On a recent CNBC segment,
@Michael Saylor discusses why Bitcoin as a medium of exchange is a distraction.
TLDR: "Nobody's trying to buy a cup of coffee with a fraction of their building on Fifth Avenue. But every rich person I know owns property in London, or New York City, or somewhere. And none of them complain about not being able to spend their building as a medium of exchange.
So, the killer application is capital preservation for everybody. The store of value is the killer use case. Medium of exchange is a distraction."
Andrew Ross Sorkin: Is there any risk that governments—the US government, Chinese government, other governments—somehow do something to Bitcoin that puts its growth in jeopardy?
Michael Saylor: It's another great question, Andrew.
A lot of times, the skeptics say, "Bitcoin looks too good to be true. It's so good to be true. Someone's going to take it away from you."
That's based on a fundamental misunderstanding about Bitcoin. People refer to it as currency or digital currency, and that's an unfortunate historical artifact.
It's not digital currency. It's digital property.
Once you make that big leap and understand its property, you see the compelling use case is capital preservation for everyone in the world.
There's no anathema associated with owning property.
You can own a billion-dollar building in New York City. Every place in the world where they allow you to own property—China, Europe, the US—they're going to embrace Bitcoin as digital property.
All the controversial issues around cryptos have to do with their use as a medium of exchange.
But what I'm here to say is medium of exchange is only worth a trillion dollars. Store and value is worth a hundred trillion dollars.
So I give your company, I give your family, I give your institution a billion dollars. I drop you in Africa and say, "You’ve got to save the capital for a hundred years. What are you going to buy?"
And the answer is nothing. There is nothing on the entire continent you can buy that's better than Bitcoin.
So, Bitcoin is going to be embraced as property.
It's going to be controversial if people think of it as a currency.
So, I would encourage people to think of it as digital property—a billion-dollar building in cyberspace and hold it for a hundred years.
Andrew Ross Sorkin: Does it ever have to be a currency, or do you think it ever becomes a “currency”?
Michael Saylor: It doesn't have to be a currency.
Nobody's trying to buy a cup of coffee with a fraction of their building on Fifth Avenue. But every rich person I know owns property in London, or New York City, or somewhere. And none of them complain about not being able to spend their building as a medium of exchange.
So, the killer application is capital preservation for everybody. The store of value is the killer use case. Medium of exchange is a distraction.
Governments are always going to issue currency. They're always going to make it legal tender, and that's just fine.
Bitcoin is competing with gold—it's going to eat it. Then it's competing with risk assets as a long-term holding, and it's competing with you buying an Airbnb as a retirement income source if you're a middle-class person.
