The Zhitong Finance App learned that on Monday EST, as Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies once again reached record highs, Michael Saylor (Michael Saylor) compared Bitcoin to New York in the US and its economic growth engine and praised it as “cyber Manhattan.” MicroStrategy (MSTR.US), which has the title of “Bitcoin Holder” and “Bitcoin Shadow Stock”, can be called one of the biggest winners in this wave of cryptocurrency investment frenzy since this year. With the help of Bitcoin's price repeatedly reaching a high of 0.1 million dollars, MicroStrategy's stock price has risen 550% so far this year.

“We'll only buy top cryptocurrencies forever. Every day is a good day to buy Bitcoin, even at the highest point, an investment with a positive outlook.” The founder and chairman of MicroStrategy said in an interview on CNBC's “Money Movers.” “I bought Manhattan assets 100 years ago, 200 years ago, and every day for the past 300 years. Maybe you pay a little more than the people who bought Manhattan assets before, but investing in the economic capital of the free world is always a good investment.”

Saylor's latest comment was published before MicroStrategy was officially included in the NASDAQ 100 Index on December 23, sparking a buzz in the coin industry and the entire cryptocurrency investment field, including the Bitcoin ETF market. In his opinion, investing in Bitcoin now is like investing in Manhattan 300 years ago.

Being included in the Nasdaq 100 Index means that MicroStrategy, the “major Bitcoin holder,” will officially enter the stock coverage of the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (QQQ.US), which is popular for global investment. The ETF product tracks the Nasdaq 100 Index.

During Monday's US stock trading session, MicroStrategy's stock price once rose more than 7% on the same day. According to Coin Metrics statistics, Bitcoin rose to an all-time high of $107162.64, and the upward trend continued after breaking through the 0.1 million dollar supermark.

MicroStrategy has been adding Bitcoin to the company's balance sheet since 2020, and is now aggressively issuing convertible bonds to fund the company's Bitcoin purchases. After the US presidential election, the company began to increase its efforts to buy Bitcoin. During this period, global investors' bullish investment sentiment towards cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin also increased exponentially.

On Monday EST, Saylor announced that MicroStrategy has made a massive purchase of 15,350 bitcoins in recent days, bringing its total Bitcoin holdings to an astonishing total of over 0.439 million, with a cumulative value of about 46 billion dollars.

In the interview, Saylor even responded to strong opponents who called MicroStrategy's Bitcoin buying strategy a Ponzi scheme. “Like many developers in Manhattan, every time the value of a property rises substantially, they issue larger debt to develop more real estate.” he said. “That's why New York City's buildings are so tall, and this has been going on for 350 years. I would call it a model of economic growth.”

A team of analysts at Wall Street investment agency Bernstein (Bernstein) recently released a forecast report stating that by the end of 2025, the price of Bitcoin will reach 0.2 million dollars. “We expect Bitcoin to eventually replace gold in the next ten years, become the primary 'store of value' asset in the new era, and become a permanent component of multiple asset allocations for investment institutions and the standard for corporate financial management.”

Bernstein is in line with Standard Chartered Bank's latest Bitcoin price forecast. Geoff Kendrick (Geoff Kendrick), the global head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered Bank, who accurately predicted that Bitcoin would hit 0.1 million dollars this year, recently said that by the end of 2025, the price of Bitcoin will reach 0.2 million dollars.

Bitcoin helps MicroStrategy “reinvent itself” once on the brink of bankruptcy

After Trump announced his victory in the US presidential election, the price of Bitcoin can be described as starting a “surge”. Currently, the cryptocurrency's transaction price has broken through the epic mark of 0.1 million dollars, launching an offensive towards 0.11 million dollars. The stock price of MicroStrategy, a US stock listed company that has become a “big Bitcoin player” because it holds a large amount of Bitcoin, has soared 70% since November, and this year's increase has reached 550%. Currently, the total market value of MicroStrategy has reached 97.8 billion US dollars, far exceeding the market value of Bitcoin held by the company, and has quickly become the “Bitcoin concept stock” with the strongest rise in the world.

MicroStrategy has even been dubbed “the most successful investment bank in the history of human finance” by some financial names. From continuing to struggle on the brink of bankruptcy to now reaching a market value of nearly 100 billion dollars, fueled by investor fanaticism brought about by large Bitcoin holdings, the company really deserves this title.

MicroStrategy co-founder Saylor made up his mind four years ago to lead the small business software maker, which had been on the brink of bankruptcy for many years, on a unique “path to survival in the wild” — a path of betting on Bitcoin's rise in value. Under his leadership, MicroStrategy has accumulated more than 40 billion dollars worth of bitcoins over the past four years. Turns out Saylor got it right. Bitcoin rose from around $0.01 million to $0.1 million in four years, doubling tenfold over that period.

In October, he announced plans to raise approximately $42 billion over the next three years through an average split portfolio of equity and fixed income securities, thereby accelerating the strategic shift. Since October 31 alone, MicroStrategy has purchased approximately $15 billion in Bitcoin and issued up to $3 billion in zero-interest convertible bonds. This is the fifth time the company has issued bonds this year. This “Bitcoin agency” plans to sell up to $21 billion in bonds to raise funds to buy Bitcoin. Convertible bonds can be described as being at the heart of multi-level volatility betting.

Eli Pars (Eli Pars), co-chief investment officer of Calamos Advisors LLC, was one of the buyers of more than $6 billion of convertible bonds sold by MicroStrategy this year, and the huge assets raised by issuing these bonds were used to fund MicroStrategy's growing cryptocurrency reserves. Like many other hedge fund investment managers, Pars used these convertible bonds to carry out market-neutral arbitrage trading strategies to take advantage of the significant opportunities brought by the sharp rise in the volatility of MicroStrategy's underlying asset.

“Convertible bonds are a way for issuers to profit from the high volatility of their stock prices, and MicroStrategy is an extreme example,” said Pals, whose hedge fund company holds more than $0.13 billion worth of MicroStrategy bond assets using long-term and arbitrage strategies.