On February 27, Michael Saylor encouraged his devotees, “Sell your kidney if you must, but keep the bitcoin.” As of that tweet, bitcoin (BTC) was trading at $79,900, but yesterday, it crashed below $74,500.
Nevertheless, Saylor took the opportunity to remind his followers that BTC’s USD price shouldn’t matter anyway. True believers should remember, he posted memetically, that the price of BTC has a constant denomination in Saylor’s preferred currency: BTC.
People knew Saylor’s kidney advice was hyperbole and that voluntary organ sales are generally illegal, but even major influencers called the tweet irresponsible.
Mortgages, kidneys, yet bitcoin still crashes
Of course, yesterday wasn’t the first time that BTC declined below a price at which Saylor encouraged irresponsible investing. On March 10, 2021, he encouraged investors to take on leverage to buy BTC – including a recommendation for homeowners to mortgage their homes.
Its price that day was approximately $57,000. Three months later, it had fallen 37% to below $36,000.
At its worst level in November 2022, BTC fell below $15,500, or 73% below Saylor’s mortgage advice.
Needless to say, many people wonder whether MicroStrategy (currently doing business as Strategy), under years of Saylor’s leadership, has overextended itself with debt. Indeed, the company has $9.8 billion in outstanding debt.
Worse, most of MicroStrategy’s most recent BTC acquisitions are in the red, despite an overall, multi-year cost basis of $67,458.
Read more: MicroStrategy bought 2.6% of circulating bitcoin at $67,458 apiece
MicroStrategy has been funding its BTC purchases by diluting common MSTR shareholders. issuing new preferred series of shares like STRK and STRF, and selling convertible debt.
In summary, BTC got cheap enough for Saylor to recommend selling kidneys on February 27, and then it got even cheaper. Yesterday, at a price below his kidney level, he reminded his followers that BTC’s BTC-denominated price didn’t decline.
