Bitcoin’s Biggest Backer MicroStrategy Further Boosts Its Holdings by BTC 5,050

Bitcoin's biggest corporate backer has announced an investment of a further $243 million (roughly Rs. 1,790 crores) in the world's largest cryptocurrency. In a tweet, software firm MicroStrategy's CEO Michael Saylor said his company was adding more Bitcoins to its stash and has bought an additional BTC 5,050 at an average price of $48,099 (roughly Rs. 35 lakhs) per Bitcoin. MicroStrategy now holds Bitcoins worth more than $5 billion (roughly Rs. 36,815 crores), which makes it by far the biggest corporate investor in the cryptocurrency. Saylor first bought Bitcoin for MicroStrategy in August 2020 and his move was later emulated by Jack Dorsey's Square and Elon Musk's Tesla.

Since his first buy, Saylor has spent more than $3 billion (roughly Rs. 22,090 crores) on Bitcoin purchases. The move has paid off as those Bitcoins are now worth more than $5 billion. As of September 14 (12:15pm IST), Bitcoin price in India stood at Rs. 35.66 lakhs.

Earlier this year, when the cryptocurrency market crashed and was bearish, MicroStrategy had decided to continue to invest money into its “digital assets strategy” and refused to sell any of its holdings. Saylor has often been bullish about the future of the world's oldest cryptocurrency and said he is “pleased by the results” of the digital asset strategy. Outlining it, he said once that he will focus on developing MicroStrategy's software business while simultaneously “acquiring and holding Bitcoin” with excess cash.

Bitcoin's current market capitalisation is around $850 billion (roughly Rs 62,58,170 crores), however, Saylor believes it has the potential to “flip gold”, which has a M-cap in excess of $11 trillion (roughly Rs. 8,09,62,750 crores).

When billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk mocked Bitcoin maximalists with a lightbulb joke, Saylor had responded to him saying he can answer his queries in “10 minutes.”

Tesla is the second-largest investor in Bitcoin with $1.5-billion (roughly Rs. 11,040 crores) worth of the cryptocurrency purchased earlier this year. The company had initially announced that it would accept payments in Bitcoin but Musk later rolled back the decision citing environmental concerns in Bitcoin mining. For a brief period this year, Musk appeared to be criticising Bitcoin and supporting Dogecoin but of late he has toned it down.