During the past five years, MicroStrategy (MSTR -2.08%) stock is up almost 2,900%. No other company even comes close. Nvidia, for example, is up a little more than 1,400% during that same time period.
What's particularly remarkable about the performance of MicroStrategy, which is now doing business as Strategy, is that it is based almost entirely on its relentless accumulation of Bitcoin (BTC -0.42%). The more Bitcoin Strategy buys, the higher its stock price goes.
As a result, a number of companies are now jumping into the fray, attempting to become "the next Strategy" by embarking on Bitcoin buying campaigns. But do they even have a chance?
The rise of the Bitcoin treasury company
Strategy now holds 580,250 Bitcoins, making it by far the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin in the world. By way of comparison, the next largest corporate holder of Bitcoin is MARA Holdings (MARA 2.22%), a Bitcoin mining company, which holds 48,137 Bitcoins.
Image source: Getty Images.
Strategy has gone all-in on its Bitcoin business model. In fact, in February, it rebranded itself as a Bitcoin treasury company. Essentially, this is a company that does nothing but buy Bitcoin. Even though Strategy still has a legacy enterprise software business, that's pretty much an afterthought these days.
If you go to the homepage for Strategy, it's hard even to find a mention of its software offerings. The entire website has been transformed into a Bitcoin dashboard.
Admittedly, the numbers are head-spinning. During the past 12 months, Strategy is up 139%. Bitcoin is up 53%. Gold is up 40%. Nvidia is up 22%. The only corporation that has even come close to Strategy's performance is Tesla, which is up 94%.
Potential rivals to Strategy
Potential Strategy rivals have a tall task ahead of themselves. They have to start buying Bitcoin at a hefty price of more than $100,000, and that requires a huge war chest. Strategy started its Bitcoin acquisition buying five years ago, when the price was much lower.
That said, there's one potential rival that's generating a lot of buzz these days, and that's Twenty One Capital. Most likely, you've never heard of the company, and for good reason. It only opened at the end of April, so it's only been around for a month.
In that brief time span, Twenty One Capital has managed to acquire 31,500 Bitcoins, making it the third-largest corporate holder of Bitcoin in the world. It has gone from zero to $500 million in 30 days.
You might be scratching your head here. If a single Bitcoin costs upward of $100,000, how did this company manage to snatch up 31,500 of these expensive coins in such a short period of time? The answer is simple: It has some friends with deep pockets.
Twenty One Capital launched with the support of Tether, the world's largest stablecoin, and SoftBank, the Japanese tech behemoth. It planning to go public with the help of Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald, which had a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) just waiting to be put to work.
There are more Bitcoin treasury companies on the way. For example, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy recently said he plans to convert one of his companies into a Bitcoin treasury company. Every day, it seems, there's a new company that's ditching its previous business model and going all in on becoming a Bitcoin treasury company.
What could possibly go wrong?
The Bitcoin treasury company playbook seems easy to follow: Buy Bitcoin, see your stock price soar. As long as the price of Bitcoin continues to go up, this could be a very profitable strategy. Things get dicier, however, if the price of Bitcoin ever falls. All of a sudden, any company holding Bitcoin on its balance sheet is going to have to take huge write-downs every quarter.
Moreover, the stakes continue to rise. As Bloomberg points out, in order to one-up Strategy, you need to do something new. It is no longer enough just to buy up as much Bitcoin as you can -- you now need to do something with it to create additional value. At a minimum, you need to outperform Bitcoin by at least a slight margin, otherwise investors will simply move their money into relatively safe spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Should you buy Strategy?
If 2024 was the year that Bitcoin went mainstream, 2025 might be the year that the Bitcoin treasury company goes mainstream. I'm keeping a close eye on which new corporations are buying Bitcoin, as well as what their strategies are for outperforming Bitcoin over the long haul.
For now, Strategy is still the best option. You really can't argue with a company that is outperforming every single Magnificent Seven stock, and even Bitcoin itself. But, with the arrival of so many new Bitcoin treasury company copycats, it remains to be seen how much longer Strategy can remain the market leader.
