In the summer of 2020, Michael Saylor – then CEO of what was then called MicroStrategy (MSTR) – made a decision that would upend his publicly traded company’s financial strategy and reverberate across corporate boards for years to come.
Originally founded as a business intelligence software company, the company now known as Strategy had more than $500 million in cash. But Saylor saw that money not as a cushion but as a melting block of ice. With inflation rising and interest rates near zero, holding dollars seemed riskier than ever.
So instead of putting that money into bonds or stock buybacks, Saylor went all-in on Bitcoin. . He called it the world’s “supreme asset” – rare, decentralized and, in his view, structurally immune to inflation. In August 2020, MicroStrategy purchased its first 21,000 bitcoins for $250 million. The company continued to buy. This decision was not only unusual, it was unprecedented. And this marked the birth of the digital asset treasury strategy: using crypto, primarily bitcoin, as a corporate reserve asset.
This playbook gained new momentum in 2024 when Wall Street finally opened the door to traditional crypto investing. After years of wrangling with regulators, the SEC approved spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in January, followed by spot ether. ETF in May. Institutional access has exploded.
Also in May, publicly traded medical device maker Semler Scientific announced it had purchased bitcoin as part of a new corporate treasury strategy modeled directly on Strategy. The move came as a surprise from a healthcare company that has no ties to digital assets, but the company’s president, Eric Semler, is a longtime observer of the crypto ecosystem and the company said the asset’s long-term potential made it a smarter place for idle capital than fiat. Other companies followed, with small-cap tech companies and even non-tech manufacturers disclosing their digital asset holdings in their earnings reports.
Strategy – now rebranded as a Bitcoin development company (with Saylor as executive chairman) – saw its shares rise more than 350% in 2024 as demand for Bitcoin skyrocketed. After surviving a rough 2022, when bitcoin plunged as low as $15,000, Saylor and Stategy’s first gamble paid off.
But not everyone who has tried this strategy has seen lasting results. For example, Semler Scientific, despite the enthusiasm of early investors and the accumulation of more than 5,000 bitcoins, has seen its shares fall 54% this year, now sitting below the level they were at before the company purchased bitcoin. In September, it agreed to merge with another struggling Bitcoin cash company, Strive (ASST), but shares of both fell further.
Spread to altcoins
Taking note of Saylor’s success, attention has expanded beyond bitcoin. Ether came first, with Joe Lubin and Tom Lee each running companies dedicated to accumulating ETH tokens. Speculation about future altcoin ETFs – including for Solana, XRP and others – has sparked even more interest in diversifying companies’ crypto treasuries. Some companies, seeking to differentiate themselves or align with emerging networks, have begun accumulating other tokens. Nasdaq-listed Trident Digital, for example, added XRP to its treasury in June 2025.
But this strategy has also been exploited. A flood of penny stocks and obscure microcap companies have begun using bitcoin as their primary tool, not their investment thesis. These companies had no real exposure to digital assets as a business: no mining rigs, no blockchain products. But they saw what happened to Strategy stock and tried to replicate it. The formula has become familiar: issue a press release touting a pivot to crypto, announce a small purchase of bitcoin or solana, and watch the stock briefly soar. In many cases it worked – for a day or two.
Amid collapsing stock prices, some treasury companies have been forced to change parts of their strategy, even to the point of selling cryptocurrencies in order to raise cash for share buybacks. Ethereum-focused ETHZilla (ETHZ), once praised for building an ether-based corporate treasury, revealed last week that it had sold about $40 million worth of ETH from its reserves. She used some of the cash to repurchase her own shares as the company’s market value had fallen below the value of her crypto holdings and pledged to continue repurchases, if necessary. This reminds us that price fluctuations can cut both ways, even for companies holding what they consider “hard assets.”
Yet of all the companies that have tried, none have matched what Strategy has done. Its balance sheet now contains more than 641,000 BTC, or 3% of the total supply. Michael Saylor, once a head of niche enterprise software, is now one of Bitcoin’s most recognizable advocates. And while many other CEOs have tried their hand at the digital asset treasury approach, none have gained the same level of credibility.
It remains to be seen whether this strategy will become an essential element of modern finance or whether it will disappear in the form of a speculative bubble. Right now, it’s Michael Saylor’s game – everyone is just trying to play it.
