MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor isn’t concerned with the prospect of stricter Bitcoin regulations. Instead, he sees impending future regulation, if any, as good for the industry in that it would greenlight more institutional inflows.
Saylors Says Regulation Will be Good For Bitcoin
In a Bloomberg interview, Saylor was asked if he has anxiety about holding Bitcoin, which can be used to evade censors, capital controls, and taxpayers. More so, the implications of this if regulators decide to step up with tougher regulations at some future point.
Saylor responded by saying companies must invest in assets to prosper and provide value to shareholders. He reiterated previous points on choosing the best investment(s) to realize this goal. And against a backdrop of available options, Saylor concluded that Bitcoin is the highest quality investment people and institutions can buy.
“Our choices, if we wish to avoid insolvency, is you buy gold, you buy a portfolio of stocks, perhaps you go and buying a bunch of timberland, or oil contracts or some kind of commodity.
Companies have to become asset rich if they’re going to prosper and maintain shareholder value. So Bitcoin is the highest quality property that they can buy.”
What’s more, to answer the question, Saylor said that AML and KYC regulations are already in place to tackle regulators’ most pressing concerns. While he conceded that further regulatory refinements might come in the future, he sees this as positive in that institutions would have more confidence to invest in Bitcoin. This, he believes, will result in triggering greater inflows.
The regulatory environment is already pretty clear on this, I mean AML KYC regulations have been applied across all of these exchanges.
I think that there’s a little more parity and precision that will be delivered in the coming one to two years. I think that’s going to be the greenlight for institutions to invest 10x, 100x more into Bitcoin. So I think it’ll be good for the industry in general.
Regulators Must Walk a Fine Line
Regulators are tasked with protecting investors. But at the same time, over-regulation of cryptocurrency is likely to stifle a burgeoning market that’s still finding its feet.
Although Saylor isn’t concerned with regulation, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse believes the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), through its lawsuit against Ripple, implied there is more going on behind the scenes.
Garlinghouse said the actions of the SEC are a deliberate attempt to stifle cryptocurrency innovation. Adding this is an issue every crypto project should be mindful of.
“The SEC is doing the opposite of “fostering innovation” here in the US. It’s not just XRP they’re attacking here.“
Even if Saylor is confident that regulators will continue to look somewhat favorably on Bitcoin, in the back of his mind must be the notion that anything can happen and that Garlinghouse may have a point.
