Strategy was once known as a business intelligence firm MicroStrategy, an enterprise software company helping others make sense of their data. It had steady, if unspectacular, earnings. It had a founder, Michael Saylor, with an intense devotion to strategy, technology, and spreadsheets. Nothing in the early 2000s would have suggested that this company would later transform itself into the loudest corporate bullhorn for Bitcoin. Yet that is exactly what happened, and it is not just a pivot, it is a full blown money glitch.
In 2020, with cash on hand and a macroeconomic landscape that was turning more surreal by the week, Strategy decided to buy Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset. The idea sounded radical, even irresponsible. After all, companies were supposed to hoard cash or maybe invest it in bonds, not funnel it into volatile digital assets. But Saylor had come to a realization: cash was melting ice, and Bitcoin was digital gold. In his view, the only rational strategy was to convert melting dollars into appreciating bitcoin.
The first purchases were modest by today’s standards, 250 million dollars worth of Bitcoin. But then came more. And more. And more. Each new quarter seemed to bring another announcement. Suddenly, Strategy was not a software company that happened to hold Bitcoin, it was a Bitcoin company that happened to sell software. This was not diversification, it was reincarnation.
Strategy’s model evolved into a fascinating loop. It would issue convertible debt, bonds that could later be turned into stock, at low or even zero interest. Then it would use the proceeds to buy more Bitcoin. The company was not earning cash from its business to buy Bitcoin. It was raising money from investors, using debt markets as a launchpad to accumulate an asset that many considered speculative.
This is where the glitch begins to show. Under traditional finance theory, debt is a liability. But in Strategy’s case, it became a lever. As long as Bitcoin’s price rose faster than the cost of borrowing, the company gained more value than it lost. It was like a form of financial arbitrage, take on cheap debt, buy a volatile appreciating asset, and ride the wave.
The glitch was further amplified by Saylor’s cult of personality. His public statements were not corporate memos, they were philosophical manifestos about freedom, energy, mathematics, and civilization. He was not selling Strategy, he was selling a worldview. And oddly, investors responded. Retail traders admired him. Bitcoin maximalists knighted him. Institutional skeptics scratched their heads, but could not ignore the returns.
Wall Street, usually allergic to volatility, looked on in awe. Here was a public company using the tools of corporate finance to double down on a bet that most investors would not dare make with their own portfolios. The absurd part was that it worked. Not only did Strategy survive this maneuver, it thrived. Its stock became a proxy for Bitcoin exposure. When Bitcoin went up, Strategy soared. When Bitcoin crashed, Strategy merely dipped.
Through this cycle, something strange happened. Strategy effectively became an ETF, but without being one. Investors could buy shares in the company to get Bitcoin exposure, but they also got Saylor’s relentless conviction and the company’s ability to raise capital. Unlike a real ETF, Strategy could use leverage, issue debt, and even play games with tax advantages. It was a Bitcoin wrapper with turbocharged features.
This was not just financial engineering, it was strategy as spectacle. Strategy found a loophole in the system. It realized that as long as markets were flush with cheap capital, and Bitcoin’s narrative remained intact, it could keep minting value. It had unlocked a kind of infinite money glitch: borrow at near zero, buy Bitcoin, gain valuation, rinse and repeat.
Of course, there were risks. If Bitcoin ever entered a prolonged bear market, the whole model could unravel. The debt would remain, but the asset value could erode. That is the problem with leverage, it works until it does not. But Saylor did not blink. He was not playing for the next quarter. He was playing for the next century.
As Bitcoin recovered and eventually rallied past previous highs, Strategy’s strategy was validated. The market began to reward the company not for its software sales, but for its audacity. Other CEOs were watching. Could this be replicated? Could other firms play the same game? Few had the stomach. Even fewer had the conviction.
In some ways, Strategy became more of a myth than a company. It was a corporate meme, a digital talisman for crypto enthusiasts who needed a hero in a world of regulators and central banks. Saylor, ever the digital Spartan, leaned into the image. He went on podcasts. He debated goldbugs. He became a walking advertisement for Bitcoin itself.
Yet under all the memes and metaphors lies a brilliant, albeit risky, financial maneuver. Strategy did not just make a bet, it rewired its balance sheet to align with its philosophy. It merged financial tactics with ideological clarity. It was capitalism with a whitepaper.
Critics argue that it is irresponsible to risk a company’s future on a volatile asset. But in Saylor’s view, it is irresponsible not to. Fiat, to him, is a slow poison. Bitcoin is the antidote. Strategy’s mission, then, is not just profit, it is protection. Not just return on investment, but return on integrity.
What makes this whole story wild is that the markets allowed it to happen. Shareholders did not revolt. Bondholders lined up. The SEC did not throw a wrench into the machine. In a world where irrational exuberance is often punished, Strategy somehow found a cheat code that was both legal and repeatable.
At least for now.
The question is, how long can the glitch last? Will rising interest rates, regulation, or market sentiment eventually crash the loop? Or will Strategy become a new blueprint for how corporations can turn ideology into capital?
Until then, Michael Saylor will keep evangelizing, Strategy will keep stacking, and the rest of us will keep wondering whether this is brilliance, madness, or both.