Key Takeaways
- Michael Saylor advises Microsoft to buy Bitcoin instead of bonds to increase shareholder value.
- Saylor claims Bitcoin outperformed Microsoft’s stock and suggests it as 21st-century money.
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Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor has urged Microsoft to abandon bonds and stock buybacks in favor of adopting Bitcoin, arguing it would create more shareholder value while reducing corporate risk.
“Microsoft should be powered by digital capital,” Saylor said at Strategy World 2025, the company’s annual flagship conference. “Bitcoin is the highest-performing uncorrelated asset.”
Bitcoin has dramatically outperformed Microsoft’s stock (MSFT) over the past five years. According to TradingView data, Bitcoin has delivered an average annual return of 53%, compared to approximately 6% for Microsoft.
Over the five-year period, Bitcoin is up more than 950%, while Microsoft has gained around 148%.
He criticized Microsoft’s current financial strategy, arguing that instead of reinvesting in high-performing assets like Bitcoin, the company uses its massive cash flow for stock buybacks, dividends, and low-yield bonds.
As a result, Microsoft’s equity becomes weaker collateral, less attractive to investors, and less useful, according to Saylor.
He said the company is leaving itself more vulnerable to market volatility and competitive pressure. Shareholders, he warned, are exposed to increasing long-term risk while the company loses flexibility to adapt.
“Buying Bitcoin would be 10x better than buying your own stock,” Saylor said. He claimed that “bonds are toxic” and that buying back stock “destroys 97% of your capital over 10 years.”
Saylor reiterated that Microsoft, having returned over $200 billion to shareholders over the past five years, is effectively surrendering capital that could increase its enterprise value by up to $5 trillion if redirected into Bitcoin.
“Bitcoin…emerged as the alternative to bonds in 2024. That was the point at which the SEC endorsed Bitcoin ETFs,” he added. “That was kind of year zero. We’re now in year one.”
Saylor said gold was the best idea of the 19th century, treasuries and sovereign debt defined the 20th century, but now in the 21st century, it’s the Bitcoin era. Bitcoin is a liquid, fungible capital asset and serves as a modern alternative to bonds, he added.
“Bitcoin is the universal, perpetual, profitable merger partner,” Saylor said, describing it as an investment opportunity that is “dirt cheap, one-time revenue that’s growing 30% to 60% a year.”
Saylor had previously pitched the Bitcoin investment idea directly to Microsoft’s board. In a three-minute presentation supported by 44 slides, he urged the company to shift its capital strategy by redirecting cash flows, dividends, buybacks, and even debt toward Bitcoin.
Despite his efforts, Microsoft shareholders ultimately voted against a related proposal from the National Center for Public Policy Research, which called for allocating 1% of the company’s cash and marketable securities to Bitcoin as an inflation hedge.
The rejection was not entirely expected, given that Microsoft’s board had recommended a vote against the proposal following a comprehensive review of its investment strategy.
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