Billionaire in recent months Bitcoin Investor Michael Saylor tried to convince Microsoft to use a portion of its more than $78.42 billion in cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet to purchase Bitcoin.
The strategy proved lucrative for Saylor and the company he co-founded. Microstrategy. The company’s stock price has risen more than 410% this year, with the company holding around 423,650 bitcoins as of December 8, worth more than $42.3 billion Bitcoin is trading around $100,000. According to the company, MicroStrategy acquired these shares for a total price of approximately $26.5 billion.
This balance sheet approach is now on the way to the Nasdaq 100 and the major ETFs that track this, such as Invesco QQQwith MicroStrategy added to the technology-heavy index on December 23rd.
Saylor’s attempt to convince Microsoft and its employees Shareholders to convert cash flows, dividends, buybacks and debt into Bitcoin – he supported the conservative think tank The Free Enterprise Project, which submitted the shareholder proposal to Microsoft and has submitted a similar proposal to Microsoft Amazon — didn’t come close. Only 0.55% of votes at the company’s annual general meeting on December 10 supported the plan. Both Microsoft and proxy advisors Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services had suggested shareholders reject the proposal before the vote.
The more conservative stance of companies and their shareholders is reflected in the latest development, even as Bitcoin surges CNBC CFO Council Quarterly survey released on Thursday. When asked about their opinion on Bitcoin, 78% of respondents said Bitcoin is a highly speculative asset class, while only 7% said it is a credible store of value.
But crypto is making some headway among CFOs when it comes to mainstream adoption. Notably, 11% of CFOs in the Q4 survey said Bitcoin is a scam, a significant decrease compared to previous CNBC CFO Council surveys that asked this question.
In 2017, 28% of CFOs reported fraud. In 2021, 19% responded that the same question was a scam.
The percentage of respondents who had no opinion on Bitcoin – a scam, a store of value or a speculative asset class – fell from 30% in 2017 to just 4% in this latest survey.
The CNBC CFO Council’s quarterly survey reflects a sample of views from finance chiefs across markets and sectors. The Q4 survey, conducted December 9-16, included 27 respondents.
Accordingly, there are three listed companies that hold more than 10,000 Bitcoins the Bitcoin tracking website Bitcoin Treasuries. — MicroStrategy, Marathon DigitalAnd Riot Platforms. Other companies in the crypto industry, such as Coinbase And blockalso disclose crypto holdings.
However, there are very few non-cryptocurrency public companies that disclose their holdings – Tesla, who bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin in 2021This is one of the few exceptions – despite Bitcoin’s price surge this year and its growing attention in the political landscape.
Microsoft is ahead of many companies in its crypto considerations. It was said in one October Proxy submission that its treasury and investment services team has previously evaluated Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to fund the company’s operations and reduce economic risk, adding that it “continues to monitor trends and developments related to cryptocurrencies in order to to make future decisions.”
The company also noted at its annual meeting that it has been accepting cryptocurrencies for customer payments since 2014.
The overwhelming majority of respondents to the CNBC CFO Council quarterly survey said their company does not own Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies or accept them as payment.
It is unclear to what extent this corporate strategy will change as a result of the Trump administration’s actions. President-elect Donald Trump made several cryptocurrency campaign promises, including: advocate for the facility a national strategic Bitcoin reserve, something that the The Texas House of Representatives is now also pushing for it.
“We’re going to do something great with crypto because we don’t want China or anyone else… but others are embracing it and we want to be ahead,” Trump told CNBC’s Jim Cramer New York Stock Exchange earlier this monthin response to a question about a possible strategic Bitcoin reserve.
During an appearance on CNBC’s “Money Movers” on Monday, Saylor continued to advocate for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and called on the U.S. government to allow U.S. banks and companies to issue a token backed by the U.S. dollar.
“The big opportunity in the United States is to issue the world’s digital reserve currency,” he said.
