In the summer of 2020, Michael Saylor—then CEO of what was then called MicroStrategy (MSTR)—made a decision that would change the financial strategy of his publicly traded company and roil corporate boardrooms for years to come.
Originally created as a business intelligence software company, the company now known as Strategy had over $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 parking the money in bonds or stock buybacks, Saylor went all in on bitcoin . He called it the world’s “top asset” — scarce, decentralized and, in his view, structurally immune to inflation. By August 2020, MicroStrategy had purchased its first 21,000 bitcoins for $250 million. The company kept buying. The move was not just unusual – it was unprecedented. And it marked the birth of the digital treasury strategy: using crypto, primarily bitcoin, as a corporate reserve asset.
That playbook gained new momentum in 2024 when Wall Street finally opened the door to mainstream crypto investing. After years of back-and-forth with regulators, the SEC approved spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in January, followed by spot ether ETFs in May. Institutional access exploded.
Also in May, publicly traded medical device maker Semler Scientific announced that it had purchased bitcoin as part of a new financial strategy based directly on the strategy. The decision came as a surprise from a healthcare company with no ties to digital assets, but company chairman Eric Semler had long been an observer of the crypto ecosystem, and the company said the asset’s long-term potential made it a smarter place for free capital than fiat. Other firms followed suit, with small-cap tech companies and even non-tech manufacturers disclosing digital assets in earnings reports.
Strategy — now rebranded as a bitcoin development company (with Saylor serving as its executive chairman) — saw its stock rise more than 350% in 2024 as demand for bitcoin surged. After surviving through a difficult 2022, when bitcoin dipped as low as $15,000, Saylor and Stategy’s early efforts paid off.
But not everyone who tried the strategy saw lasting results. For example, Semler Scientific, despite early investor enthusiasm and accumulating more than 5,000 bitcoin, has seen its shares tumble 54% this year and now sit below the level they were at before the company bought bitcoin. In September, it agreed to merge with another struggling bitcoin finance company, Strive (ASST), but both shares have sunk even further.
Spread to altcoins
Noting Saylor’s success, attention 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 — sparked yet further interest in diversifying corporate crypto coffers. Some firms seeking to differentiate or adapt to new networks began to accumulate other tokens. Nasdaq-traded Trident Digital, for example, added XRP to its treasury in June 2025.
However, the strategy was also exploited. A flood of penny stocks and obscure microcap companies began using bitcoin as a headline tool, not an 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’s stock and tried to copy it. The formula became familiar: issue a press release highlighting a pivot to crypto, announce a small bitcoin or solana purchase, and watch the stock briefly rise. In many cases it worked – for a day or two.
Amid collapsing stock prices, some financial firms have been forced to change parts of their strategy — even to the point of selling crypto to raise money for share buybacks. Ethereum-focused ETHZilla (ETHZ), once praised for building an ether-based corporate treasury, revealed last week that it sold about $40 million in ETH from its reserves. It has used some of the cash to buy back its own shares as the company’s market capitalization fell below the value of its crypto holdings and has vowed to continue the buybacks if necessary. It’s a reminder that price volatility can cut both ways, even for companies that have what they consider “hard assets.”
Still, for all the companies that have tried, none have matched what Strategi has done. Its balance now holds more than 641,000 BTC – 3% of the total supply. Michael Saylor, once a niche enterprise software executive, is now one of bitcoin’s most recognizable advocates. And while plenty of other CEOs have jumped on the digital asset finance approach, none have achieved the same level of credibility.
Whether the strategy will become a fixture of modern finance or fade away as a speculative bubble remains unclear. For now, it’s Michael Saylor’s game – everyone else is just trying to play it.
