Saylor says pandemic-era policy pushed him to Bitcoin
Strategy founder Michael Saylor says it was the COVID-era restrictions and the U.S. central bank’s aggressive monetary policy that ultimately led him to embrace Bitcoin in 2020.
Speaking with Dr. Jordan B. Peterson in a June 9 interview, Saylor recalled becoming “deeply interested” in Bitcoin as global lockdowns unfolded and interest rates plunged.
“It wasn’t the war on COVID — it was the war on currency,” Saylor told Peterson.
In a 2020 email to staff, Saylor described the pandemic restrictions as “soul-stealing and debilitating,” condemning social distancing and economic hibernation.
He called 2020 a moment of “bifurcation between Main Street and Wall Street,” where small businesses and workers were crushed by lockdowns, while investors thrived.
Saylor said MicroStrategy had $500 million in reserves at the time — but with interest rates near zero due to Federal Reserve policy, that cash was effectively idle.
“Central banks were printing money,” he said. “They forced rates down.”
Money printing mayhem
“Covid lockdown hits and there’s widespread panic,” Saylor recalled, but said the most “perverse thing imaginable” was how quickly stock markets rebounded by mid-2020 — all thanks to the Federal Reserve’s aggressive money printing.
“We saw hyperinflation in financial assets,” he added, noting that while the real economy suffered, investment managers and stock traders got wealthier.
“I had an asset [cash] that was now non-performing […] so I have a choice between a fast death or a slow death, and so it was time to make a decision to choose a side.”
The war on currency
“It took me 30 years to accumulate that money […] why should I give up 30 years of my life?” Saylor said, reflecting on the situation.
That’s when he began searching for a solution. “I want to be one of those people who owns assets — but I don’t want to own sovereign debt,” he explained.
Saylor weighed options like real estate, equities, and even fine art, but noted that traditional assets had already surged in price due to rock-bottom interest rates.
“How do I find $500 million worth of Picassos and Monets that are reasonably priced?” he asked.
“I need a liquid fungible asset which will store my economic energy for an indefinite period of time.”
Bitcoin investments begin
“I was watching the world burn while all the Wall Street guys got rich,” Saylor recalled, before reaching out to longtime friend Eric Weiss, founder of Blockchain Investment Group, to ask about Bitcoin and crypto — which he had previously dismissed as a “scam coin” during the 2018 bear market.
Saylor began diving into the space through YouTube videos, podcasts, and books, eventually concluding that the answer was a “non-sovereign store of value bearer instrument” — a role historically filled by gold.
In August 2020, MicroStrategy made its first Bitcoin purchase, acquiring 21,454 BTC for $250 million.
Today, the firm is the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, owning 582,000 BTC valued at approximately $63 billion, according to data from Saylor Tracker.
