Good overview of the insanity that is #MichaelSaylor's "buy billions of dollars worth of bitcoin with borrowed money" approach to financial engineering.

> "If #MicroStrategy's strategy is so brilliant, why isn't every company doing it? Should Apple stop making iPhones and just convert its cash to Bitcoin? Should Coca-Cola abandon soda production and become a Bitcoin holding company?"

https://basedtoschi.substack.com/p/inside-microstrategys-bitcoin-pyramid

FT Alphaville weighs in on #MicroStrategy's bizarre new "strife" (#STRF) bitcoin accumulation strategy.

> "#MichaelSaylor has pitched it as a way to tap into the vast pool of fixed-income investors who generally prefer stability and predictable returns. Yet Strife offers neither. It exposes investors to bitcoin’s downside (since Strategy’s creditworthiness hinges on its crypto holdings) without giving them any upside if the cryptocurrency soars. The dividend is fixed, so if bitcoin 'moons', Strife holders are left watching from the sidelines. It’s like being invited to an all-you-can-eat buffet but only allowed to smell the food."

> "Buried in the fine print of the prospectus is a crucial detail: the board can suspend dividends altogether. It’s essentially a 'trust me' deal."

https://www.ft.com/content/20984de7-4a63-4919-979f-04245de33592

#Metaplanet, the Japanese company that recently started using the same "borrow as much money as you can to buy bitcoin with debt" approach as #MicroStrategy, has named #EricTrump as the first member of its "Strategic Board of Advisors".

I suspect this increases the odds that the crypto industry will get a bail out if SHTF, though they were already pretty high.

California State Teachers Retirement System (#CalSTRS) has started investing in bitcoin (via #MicroStrategy, so they’re paying roughly double the market rate).

What could go wrong?

https://www.theblock.co/post/341230/calstrs-pension-fund-reports-holding-83-million-in-mstr-shares

forbes has had an absolutely incredible run of putting billionaires on the cover shortly before they go down in a fireball of fraudulence. let's see if they can repeat the trick for #MichaelSaylor...

p.s. truly incredible tagline

#MichaelSaylor is so smug about his plan to Ponzi #Bitcoin into the stratosphere. He's not even pretending it's not a Ponzi scheme; he deflects by insulting anyone who asks him on his numerous TV appearances and says oh yeah, well, Manhattan real estate prices keep going up and people invest in more real estate, which isn't the greatest analogy either, if you stop and think about the Japanese real estate and stock market bubble of the 1980s and the long-term effects that had on their economy.

the giant pot of bitcoins bought with leverage and the money of retail suckers that masquerades as a company known as #MicroStrategy (#MSTR) has a massive tax problem and has run to the IRS for help. They teamed up with #Coinbase and wrote a 76 page Very Angry Letter about how they cannot possibly be expected to follow the tax code as written.

(tl;dr the value of their bitcoins went up and they don't want to pay taxes on them despite taking an absolutely *massive* tax impairment a year or two ago when their bitcoins had gone down)

For bonus points consider that the CEO of MicroStrategy #MichaelSaylor was personally busted for massive tax fraud and had to pay a $51 million fine just a few months ago.

* WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/microstrategy-federal-income-tax-unrealized-gains-f60b2c04
* no paywall: https://archive.ph/U4LQC
* 76 page letter: https://legacy.www.documentcloud.org/documents/25504499-coinbase-and-microstrategy-letter-to-the-irs-2024-0046-0028_attachment_1

bitcoin prices explained:

MicroStrategy margin calls incoming at IBKR (AKA "the world's largest financial products trading platform")... which in turns means bitcoin margin calls are coming (MSTR is a pot of bitcoins masquerading as a company, not an actual corporation).

The chairman of IBKR has recently expressed legitimate fear about a big move in bitcoin prices causing a ripple effect and destroying multiple financial institutions: https://universeodon.com/@cryptadamist/113649421774399858

Extremely unsurprisingly executives at #Coinbase and #MicroStrategy were some of the biggest overall sellers of stock in any company in any market in 2024.

For all I talk about Chinese money laundering and the other criminal aspects of #crypto the American #NerdReich are really the winners in the cryptoverse. They've figured out a totally legal way to personally make incredible sums of (real) money: look the other way while hundreds of billions of dollars worth of criminal money pumps the prices of cryptocurrencies, which in turn pumps the shares of their companies. Then they sell the shares.

I don't know the details for #MSTR but I know for #Coinbase no executives have bought a single share in the company for many years now. It's just a non-stop torrent of dumping shares of #COIN while the dumping is good.

https://blockworks.co/news/largest-stock-sellers-2024

#EricTrump and #MichaelSaylor are gearing up to receive that transfer of a trillion dollars of American taxpayer money.

Saylor has been borrowing more than $2 billion every week since the election, using it to lever up his #bitcoin holdings for a total of $17.9 billion in bitcoin purchases in 8 weeks. To put that number in perspective the market cap of his (massively overvalued & ponzi-esque) pot of bitcoins masquerading as a corporation is $83 billion. (The bitcoins themselves are only worth ~$43 billion which... doesn’t make any sense. Matt Levine and others have had a lot to say about it so I won’t get into it.)

Remember: the legislation to do the transfer of taxpayer money has already been drafted by Senator #CynthiaLummis of the world #moneylaundering HQ commonly known as "Wyoming".

a pot of bitcoins bought with massive amounts of leveraged debt is now the 40th largest company in the #Nasdaq by market cap.

in other news #Dogecoin is "worth" more than Ford Motor Company.

i suspect future generations will look back and think "there were signs..."

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/12/12/microstrategy-to-enter-nasdaq-100-exposing-bitcoin-linked-stock-to-billions-in-passive-investment-flows

deep dive into the financial engineering at work in Michael Saylor's not-technically-fraudulent "strategy" of borrowing billions of dollars to buy #Bitcoin via his company #Microstrategy.

And yes, if you're wondering, Microstrategy is the same company Saylor committed accounting fraud with while he was CEO of back in the dotcom bubble and in the process set a record for most money lost by anyone in a single day that stood for almost two decades IIRC

https://www.campbellramble.ai/p/convert-of-doom