Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) Executive Chairman Michael Saylor is urging investors to steel themselves against prolonged periods of poor performance as the company doubles down on its Bitcoin-focused capital strategy.
Saylor made the comments during Strategy’s second investor Q&A session hosted by Natalie Brunell, alongside CEO Phong Le, who defended the firm’s equity issuance approach.
The session comes after Bitcoin fell roughly 50% from its highs, while MSTR shares suffered an even steeper drawdown of approximately 75%, rattling shareholders and drawing pointed questions about dilution.
“I feel your pain,” Saylor said, addressing frustrated investors directly. “But I think we have to be prepared to have difficult years. It might be one year, it might be two years.”
Saylor noted that he personally holds more than 19 million MSTR shares, underscoring that his financial interests are closely aligned with those of ordinary investors in the company.
He argued that investors in MSTR should ideally hold a seven-to-ten-year investment horizon, framing the company as still firmly in the early stages of building its digital-credit business.
CEO Phong Le pushed back on the notion that issuing new equity is harmful to existing shareholders, making the case that such moves can actually benefit investors under the right conditions.
“I think there is this misconceived notion that issuing our equity is dilutive to our shareholders,” Le said, arguing that issuing shares above net asset value to acquire Bitcoin can be accretive on a BTC-per-share basis.
Strategy’s internal measure of success is not the raw number of shares outstanding, but rather whether each financing transaction increases the amount of Bitcoin attributable to every individual share.
Saylor revealed that the company’s central objective has shifted away from simply accumulating as much Bitcoin as possible, toward building what he described as the world’s best credit, particularly through its STRC instrument.
He estimated the current digital-credit market at roughly $15 billion, but projected it could expand dramatically over time, reaching $100 billion, then $400 billion, and ultimately $1 trillion.
Strategy’s entire investment thesis rests on the belief that Bitcoin’s long-term appreciation will consistently outpace its cost of capital, which Saylor placed at a hurdle rate of approximately 10.5%.
“We’re not really traders,” Saylor said, making clear that the company’s case for investors depends on Bitcoin outperforming that hurdle rate over decades rather than on timing short-term price movements.
Saylor also warned that prioritizing near-term share price support for MSTR could ultimately erode the company’s longer-term value proposition for shareholders who remain committed to the strategy.
The firm’s leadership appears united in the view that short-term volatility and equity issuance are not bugs in their model, but deliberate features of a high-conviction, long-duration bet on Bitcoin’s appreciation.
