Michael Saylor urges regulators to stop ‘parade of horribles’
The MicroStrategy CEO blamed stablecoins, DeFi platforms and hedge funds for BTC crashing
Michael Saylor, the CEO of Nasdaq-listed MicroStrategy (MSTR), has called on regulators to tackle the “parade of horribles” that he believes are causing the crypto market to crash.
Saylor pointed his finger at stablecoins and DeFi platforms alongside crypto hedge funds, citing the troubled Terra, Celsius and Three Arrows Capital in particular.
Speaking in a webcast with NorthmanTrader founder Sven Henrich, Saylor compared most of the crypto assets that are currently circulating to a “parade of horribles” or “unregulated banks trading unregistered securities,” which he said is causing the price of the ‘digital gold’ to collapse.
“What you have is a $400bn cloud of opaque, unregistered securities trading without full and fair disclosure, and they are all cross-collateralised with Bitcoin,” he said.
Coming to the price of Bitcoin, Saylor pointed out that if the current geopolitical situation doesn’t change its course, and the war in Ukraine doesn’t come to an end, BTC could struggle to rebound in the next couple of years.
At the end of the first quarter of 2022, MicroStrategy held around BTC129,218 with a carrying value of around $2.8bn, reflecting cumulative impairment losses of $1bn since their acquisition.
Bitcoin in the short term
While Saylor said he is “bullish on Bitcoin in the next 10 years,” he admitted to “not being a trader” and avoided making any predictions regarding the BTC price over the next few months.
However, according to Mike McGlone, senior commodity strategist at Bloomberg, Bitcoin could benefit from the current macroeconomic scenario and recover from its recent losses, which led BTC to drop 69% from its all-time high in the second half of 2022.
“Too Hot #Stocks vs. Maturing #Bitcoin? Plunging risk assets in 1H are taking away inflation at a breakneck pace, which may translate into pre-pandemic deflationary forces resurfacing in 2H. Primary beneficiaries of this scenario may be gold, Bitcoin and US Treasury long-bonds,” he tweeted.
As the selling pressure on BTC – fuelled by BTC miners selling huge amounts of coins to cover expenses or losses over the past few days – eased, BTC has rebounded slightly over the past 24 hours, changing hands at $21,161.17 (up by 2.8%). However, it is still 5.1% down over the past seven days, according to CoinMarketCap data.
All prices correct as of 12:00 BST (UTC+1).
