MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor on Friday defended his enterprise software company’s debt-financed purchases of bitcoin, telling CNBC he sees buying the cryptocurrency right now as comparable to investing in Facebook in the social network’s early days.
“We’ve got $2.2 billion of debt and we pay about 1.5% interest, and we have a very long time horizon,” Saylor said on “Squawk on the Street.” “Our point of view is being a leveraged, bitcoin-long company is a good thing for our shareholders.”
MicroStrategy has become well-known on Wall Street in the past year after the Virginia-based company started to buy and hold bitcoin, initially using cash on its balance sheet to acquire the digital tokens before turning to the debt market to make more purchases. Saylor’s own profile has soared as the executive evangelized about what he feels is bitcoin’s grand potential, likening it to “digital real estate.”
