{"id":91207,"date":"2026-05-11T06:31:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T06:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=91207"},"modified":"2026-05-11T06:31:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T06:31:31","slug":"saylor-says-strategys-bitcoin-credit-model-is-not-a-ponzi-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=91207","title":{"rendered":"Saylor Says Strategy\u2019s Bitcoin Credit Model Is Not A Ponzi Scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Michael Saylor defended Strategy\u2019s Bitcoin-backed credit model after critics argued that the company\u2019s STRC dividend structure resembled a Ponzi scheme, saying the business is built around monetizing Bitcoin capital gains rather than relying on perpetual equity issuance.<\/p>\n

Speaking in an interview shared<\/a> via X on May 9, Saylor addressed the market reaction to Strategy\u2019s recent earnings call, where the company said it was prepared to sell Bitcoin, if needed, to fund dividends on its STRC preferred instrument. The remark drew attention because Saylor has long been associated with the phrase \u201cnever sell your Bitcoin.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Saylor, the more precise formulation is that Strategy does not intend to be a \u201cnet seller\u201d of Bitcoin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very famous for saying, never sell your Bitcoin. And that\u2019s why the internet went crazy when we said we might sell it,\u201d Saylor said. \u201cBut if I was being more precise, I\u2019d say never be a net seller of Bitcoin. It just wouldn\u2019t have been so viral or so catchy to say never be a net seller of Bitcoin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why Strategy Is Not A Bitcoin Ponzi Scheme<\/h2>\n

The issue became a point of contention after Peter Schiff and other critics<\/a> suggested that Strategy\u2019s willingness to sell Bitcoin to support STRC dividends exposed weakness in the model. Saylor rejected that framing, saying the company\u2019s balance sheet should not be treated as if its Bitcoin holdings were unusable or worth zero.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you had $65 billion worth of something and people wanted to value it at zero, it\u2019s not very good,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want the credit rating agencies to think the company has $0 of assets. We want the credit rating agencies to think we have $65 billion of assets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saylor said the core model is straightforward: Strategy issues credit, uses the proceeds to buy Bitcoin, and expects the asset\u2019s long-term appreciation to exceed the cost of the dividend. He compared the structure to a real estate development company raising capital through credit, acquiring land, improving it, and later monetizing the appreciation through sales, rent, or refinancing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we wanna do is we wanna reinforce the business model is we sell credit to make a capital investment in an asset, Bitcoin, digital capital,\u201d Saylor said. \u201cThe capital investment accretes over time faster than the dividend. We then monetize the capital gain and we pay the dividend.\u201d<\/p>\n

That distinction is central to Saylor\u2019s response to Ponzi allegations<\/a>. In his view, critics conflate selling common equity to fund dividends with the broader economic structure of the business. He said Strategy historically used MSTR equity, which he described as a derivative of Bitcoin that typically trades at a premium to Bitcoin, to fund dividends. But the company now wants the market to understand it could also use appreciated Bitcoin directly.<\/p>\n

Saylor said that does not mean Strategy expects to shrink its Bitcoin position. He argued that even if the company sold Bitcoin for dividend payments, its credit issuance would allow it to buy substantially more Bitcoin than it sells.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we sell Stretch, if we issue Stretch credit equal to 2.3% of our Bitcoin holdings, then that means we will be a net buyer of Bitcoin forever, even if we sell Bitcoin to pay the dividend,\u201d he said. \u201cAnother point is that if Bitcoin appreciates 2.3% a year, we can pay the dividends forever, right? And continue to grow value, right? And we can do it without selling any common equity.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that Strategy sold $3.2 billion of STRC in April, while the monthly dividend requirement was roughly $80 million to $90 million. In that scenario, he said, the company would effectively be \u201cbuying 30 Bitcoin and selling one Bitcoin,\u201d leaving it a net accumulator.<\/p>\n

The interview also directly addressed Schiff\u2019s criticism. Saylor said Schiff\u2019s objection begins with a rejection of BTC itself, making it unlikely that he would accept a credit instrument built on top of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeter thinks Bitcoin\u2019s a Ponzi scheme. Peter is not really a lover of anything in this space,\u201d Saylor said. \u201cBitcoin is digital capital and we\u2019ve created a digital treasury company by selling equity and credit instruments to buy capital. I think that Bitcoin is going to continue because it represents economic wealth in tokenized form with full property rights for the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saylor described STRC as a form of \u201cdigital credit<\/a>\u201d designed to strip out some Bitcoin volatility while producing a defined yield. He said Strategy overcollateralizes the instrument, with \u201cfor every $5 of Bitcoin\u201d the company selling \u201c$1 of credit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t acknowledge Bitcoin as legitimate, you\u2019ll never acknowledge any derivative on top of it as legitimate,\u201d he said. \u201cBut for those people that believe that Bitcoin is digital capital, as a store of economic wealth in tokenized form, then what we\u2019re doing is very straightforward.\u201d<\/p>\n

At press time, BTC traded at $80,929.<\/p>\n

\"Bitcoin<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Saylor defended Strategy\u2019s Bitcoin-backed credit model after critics argued that the company\u2019s STRC dividend structure resembled a Ponzi scheme, saying the business is built around monetizing Bitcoin capital gains rather than relying on perpetual equity issuance. Speaking in an interview shared via X on May 9, Saylor addressed the market reaction to Strategy\u2019s recent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-91207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=91207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}