KEY POINTS
- MicroStrategy said it purchased 12,000 more Bitcoin within a two-week period
- BlackRock's spot BTC ETF, IBIT, reportedly held nearly 198,000 Bitcoin before MicroStrategy's latest buy
- Bitcoin's market valuation has exceeded silver, is higher than Meta's, and is inching closer to Alphabet
Business intelligence firm MicroStrategy has returned to the top spot of known corporate companies with the largest Bitcoin holdings as it announced another 12,000 BTC added to its vast trove of the world's first decentralized cryptocurrency.
In a Monday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Tysons-based software firm said it purchased another 12,000 Bitcoin worth $821.7 million from proceeds from offering of convertible notes and excess cash.
The latest Bitcoin buy was executed between Feb. 26 and March 10, MicroStrategy said in the filing. The Bitcoin was purchased at an average price of approximately $68,477 each, inclusive of fees and expenses. MicroStrategy now has a total of 205,000 Bitcoin holdings.
Following the latest buy, MicroStrategy founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor dropped even more bullish statements about the cryptocurrency.
#Bitcoin is Digital Property. It is superior to other investments such as Gold, Equity, or Real Estate because it is digital, available, global, ethical, & useful to millions of companies and billions of people. pic.twitter.com/738dblB0Zt
— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) March 11, 2024
"Bitcoin is certainly at least digital gold – it's going to eat gold. It's got all of the great attributes of gold and it's got none of the defects of gold," he said. He also predicted that Bitcoin's price will "have to adjust" and rise further to meet an anticipated surge in investor demand once the halving event – wherein the amount of Bitcoin awarded to miners is halved – takes place next month.
MicroStrategy's announcement of its additional Bitcoin buy came a day after BitMEX Research revealed that BlackRock's spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), IBIT, held 197,943 Bitcoin. At the time, MicroStrategy, which describes itself as the world's largest corporate holder of the cryptocurrency, had 193,000 BTC holdings.
Last month, BlackRock chief investment officer Rick Rieder hinted that the world's largest asset manager may acquire more Bitcoin in the future. He said his exposure to the cryptocurrency may change depending on the public's position on Bitcoin – so far, there has been increasingly apparent that more people are now more accepting of the digital currency.
Meanwhile, MicroStrategy's announcement of its added Bitcoin haul came on the same day the cryptocurrency breached the 72,000-mark for the first time. Also, Bitcoin has passed silver's valuation ($1.391 trillion) at $1.417 trillion, as of early Tuesday, according to data from corporate market capitalization tracker CompaniesMarketCap. Gold remains on top with a staggering $14.705 trillion market cap as of writing.
JUST IN: #Bitcoin hit $72000
— CryptoXpres (@Bit_belle) March 11, 2024
🚀🚀🚀💥💥💥💥 pic.twitter.com/Od4oV9ucBC
According to the latest data, Bitcoin's market valuation is even higher than Facebook parent company Meta ($1.232 T), Taiwanese semiconductor behemoth TSMC ($721.09 billion), and it is closing in on both Google parent Alphabet ($1.721 T) and e-commerce titan Amazon ($1.786 T).
