With Bitcoin (BTC -1.35%), the world's largest cryptocurrency, now having recently surpassed $111,000, few investors have done better than MicroStrategy's co-founder Michael Saylor. Saylor made a big bet on Bitcoin in 2020, investing most of the company's remaining capital in Bitcoin, and has been rewarded ever since. MicroStrategy (now doing business as Strategy) stock is up roughly 2,930% since the company began buying Bitcoin in 2020, and the company now owns more than 2% of all the tokens outstanding. Although Saylor and MicroStrategy have already done better than most could have ever imagined, Saylor says he thinks that Bitcoin's run has only just begun.
Can Bitcoin 20x?
Despite Bitcoin's stunning ascent, Saylor hasn't blinked once and remained extremely bullish. Furthermore, MicroStrategy seems to back the truck up every chance it gets, purchasing billions of dollars of Bitcoin at high average prices. So what's the final destination for Bitcoin?
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Last year, Saylor said publicly that he thinks Bitcoin can reach $13 million per token by 2045. Lately, Saylor's been saying that Bitcoin's market cap will eventually surge from more than $2.2 trillion (as of May 27) to $200 trillion. That would push Bitcoin's price per token close to $10 million, assuming you divide $200 trillion by Bitcoin's 21 million tokens outstanding. Despite different price targets, Saylor seems more bullish than ever on Bitcoin.
Part of the reason Saylor is bullish is due to President Donald Trump announcing the creation of a U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. In an executive order, the White House ordered the U.S. Treasury Secretary to not sell any of the federal government's current Bitcoin holdings, most of which were obtained through seizure, and to create ways to acquire more Bitcoin without adding to the fiscal deficit. According to CoinDesk, Saylor thinks this move will set off a chain reaction: "It becomes a fait accompli... It's one of those geopolitical moves that when you embrace the network, you force all of your allies first to adopt it, and then all your enemies have to adopt it."
Saylor also believes the strategic reserve will invite global banks and institutions to embrace Bitcoin in a way they haven't yet. Trump has promised to deregulate the sector and has installed pro-crypto cabinet leaders and officials, paving the way to potentially remove roadblocks that have prevented the mainstream financial sector from adopting crypto more widely.
Major U.S. banks like Morgan Stanley and, more recently, JPMorgan Chase are now letting clients purchase Bitcoin from them. Analysts at Standard Chartered also examined 13F filings from the first quarter of the year, which showed that more funds are increasing exposure to Bitcoin by buying spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or MicroStrategy stock. This is more or less a levered play on Bitcoin, because the company taps the capital markets to raise funding it uses to buy Bitcoin.
Is $10 million or $13 million possible?
Saylor's price target for Bitcoin is irrelevant, in my opinion. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are too speculative to make 20-year price predictions, primarily because they don't generate cash flow or earnings.
But Bitcoin could certainly continue to rise still more. The cryptocurrency is increasingly viewed as a form of digital gold, due to its finite supply of 21 million tokens. Gold and other potential inflation-hedging assets have soared as investors get increasingly concerned about the U.S. government's unsustainable fiscal situation. The government ran a fiscal deficit of more than $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2024 (ended Sept. 30), and has accumulated more than $36 trillion of total debt. Moody's Ratings recently downgraded U.S. credit because of the country's debt burden.
I see Bitcoin benefiting on this front and continuing to gain as the situation becomes more untenable and fiscal deficits and total debt climb. Investors can add exposure to Bitcoin to hedge such a situation, but the long-term price target is tough to predict.
