Tech billionaires Peter Thiel and Michael Saylor are establishing crypto firm treasuries, however some monetary observers be aware that their methods might pose important threat.
Each Thiel and Saylor have poured substantial capital into cryptocurrencies by means of their respective corporations and funding autos: Saylor, along with his software program agency Technique’s frequent Bitcoin (BTC) buys, and Thiel, by means of enterprise capital investments in crypto corporations, and his alternate, Bullish, which went public earlier in August.
Every shouldn’t be solely searching for to broaden his holdings but in addition how the cryptocurrency business is formed and controlled. However there are nonetheless important variations of their respective methods and outlooks concerning crypto, and corporations that determined to kind crypto treasuries may very well be inviting a “dying spiral” when costs crash.
Thiel and Saylor have differing crypto funding methods
Michael Saylor, co-founder and chairman of software program firm Technique (previously MicroStrategy), has created waves within the monetary world by means of what has been dubbed an “infinite cash glitch.”
The “glitch” refers to Technique’s method to purchasing Bitcoin, whereby it points inventory or equity-linked securities to purchase Bitcoin after which holds the asset on its stability sheet.
Usually, issuing extra fairness would devalue the inventory’s value, however massive Bitcoin purchases improve BTC’s value, subsequently rising Technique’s valuation and permitting it to subject extra debt.
And the cycle continues.
The technique has been so profitable for Technique that it has gained a bunch of imitators. The time period “Bitcoin treasury firm” is rising more and more frequent within the monetary world, with 174 public firms reportedly holding Bitcoin, based on BitcoinTreasurys.internet.
Saylor’s crypto technique concentrates solely on Bitcoin, specifically, accumulating the most important portion of the cryptocurrency as potential, and incorporates an almost metaphysical characterization of the asset.
In 2020, he wrote that Bitcoin “is a swarm of cyber hornets serving the goddess of knowledge, feeding on the fireplace of reality, exponentially rising ever smarter, quicker, and stronger behind a wall of encrypted power.”
In a speech on the Bitcoin Coverage Institute in March, Saylor mentioned Bitcoin was a “Newtonian community,” the management of which was mandatory for the US to take care of world energy.
He additional advised that an aggressive Bitcoin accumulation technique from the US authorities might erase the nationwide debt and advised in different interviews {that a} nationwide Bitcoin reserve is “manifest future for the US.”
Thiel’s technique, whereas much less groundbreaking, is extra numerous. In February 2025, Founders Fund, a VC agency co-founded by Peter Thiel in 2005, which backed corporations like SpaceX, Palantir and Fb, invested $100 million in Bitcoin and one other $100 million in Ether (ETH).
Which crypto funding technique will show simpler in the long term:
A) Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin-only method
B) Peter Thiel’s diversified techniqueShare your ideas within the feedback 👇👇👇
— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) August 26, 2025
The Founders Fund owns 7.5% of ETHZilla, a biotech agency that reworked into an Ether funding car, in addition to a 9.1% share in BitMine Immersion Applied sciences, which Founders Fund helped increase $250 million in ETH.
Thiel has additionally backed a cryptocurrency alternate, Bullish, that went public on Aug. 19, receiving a $1.15-billion valuation settled throughout a number of stablecoins, together with USDC (USDC) and PayPal USD (PYUSD).
He’s clearly invested within the crypto house and is optimistic about its progress, however Thiel has additionally proven some extra measured skepticism, significantly concerning Bitcoin. Removed from Saylor’s “swarm of cyber hornets serving the goddess of knowledge,” Thiel beforehand puzzled whether or not the asset isn’t not less than “partially a Chinese language monetary weapon towards the US.”
“It threatens fiat cash, but it surely particularly threatens the US greenback, and China desires to do issues to weaken it so China is lengthy Bitcoin, and from a geopolitical perspective, the US ought to be asking some more durable questions on precisely how that works.”
Briefly, Thiel’s method presents a extra cautious and diversified publicity to cryptocurrencies, whereas Saylor takes an aggressive, direct publicity, all-in-on-Bitcoin technique.
Bitcoin treasury firms on the rise: Is it a bubble?
The crypto business could quickly discover out which technique will win. In current weeks, the Bitcoin treasury mannequin championed by Saylor has been dropping steam.
The mannequin’s thesis of “increase capital, convert to Bitcoin and look ahead to appreciation” could also be pretty simple, but it surely leaves the corporate weak to the infamous volatility of Bitcoin markets.
If the worth of BTC dips too near the Bitcoin-per-share metric, or internet asset worth (NAV), of an organization’s inventory, that inventory loses the valuation buffer that was presupposed to raise its inventory value.
This may result in a supposed “dying spiral” by which, as an organization’s market cap shrinks, so does its entry to capital. With out anybody to purchase the corporate’s fairness or any lenders, the agency can’t broaden its holdings or refinance present debt. Ought to a mortgage mature or a margin name come, compelled liquidations will comply with.
Technique’s NAV at the moment clocks in at 1.4 instances its share value. It was almost double the share value in February, when Carnegie Mellon College finance professor Bryan Routledge informed Fortune, “There’s no rational clarification for that distinction.”
Technique buyers, due to this fact, face threat not solely from fluctuations in Bitcoin’s value however from “no matter is driving this distinction between the web asset worth and the worth of the shares … That additional part is an additional supply of threat.”
In current weeks, the Technique inventory value has slumped together with BTC, however Saylor’s BTC-buying runs proceed unabated. The corporate purchased 3,081 BTC for $356.9 million over the week ending Aug. 24.
Market circumstances could also be comparatively regular for now, and coverage from the White Home stays firmly pro-crypto. However crypto winters all the time come, and after they do, the market will see which technique survives.
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