MicroStrategy CFO Says Tech Companies Have an 'Imperative' to Hold BTC

Phong Le, president and CFO of MicroStrategy, said corporate treasurers have an "imperative" to hold bitcoin if they hail from the technology industry.

Speaking at CoinDesk's Consensus 2021, Le, who oversees MicroStrategy's trove of 92,079 BTC, said the imperative holds especially true for any company offering a bitcoin product: "To do so credibly, you have to go all in, you have to put bitcoin on your balance sheet."

MicroStrategy has gone all in. The business intelligence company has purchased $2.251 billion in bitcoin since August, becoming the cryptocurrency’s largest publicly traded holder.

Given bitcoin’s recent volatility, the remarks could strike mainstream CFOs as odd. The “store of value” has dropped 42% from all-time highs in April. (Zoom out the lens, however, and bitcoin has appreciated mightily since its inception more than a decade ago.)

Le said corporations don't need to mirror MicroStrategy's hyper bullishness.

"I'm not saying you should put all of your corporate treasury in bitcoin," he said. "But if you're not putting any of it into bitcoin, I don't think you're doing your fiduciary responsibility, which is maximizing shareholder value."

Le spoke in a session sponsored by Genesis Global Trading, a unit of Digital Currency Group, CoinDesk's parent company.