Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy could never buy all of Bitcoin
Fresh off a stunning earnings beat, MicroStrategy co-founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor on Thursday explained what's next for the world's largest Bitcoin treasury company, and whether there's such a thing as owning too much Bitcoin.
MicroStrategy, now officially operating as Strategy (Nasdaq: MSTR), reported second-quarter earnings of $32.52 per share, shattering the Street's forecast of a $0.09 loss. Revenue also edged out expectations at $114.49 million, a 2.73% increase year-over-year.But while the numbers were impressive, it was Saylor's remarks about Bitcoin ownership that really got people talking.
Asked whether he would ever want to own all the Bitcoin in existence, Saylor told CNBC:
'I don't think we'll get all of it. I don't think in the range of three to five or three to seven percent is too much. BlackRock has got more [than] us.'
He reflected on how far Strategy has come since its first foray into Bitcoin: 'We started and we had very little in Bitcoin. It was $10,000 and now Bitcoin's more than a hundred thousand and 97% of the Bitcoin is worth 10 times as much and somebody else, not us, has it.'
Even if he could buy all of it, he made clear that wasn't the goal. 'Yeah, we wouldn't want to own all of it. We want everybody else to have their piece.'
Saylor also pointed to the growing number of public companies adding Bitcoin to their balance sheets.
'The nice thing there is there's 160 companies that are capitalizing on Bitcoin in the public market — up from about 60 last year.'
The big question: Can Saylor buy all remaining Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is special because it has a fixed supply — only 21 million will ever exist. As of now, nearly 19.9 million have already been mined. That leaves around 1.1 million Bitcoin still to come. But not all of those 19.9 million coins are accessible. It's estimated that 3 to 4 million are lost forever, and another 1 million is believed to be held by Bitcoin's mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
If you remove the lost coins and Satoshi's stash, that leaves about 14.9 million Bitcoin that are potentially available in the world. Out of that, public companies already hold nearly a million. One company alone — Strategy (previously MicroStrategy), led by Michael Saylor — holds over 628,000 BTC. That's more than 4% of all the Bitcoin that's circulating today.Now here's the big question: what if Saylor tried to buy everything that's left? That would mean trying to purchase the remaining mined Bitcoin plus the coins that are still being mined — roughly 15 million coins in total. At today's price of $110,000 per Bitcoin, that would cost about $1.65 trillion.
And then there's halving.
Bitcoin undergoes a halving event every four years, and the last one was in April 2024. That means we're in a post-halving phase now, where the block reward has dropped from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block. As a result, only around 450 new Bitcoin are being created per day, down from 900. By the next halving in 2028, it will drop even further to 1.5625 BTC per block.
This halving schedule drastically slows the flow of new Bitcoin into circulation. So even if Saylor wants to scoop up newly mined Bitcoin, he'll be competing with everyone else — miners, institutions, and retail — for an increasingly tiny supply. And because the new supply shrinks while demand grows, prices tend to go up post-halving, not down.Even if he somehow managed to find the money, this plan just wouldn't work. Why? Because the moment someone starts trying to buy that much Bitcoin, the price would skyrocket. People would stop selling, liquidity would dry up, and regulators would likely get involved. The more he tries to buy, the more impossible it becomes.
So can Saylor really own all the Bitcoin? No. The system simply isn't built that way. Bitcoin's decentralization — with millions of holders around the world — is exactly what makes it valuable and powerful. No single person can corner it, not even someone as ambitious (and bold) as Saylor.
Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy could never buy all of Bitcoin first appeared on TheStreet on Aug 1, 2025
This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Aug 1, 2025, where it first appeared.
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