Author: thiigth
If there is anything shocking in the capital markets of 2024, it is this—everyone wants to be the next Michael Saylor, but the vast majority have perished along the way.
In recent months, a group of so-called "Bitcoin Treasury Companies" has emerged in the U.S. stock market. They attempt to replicate the script of MicroStrategy: issuing bonds, buying coins, and driving up stock prices. However, the results have been catastrophic.
Veteran investor Andy Edstrom bluntly described this phenomenon in a recent in-depth discussion as a "Dumpster Fire." Many imitators have seen their stock prices plummet by 80% or even 95% from their highs, leaving countless retail investors with nothing in this round of "false prosperity."
Why is it that the same strategy is a myth for MicroStrategy but a joke for others? In an era where AI narratives crush everything like a freight train, is Bitcoin still the best safe haven asset?
Today, we peel back the noise and discuss the underlying logic behind this.
Chapter One: The Essence of MicroStrategy is Not "Buying Coins"
This is a counterintuitive realization: if you think Michael Saylor is just crazily borrowing money to buy Bitcoin, you may only have grasped the first layer.
Andy Edstrom proposed an extremely sharp psychological model: MicroStrategy is actually earning interest rate spreads by issuing "dollar stablecoins."
Let’s break down this mechanism: The well-known USDT (Tether) is backed by U.S. Treasury bonds to issue dollar tokens. What MicroStrategy is doing is essentially "using Bitcoin as collateral to issue dollar tokens that generate returns."
The "dollar tokens" here correspond in reality to its issued Convertible Debt and Preferred Stock.
Mechanism: It borrows low-cost dollars from the market (through bonds/preferred stock) and then converts these funds into Bitcoin.
Safety Net: To ensure the safety of this system, a very high "over-collateralization ratio" must be maintained. Andy pointed out that considering Bitcoin's volatility (which can drop 70-80% in a year), MicroStrategy maintains an approximate 5:1 over-collateralization ratio.
This is why it is currently the only successful player. It holds a large stockpile of Bitcoin (valued at about $56 billion at the time of the podcast recording), allowing it to safely amplify returns through leverage.
This is textbook financial engineering.
In contrast, those referred to as "DATs" (Digital Asset Treasury Companies) are often cobbled together by teams that have never managed a public company, with core businesses lacking cash flow, and they can't even submit basic SEC financial reports on time. They attempt to play high-leverage games without a safety net, resulting in self-immolation.
"This is a binary world: MicroStrategy is in a league of its own, while most of the imitators are a complete disaster."
Chapter Two: The Fog of Valuation—Why Are We Paying a Premium?
This leads to the biggest debate in the investment community: If I want to hold Bitcoin, why not just buy the spot instead of paying a significant premium for MSTR?
This involves a core metric: MNAV (Market Net Asset Value).
Many enthusiasts try to brainwash the market into believing that such companies should enjoy a 2x or even 15x MNAV premium. Andy Edstrom, with his economics background, scoffs at this. He reviewed the century-long historical data of Closed-End Funds:
Norm: Closed-end funds typically trade at a discount (for example, a 10%-20% discount), with only a few cases showing a slight premium.
Exception: Only exceptionally well-managed holding companies like Berkshire Hathaway or banks with 10x leverage capabilities can maintain a premium of around 2x book value.
The conclusion is harsh: Unless a company can prove it can outperform Bitcoin itself through active management (such as low-interest financing and high-position cashing out while buying back at low positions), it should not enjoy a high premium in the long term.
For MSTR, the market is willing to pay a premium because it has indeed increased the Bitcoin per share through capital operations. But for other small companies that have no positive cash flow and merely hoard Bitcoin (or even Ethereum, BNB), paying a premium is like paying an "IQ tax."
Chapter Three: The Elephant in the Room—AI Has Sucked the Liquidity Out of Bitcoin
We must face an awkward reality: over the past year, Bitcoin's price movements have seemed "boring" and weak compared to AI tech stocks.
Why? Because the AI narrative is too sexy.
Preston Pysh pointed out a very keen observation: for high-net-worth individuals holding large sums of money, understanding Bitcoin requires a very high cognitive threshold (cryptography, monetary history, geopolitics). This is a huge "educational burden."
In contrast, AI is "instant gratification." Anyone can open a computer, input a question, and ChatGPT or Gemini instantly provides a stunning answer. Investors immediately understand: "Wow, this thing can change the world; I want to buy the companies that make it."
This explains the flow of funds. Take Google as an example; despite being mocked initially, its Gemini model is iterating rapidly and is forming a competitive stance against OpenAI. Meanwhile, Elon Musk's Tesla, with its Robotaxi and humanoid robot (Optimus), is building the prototype of the next industrial revolution.
"This thing (AI and robots) is like a freight train moving at high speed. When you see the scale of the factories Elon is planning, it seems crazy. But when it actually lands, it will be the absolute market dominator."
But does this mean Bitcoin has become obsolete? Absolutely not.
Andy Edstrom insists on his 2019 judgment: Bitcoin is still expected to reach $400,000 per coin in the next 10 years (by 2029), based on an $8 trillion network value.
However, the investment logic has changed. In 2019, Bitcoin was "the best risk-adjusted investment of this generation." And in 2025, while it still has five times the growth potential, it faces strong competition from the explosive productivity of AI.
The world is diverging into two main lines:
Unlimited fiat currency printing (driven by government debt and social chaos brought by AI).
Extreme productivity deflation (driven by AI and robots).
Bitcoin is the shield against the first line, while tech giants are the spear seizing the second line.
Conclusion: Finding Certainty Amidst the Noise
When the tide goes out, we find that the so-called "Bitcoin concept stocks" are mostly swimming naked, while the real giants (like MSTR) are evolving into a new type of financial institution.
For ordinary investors, the current market is full of noise. Here are three action guidelines distilled from this in-depth discussion:
1. Beware of the leverage traps of "pseudo-reserve companies." Don't be fooled by the marketing terms of "the next MicroStrategy." If a company lacks strong core business cash flow and sufficient Bitcoin for over-collateralization, its high premium is a house of cards. If you are bullish on Bitcoin, directly buying Bitcoin itself (or spot ETFs) is always the lowest-risk choice.
2. Embrace the underlying logic of energy and computing power. The end of AI is energy. With the explosion of data centers and robots, electricity demand will grow exponentially. Solar energy cannot fill all the gaps; natural gas and other baseload energies may be severely undervalued by the market. Don't just focus on chips; pay more attention to the pipelines that power the chips.
3. Bitcoin is "insurance," not a "lottery ticket." If you are buying Bitcoin just because you want to "get rich," you may be disappointed or distracted by AI's gains. The ultimate reason to hold Bitcoin remains: uncensorable and to hedge against fiat currency collapse. When governments have to turn on the nuclear-powered printing press to cope with the unemployment wave brought by AI, Bitcoin, as an immutable value network, will be the hardest foundation on your balance sheet.
In this era of uncertainty, self-custody remains the last line of defense.
"Everything takes longer in Bitcoin than we think it will."
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