overlooking a chessboard from a swivel chair, saying—I'm not worried at all.

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What happened to those companies that were once ridiculed

Saylor told a story that most people know but few have truly internalized.

Between 2012 and 2013, Apple's stock fell 45% from its peak, and its price-to-earnings ratio compressed from 30 times to 10 times. Wall Street analysts lined up to tell investors: Apple lost Jobs, lost its innovative capacity, and was just a slowly bleeding cash machine. During that time, "Apple is dead" almost became a consensus. Then, Apple took a full seven years to bring its price-to-earnings ratio back to 30 times. After that, it became the highest-valued company in human history.

The story of Amazon is even more absurd. For a decade, Bezos was viewed as a fraud by countless traditional investors because Amazon was not making any money, and quarterly losses were the norm. But while everyone was still laughing at this company, it had quietly transformed into the world's largest retail and cloud computing empire.

Saylor believes that what Bitcoin is experiencing is merely the same script. The difference is that this time, even members of the U.S. Cabinet, Federal Reserve officials, and BlackRock have publicly endorsed it, telling the world this is "global digital capital." During the years when Apple and Amazon were undervalued, how many institutions were willing to back them? Almost none. Back then, those who could see their value had to think independently against the biases of the entire era.

Now, Bitcoin has an unprecedented list of endorsements. What are those still saying "the narrative is collapsing" really looking at?

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Why hasn't the price reached that number

This is a question many people have been holding back. Prediction models once gave targets of $126,000 or even higher; why didn't it ultimately reach that?

Saylor's answer differs from what most people imagine—he did not blame market manipulation or short-sellers; he spoke of a more structural reason: the credit system is not yet built.

Imagine if you hold $10 million in Apple stock; you can walk into JPMorgan, use that stock as collateral, and borrow $5 million at a very low interest rate. This money can be used for consumption, investment, or to support living expenses, while your stocks quietly sit in your account. This mechanism allows stockholders to "liquidate" without selling their assets, significantly reducing selling pressure.

But Bitcoin holders currently cannot enjoy this treatment. At the market peak, about $1.8 trillion in Bitcoin was held by retail and offshore investors, and these individuals cannot access the traditional banking credit system. Their only "liquidation" paths are either to sell directly or to seek collateralized loans from crypto exchanges. The latter hides a fatal trap: these institutions often re-collateralize your pledged Bitcoin, meaning your $10 million in Bitcoin could be borrowed and sold three or four times in the market, artificially creating $30 to $40 million in selling pressure.

This is not a conspiracy; it's a structural flaw. The real estate market has a well-established mortgage system, and the stock market has a mature margin trading mechanism, while Bitcoin lacks a clean, non-re-collateralized credit system to support it. This gap is systematically suppressing the price.

When traditional banks truly embrace Bitcoin—not just issuing ETFs, but accepting Bitcoin as collateral like they do with Apple stock—the price logic will be completely different. However, the speed of banks has never been as fast as the crypto community hopes.

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Two completely different people need two completely different products

Saylor mentioned an interesting thought experiment: if you randomly ask a hundred people on the street, one option is an annual return of 40% but with a 40% drop, and the other is an annual return of 10% with stable monthly payments. He estimates that 95% of people would choose the latter, and some might even think an annual return of 10% is "too good to be true" and be skeptical.

This realization made him aware of one thing: the Bitcoin community has spent over a decade attracting that 1% to 2% of people who are truly willing to accept high volatility and pursue high returns. This group is already fully invested and has steadfastly held through every downturn. To attract the remaining 98% of ordinary investors, simply explaining Bitcoin's underlying logic is useless.

He said he could spend a thousand hours explaining what Bitcoin is, why it is important, and how it will change the world's monetary system; you would eventually understand, but you would still have to endure a 45% drop and the ridicule of the world. The other way only takes ten seconds: Would you like a bank account that gives you 11% annually and allows you to defer taxes?

This is what they are doing—by designing a series of structured products (like STRC), they strip away the volatility of Bitcoin, leaving stable returns, packaged into a financial tool that ordinary investors can understand and trust. Using his own metaphor, it’s like when Standard Oil invented a uniform kerosene lamp oil—not because the oil itself changed, but because there was finally a product that allowed ordinary families not to worry about their kerosene lamps suddenly catching fire. What consumers need is not to understand the underlying technology but to trust the product.

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Is the cost price really important

This is a question that confuses many people. Strategy holds a large amount of Bitcoin, and the average cost of their holdings has gradually increased with continuous purchases, leading to ongoing doubts from the outside: if the price continues to fall, will this become a fatal pressure?

Saylor's answer touches on a deeper financial logic, rather than just saying "I don't care."

He explained that Strategy's way of buying Bitcoin is mainly through issuing equity to raise funds, rather than borrowing. This distinction means a world of difference financially. Borrowing has a term; whether it’s a one-minute margin loan or a ten-year corporate bond, there is an "expiration" point, and before that point, your judgment must be correct, or else it results in forced liquidation and losses. Equity financing, on the other hand, has no expiration date and no repayment obligation; it is essentially a perpetual asset swap—exchanging equity for Bitcoin.

Within this framework, the only truly important question is not whether the purchase price is high, but whether this swap has created value for shareholders. If stocks are issued at a premium to acquire Bitcoin, and the long-term yield of Bitcoin is higher than the dilution cost of the stocks, then regardless of short-term price fluctuations, this transaction is profitable over a time horizon of decades.

He used a very vivid analogy: the only credit most retail investors can obtain is "one-minute credit"—if you buy on margin and make a mistake over a weekend, you get liquidated. Meanwhile, Strategy uses credit that allows you to "be wrong for thirty years." In a thirty-year time window, the short-term purchase price of Bitcoin has almost negligible impact on the final outcome. This is not bravado; it’s mathematics.

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Those ever-present doomsday prophecies

Every so often, a new "Bitcoin doomsday" narrative emerges. Block size disputes, mining bans, environmental pollution, regulatory crackdowns—each round has sparked panic, and each round has been resolved by the free market. The most recent one is the quantum computing threat—some claim that once quantum computing matures, existing cryptographic algorithms will become obsolete, and Bitcoin's security foundation will collapse instantly.

Saylor has a near-calm disdain for such narratives. He said the broad consensus in the field of cybersecurity is that even if a quantum threat exists, it is a decade away, and when that time comes, it won't just affect Bitcoin but the entire global banking system, internet infrastructure, AI networks, and government communication systems—all digital systems relying on modern cryptographic technology will need to upgrade simultaneously. Google, Microsoft, JPMorgan, and the U.S. government will not sit idly by, and neither will the crypto community. The underlying protocol of Bitcoin has been iterating, and nodes, wallets, and exchanges will follow suit; this is the natural rhythm of technological development, not a sudden apocalypse.

More fundamentally, he believes that 99% of "doomsday narratives" have their commercial logic behind them. Creating panic can bring traffic, influence, and capital. If you buy insurance for every tiny possibility, your income will eventually be depleted. The reality is often that ten years later, you just need to tap "software update" on your phone, and the problem is solved.

He concluded with a quote from the back cover of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy": Don't Panic.

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Time is the only real objection

Saylor was asked a question few dare to ask: what do you think is the most powerful argument against Bitcoin currently?

He paused for a moment and then gave an unexpectedly honest answer: Bitcoin is still too young.

The airplane was invented in 1903, and by 1920, only a very few people had flown in one. Before the Ford Model T, cars were merely toys for a select few. Every profound technological innovation in human history takes decades from invention to truly enter the lives of ordinary people. Bitcoin has only been around for 17 years; it is still in that long commercialization process.

This is not avoiding criticism but acknowledging reality—innovation spreads slowly, and building trust takes even longer. Those who are still watching from the sidelines are not foolish; rather, human acceptance of entirely new things inherently requires time for adjustment and validation.

But this also means that for those who have already seen all of this, time itself is the greatest advantage. As Saylor said, when Bitcoin is finally taken for granted by everyone, just like running water and electricity, the window for excess returns will forever close. And we happen to live in an era when that window is still open.

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The most scarce ability in this era is not to find the next hot spot, but to remain clear-headed amidst the noise and to hold judgment during downturns. This is difficult. But history will only remember those who have achieved it.