Bitcoin evangelist Michael Saylor is dumping MicroStrategy stock options to buy more bitcoin
Bitcoin; Joe Raedle/Getty Images; Skye Gould/Insider
- Bitcoin bull Michael Saylor is dumping $216 million worth of MicroStrategy stock options.
- Some of that money will be used to scoop up more bitcoin, Saylor said in an earnings call.
- Saylor has been a bitcoin evangelist for years and touted the crypto even during its 2022 rout.
MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor is dumping some of his stake in his software company in order to scoop up more Bitcoin, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Saylor is selling a total 315,000 of stock options in Microstrategy, 5,000 of which were exercised on Tuesday, the filing said. That amounts to around $216 million worth of stock options based on MicroStrategy's stock price, which traded around $685 by the end of the Tuesday.
In a recent MicroStrategy earnings call, Saylor said he needed to exercise those stock options before they expired in April this year. He planned on selling around 5,000 shares each trading day of the year through April 25, he added.
"Exercising this option will allow me to address some financial obligations as well as to acquire additional Bitcoin for my personal account," Saylor said on the call.
Those sales come amid a prosperous time for bitcoin, which soared 153% last year as investors dialed up their expectations for hefty interest rate cuts from the Fed. Central bankers raised interest rates aggressively to control inflation in 2022, leading to bitcoin's price to plunge by two-thirds – marking its worst-ever year.
Saylor, though, has been a die-hard bull on the crypto coin, touting it to his followers even amid the crypto rout in 2022. Previously, he said MicroStrategy's plan was to acquire as much bitcoin as possible, as the "next logical step" would be for the cryptocurrency to rise tenfold in value.
That proved to be a good bet for MicroStrategy, which scooped up $593 million worth of bitcoin in November. That, combined with a year-end rally in crypto, brought MicroStrategy's bitcoin holdings to over $8 billion last year, SEC filings show.