MicroStrategy gains spot in Nasdaq 100, elevating bitcoin's position

On Friday evening, Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy—the world’s largest corporate holder of bitcoin — gained approval to join the Nasdaq 100 Index, which tracks the 100 largest non-financial companies on the Nasdaq exchange. The historic move was celebrated by the crypto industry, which views Saylor’s firm as a proxy for bitcoin. The world's top crypto has enjoyed a banner year, recording 132% growth over the past 12 months.

MicroStrategy’s entry into the coveted club allows it to join the country’s top non-financial firms on the exchange, including Apple, Tesla, Nvidia, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon.

The approval also enables the firm’s stock to become part of the portfolios of millions more Americans through its inclusion in popular exchange-traded funds (ETFs) like Invesco’s QQQ ETF.

Since 2020, MicroStragegy has been aggressively acquiring bitcoin in a long-term bid to provide an inflation hedge for shareholders and establish it as a primary reserve asset for the company.

However, the controversial strategy has attracted detractors who point out bitcoin's volatility, potential regulatory challenges, and MicroStrategy's focus on bitcoin at the expense of other parts of its business. There is also criticism that, although MicroStrategy claims to be a business intelligence firm, it operates more like a bitcoin treasury company.

Indeed, during the Bitcoin 2023 conference in Miami, Saylor emphasized his unwavering belief in the world's leading cryptocurrency: “The reason that bitcoin is so sound – literally sound – is because it is thermodynamically sound,” Saylor said . “It’s this masterpiece of engineering because we’ve created a monetary asset where we’ve stripped away all the counter-party risks."

“Bitcoin fixes things. Bitcoin can help everybody,” he added. “Bitcoin is here to stay. Bitcoin is the future."