Michael Saylor Vows to Keep Buying Bitcoin Indefinitely—Despite a $5 Billion Unrealized Loss
Michael Saylor, executive chairman and outspoken Bitcoin advocate, has doubled down once again on his company’s long-term crypto strategy, insisting that the firm will continue accumulating Bitcoin “forever”—even as its position currently sits more than $5 billion underwater on paper.
The company, widely seen as the largest corporate Bitcoin treasury vehicle in the world, bought another $90 million worth of BTC last week. The latest purchase came during an 8% pullback in Bitcoin’s price, underscoring Saylor’s willingness to use market dips as entry points rather than reasons to retreat.
After the most recent acquisition, the firm’s holdings have grown to 714,644 BTC. At current prices, that stash is valued at roughly $49 billion. However, with Bitcoin recently trading around $68,829, the total position is now worth about $5.1 billion less than the company has cumulatively paid for it, turning what was once a massive unrealized profit into a sizable unrealized loss.
Saylor appears entirely unconcerned by that shift.
“We’re not going to be selling. We’re going to be buying Bitcoin,” he said in a Tuesday interview with CNBC. “I expect we’ll be buying Bitcoin every quarter, forever.”
His stance reflects a radically long time horizon that is rare in public markets, especially for an asset as volatile as Bitcoin. Where many investors focus on quarterly earnings and short-term mark-to-market swings, Saylor continues to frame Bitcoin as a multi-decade, even multi-generational, monetary asset.
A Strategy Built Around Volatility, Not Against It
Bitcoin has fallen about 45% from its October all-time high of $126,080, a correction that has shaken leveraged traders and short-term speculators. For Saylor, however, such drawdowns are not a bug in the system—they are a feature he expects and plans around.
By continuing to deploy capital during downturns, the firm effectively averages down its cost basis over time. The $90 million purchase during an 8% slide is a textbook example of that approach: embracing volatility as an opportunity to accumulate more BTC, rather than interpreting it as a signal of failure.
This attitude also illustrates the difference between realized and unrealized losses. While the company’s Bitcoin position currently shows a paper loss of roughly $5.1 billion versus its aggregate purchase price, none of that loss is locked in unless coins are actually sold. Saylor’s explicit pledge not to sell turns short-term fluctuations into accounting entries rather than final outcomes.
Why Saylor Treats Bitcoin as a Perpetual Asset
Saylor has repeatedly argued that Bitcoin is not just another risk asset but a monetary network with properties superior, in his view, to traditional stores of value. He often points to its fixed supply, global accessibility, and resistance to debasement as reasons to hold it indefinitely rather than trade it.
In that context, his promise to keep buying “every quarter, forever” is not mere bravado. It is the logical extension of a thesis that sees Bitcoin as digital property—something accumulated and held across decades, in the same way that sovereign funds or wealthy families hold prime real estate or gold.
From this perspective, a $5 billion paper loss in the middle of a secular adoption curve is simply the cost of positioning early. If Saylor’s thesis plays out and Bitcoin’s purchasing power continues to rise over the long term, the current drawdown will be remembered as just another swing in an extremely volatile early chapter.
The Treasury Playbook: From Cash to Bitcoin
The company’s Bitcoin-first strategy stands in stark contrast to conventional corporate treasury management. Traditionally, firms hold excess cash in bank deposits, short-term bonds, or conservative instruments designed to preserve capital and provide modest yield. Saylor has rejected that model, arguing that cash and low-yield assets are effectively “melting” against inflation and monetary expansion.
Instead, his company has effectively re-engineered its balance sheet to treat Bitcoin as its primary reserve asset. Over the past several years, it has repeatedly tapped capital markets—through equity offerings and debt instruments—to finance more BTC purchases. This creates a leveraged bet that the value of Bitcoin will, over time, outpace both inflation and the cost of borrowing.
Critics argue that this strategy massively raises risk for shareholders, tying the company’s fortunes to the wild swings of a single speculative asset. Supporters counter that it has transformed the firm into a de facto Bitcoin exchange-traded vehicle, giving traditional investors and institutions a way to gain BTC exposure via public equity markets.
Managing Perception: Volatility vs. Vision
One of the biggest challenges for Saylor’s approach is not purely financial; it is psychological and reputational. Public companies are constantly under scrutiny from analysts and investors who dissect quarterly performance. Large swings in unrealized gains or losses can influence sentiment, even when the underlying long-term strategy is unchanged.
Saylor has responded to that pressure by consistently leaning into a clear narrative: Bitcoin is the superior asset, the company is a long-term accumulator, and volatility is inevitable but irrelevant on a multi-decade scale. His messaging is deliberately repetitive, designed to anchor expectations so that shareholders are not surprised by sharp drawdowns or headlines about multi-billion-dollar paper losses.
For now, that clarity has attracted a specialized investor base that explicitly wants concentrated Bitcoin exposure. As long as those shareholders share Saylor’s long time horizon, mark-to-market pain is less likely to trigger panic or force strategic reversals.
What a $5 Billion Paper Loss Really Means
A headline like “$5 Billion Paper Loss” can sound catastrophic, but context matters. The loss is unrealized, which means the firm still owns the same 714,644 BTC it did before prices fell. The coin count has not shrunk; only the quoted dollar value has changed.
Moreover, large drawdowns are not new to Bitcoin. Historically, every major bull cycle has been followed by steep corrections, often in the 50–80% range. Over multiple cycles, however, Bitcoin’s long-term trend has been upward, with each new peak typically far above the previous one. Saylor’s bet is that this pattern continues, and that future highs will dwarf both today’s price and the current paper loss.
That said, the risk is real: if Bitcoin were to enter a prolonged stagnation or secular decline, the company’s balance sheet would remain heavily exposed. The line between visionary conviction and reckless concentration depends entirely on how the Bitcoin story plays out over the coming decade.
Implications for Other Corporate Treasuries
Saylor’s relentless accumulation raises a broader question: should other companies follow a similar path? So far, only a small number of firms have adopted meaningful Bitcoin positions. Many boards remain wary of the volatility, unclear regulation, and accounting complexity that come with holding crypto on the balance sheet.
However, Saylor’s approach has redefined the debate. Instead of asking whether Bitcoin belongs as a tiny speculative allocation, he has framed it as a potential replacement for a significant portion of fiat cash reserves. For companies operating in high-inflation environments, or for those seeking differentiation in capital markets, this argument has growing appeal.
Still, most corporate leaders lack the mandate—or the risk appetite—to transform their treasury into a quasi-Bitcoin fund. For them, Saylor’s strategy serves more as a case study than a template: an extreme version of what a high-conviction, long-duration bet on digital assets looks like at scale.
The Long Game: Quarterly Buys in a Multi-Decade Thesis
By committing to buy Bitcoin every quarter, Saylor is turning his strategy into a mechanical, almost programmatic process. This regular cadence reduces the temptation to time the market perfectly and reinforces the idea that the company is building a position over years, not months.
In practice, this also spreads out entry prices across a wide range of market conditions—booms, busts, and everything in between. If Bitcoin’s adoption curve continues upward, those staggered purchases could collectively look attractive in hindsight, even if some individual quarters coincide with local peaks.
On the other hand, the same discipline means the firm will keep deploying capital even if sentiment turns sharply negative or if macro conditions worsen. The strategy leaves little room for tactical retreat; it is intentionally designed as a one-way, long-term accumulation path.
Shareholders’ Role in the “Forever” Plan
For Saylor’s “forever” strategy to truly last, it must be tolerated—or explicitly endorsed—by shareholders over many years. As long as investors understand the company’s mission and align with its high-risk, high-conviction profile, the approach is sustainable. But if the investor base shifts toward more conservative holders who prioritize stability over Bitcoin exposure, pressure could build for a change in direction.
This tension is inherent in any bold corporate strategy that diverges sharply from industry norms. The market ultimately decides whether it rewards or punishes such concentration. Saylor is betting that, over time, the performance of Bitcoin itself will vindicate the risks, draw in more supportive capital, and cement his firm’s role as the premier Bitcoin treasury vehicle.
Conviction in the Face of Uncertainty
Despite the current $5.1 billion unrealized loss and a 45% drop from Bitcoin’s October peak of $126,080, Saylor’s messaging has not wavered: he sees Bitcoin as the most compelling asset available and plans to keep accumulating it on a fixed, long-term schedule.
Whether history remembers this as one of the most visionary corporate treasury strategies ever executed—or as an overleveraged gamble on a volatile experiment—will depend entirely on Bitcoin’s trajectory in the coming years. For now, Saylor remains exactly where he has been for years: buying more BTC, ignoring the noise, and promising that the purchases will continue “every quarter, forever.”