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Michael Saylor defended Strategy’s Bitcoin-backed credit model after critics argued that the company’s STRC dividend structure resembled a Ponzi scheme. In an interview shared on X on May 9, Saylor said the business is designed to monetize Bitcoin capital gains rather than depend on perpetual equity issuance.
Saylor addressed market reaction to Strategy’s recent earnings call, when the company said it was prepared to sell Bitcoin, if needed, to fund dividends on its STRC preferred instrument. The comment drew attention because Saylor is widely associated with the phrase “never sell your Bitcoin.”
“I’m very famous for saying, never sell your Bitcoin. And that’s why the internet went crazy when we said we might sell it,” Saylor said. “But if I was being more precise, I’d say never be a net seller of Bitcoin.”
The debate intensified after critics including Peter Schiff suggested that Strategy’s willingness to sell Bitcoin to support STRC dividends indicated weakness in the model. Saylor rejected that characterization, arguing that the company’s balance sheet should not be treated as if its Bitcoin holdings are unusable or worth zero.
“If you had $65 billion worth of something and people wanted to value it at zero, it’s not very good,” he said. “We don’t want the credit rating agencies to think the company has $0 of assets. We want the credit rating agencies to think we have $65 billion of assets.”
Saylor described Strategy’s core approach as issuing credit, using the proceeds to buy Bitcoin, and relying on long-term Bitcoin appreciation to exceed the cost of the dividend.
He compared the structure to a real estate development company that raises capital through credit, acquires land, improves it, and later monetizes appreciation through sales, rent, or refinancing.
“What we wanna do is we wanna reinforce the business model is we sell credit to make a capital investment in an asset, Bitcoin, digital capital,” Saylor said. “The capital investment accreses over time faster than the dividend. We then monetize the capital gain and we pay the dividend.”
Saylor said critics conflate selling common equity to fund dividends with the broader economic structure of Strategy’s business. He noted that the company historically used MSTR equity—described as a Bitcoin derivative that typically trades at a premium to Bitcoin—to fund dividends, but argued the company can also use appreciated Bitcoin directly.
He also said Strategy does not expect to shrink its Bitcoin position. Even if Bitcoin is sold to pay dividends, Saylor argued that ongoing credit issuance would allow the company to buy substantially more Bitcoin than it sells.
“If we sell Stretch, if we issue Stretch credit equal to 2.3% of our Bitcoin holdings, then that means we will be a net buyer of Bitcoin forever, even if we sell Bitcoin to pay the dividend,” he said. “Another point is that if Bitcoin appreciates 2.3% a year, we can pay the dividends forever, right? And continue to grow value, right? And we can do it without selling any common equity.”
Saylor added that Strategy sold $3.2 billion of STRC in April, while the monthly dividend requirement was roughly $80 million to $90 million. Under that scenario, he said the company would effectively be “buying 30 Bitcoin and selling one Bitcoin,” leaving it a net accumulator.
The interview also addressed Schiff’s criticism directly. Saylor said Schiff’s objection starts with rejecting Bitcoin itself, which Saylor said makes it unlikely Schiff would accept a credit instrument built on top of it.
“Peter thinks Bitcoin’s a Ponzi scheme. Peter is not really a lover of anything in this space,” Saylor said. “Bitcoin is digital capital and we’ve created a digital treasury company by selling equity and credit instruments to buy capital.”
Saylor described STRC as “digital credit” intended to reduce some Bitcoin volatility while producing a defined yield. He said Strategy overcollateralizes the instrument, stating: “for every $5 of Bitcoin” the company sells “$1 of credit.”
“If you don’t acknowledge Bitcoin as legitimate, you’ll never acknowledge any derivative on top of it as legitimate,” he said. “But for those people that believe that Bitcoin is digital capital, as a store of economic wealth in tokenized form, then what we’re doing is very straightforward.”
At press time, BTC traded at $80,929.
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