MicroStrategy is building wallets for the Lightning Network that can be deployed to enterprises, Saylor said.
Michael Saylor, chairman and co-founder of MicroStrategy Inc. MSTR, -0.35%, said bitcoin could go back to $68,990, its peak reached in November “sometime in the next four years,” and could reach $500,000 in the next decade if it matches the market cap of gold.
MicroStrategy is also making developments on the Lightning network, a payment protocol layered on the Bitcoin network, Saylor told MarketWatch Editor-in-Chief Mark DeCambre at the Best New Ideas in Money Festival Wednesday.
“We’re building Lightning wallets that can be deployed to enterprises, say that you can give it (bitcoin) to 1,000 of your employees in an afternoon, or lightning walls where you can wrap your websites with a layer of digital energy to protect it from cybersecurity attacks,” Saylor said. “We’re interested in cyberspace and continue to spread Bitcoin. We’re going to use our enterprise software skills to do that,” he said.
Meanwhile, Saylor said he’s watching bitcoin’s simple moving average over four years for a potential bottom — the metric currently stands at around $20,000. “It has touched that a few times. I think this is stable,” Saylor said.
“The next logical stop for bitcoin BTCUSD, -2.84% is to replace gold as a non sovereign store of value asset,” Saylor said.
Despite the narrative by bitcoin supporters that the coin could be seen as a hedge against inflation, the cryptocurrency has been mostly trading in tandem with other risky assets, especially growth stocks. Bitcoin has lost almost 60% of its value year-to-date.
Between August 2 and Sep. 19, MicroStrategy bought some 301 bitcoin for about $6 million, pushing its holdings of the crypto to more than 130,000 coins, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday.
Saylor said he personally holds about 17,732 bitcoins, which he bought at about $9,500 two years ago.
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