“The agency is coming.”
Anyone who has been in the Bitcoin space for any significant amount of time has likely heard this phrase uttered by prominent figures within that space.
In August 2020, micro strategyA business software company based in the United States, Purchase Bitcoin Adding it to the national treasury was considered by many to be the beginning of institutional chaos.
But that wasn’t the case.
of course, Tesla bought Bitcoin The next year, just discard 75% very soon.
So from 2020 to 2023, MicroStrategy was an anomaly. For several years now, the company led by perpetual Bitcoin investor Michael Saylor has remained the only large company on the planet to have converted a significant portion of its treasury into Bitcoin.
However, Thaler’s vision of making MicroStrategy compliant with Bitcoin standards has not wavered.
Instead, he doubled down and continued to guide MicroStrategy in adding Bitcoin to its balance sheet. He has also hosted the conference “MicroStrategy World: Bitcoin for Enterprises” every year since the year after his company bought its first Bitcoin as a way to show other companies how to emulate his MicroStrategy. Ta.
This year’s conference, held May 1 and 2 in Las Vegas, Nevada, marks the beginning of a new era, and it’s time for institutions to follow MicroStrategy’s lead, Saylor said.
The era of Bitcoin for institutions and businesses begins
In his keynote speech titled “There is no second best” on the second day of the conference, Thaler called 2020-2023 the “years of madness” in the Bitcoin space.
He explained that these years were part of a period of “cryptocurrency turmoil” from which Bitcoin emerged as the dominant and most trusted crypto asset.
Saylor said that after this crazy era, there will come a time when institutions and businesses will accept Bitcoin, telling Bitcoin Magazine: X space On April 30, the day before the conference began, he said he believed this new era would begin in January 2024. 11 Spot Bitcoin ETFs launched In the US.
But don’t take Thaler’s word for it that a new day has begun. Consider what CEO Hunter Horsley is saying. bit by bitone of 11 financial institutions to launch a Spot Bitcoin ETF in the US, had something to say about institutional interest in Bitcoin.
“Bitcoin ETFs bring Bitcoin into the realm of real possibility for many traditional financial institutions,” Horsley said during a panel discussion on the second day of the conference.
“Many traditional, well-respected companies are starting to engage with Bitcoin in unprecedented ways, but very few of them say anything about Bitcoin. Scroll through LinkedIn or read a press release. “If you just do it, you might think it’s no different than last year, but for now, most, if not many, would prefer not to go public,” he added.
JUST IN: $3.5 billion Bitwise CEO talks "Many traditional and reputable companies #bitcoin It’s unprecedented, but few people have anything to say about it."
"banks are contacting us" 👀 pic.twitter.com/h0jjhrzZQ6
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) May 2, 2024
Alexander Leishman, CEO and CTO of Bitcoin Exchange riverHe noted in his presentation that while Bitcoin purchasing has traditionally been an individual investor-driven phenomenon, more and more companies are starting to step into the Bitcoin space as well.
In one of his slides, Leishman pointed out that while the percentage of companies and funds/ETFs holding Bitcoin may not seem like a large number, it is larger than in years past.
“We have companies, funds, ETFs, governments, large institutions, blue and black bars. These bars have gone from virtually nothing to where they are today, but they have grown “We continue to do so,” Leishman said.
“Retail isn’t actually driving the recent rise in Bitcoin prices. Consumer interest in Bitcoin is far from an all-time high. So what’s driving this price rise? Is it? We think one of the big factors is the system,” he added.
According to CEO David Marcus, light sparkin the near future, institutions will not only hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets or provide it to their customers, but will also start using Bitcoin for payments.
Lightspark uses Lightning to connect businesses around the world
To conclude the first day of the conference, Saylor sat by the fireplace and chatted with Marcus. Former PayPal executive, former head of Facebook’s abandoned cryptocurrency project Libra,how lightning network Connecting businesses around the world.
light spark I made a headline The day before the conference started, Coinbase announced that it would be using Lightspark to integrate Lightning for its US users.
According to Marcus, Coinbase is just the first of many companies that will soon be harnessing the power of Lightning.
“In a world where hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people have money addresses where they can make real-time payments in their chosen currency, you can imagine all sorts of new applications (for businesses).” ” Marcus said of companies using Lightning to transmit not only satellite communications but also digital versions of fiat currencies.
"Now is the time to make moving Bitcoin and other assets fast, cheap, and real-time (on Lightning) possible."
– David Marcus, LightSpark CEO @Light Spark#BitcoinforCorporations
— MicroStrategy (@MicroStrategy) May 1, 2024
“Streaming funds to endpoints is one of them. New payment formats that allow merchants to reach new audiences and new customer bases that were previously unreachable. “The ability to enable people to actually contribute to what you’re building from anywhere in the world,” he added.
“It will impact the world and become as important as it was when the Internet itself was used as a means of communication.”
Marcus also noted that businesses are inherently more multinational than individual Bitcoin users and would benefit greatly from moving value around the world in real time via Lightning.
After listening to Marcus and Saylor’s conversation, it was hard to remain bullish on Bitcoin and Lightning.
And it was hard not to be bullish on Bitcoin, not only as a store of value and medium of exchange, but also as a platform of trust, after Cezary Raczko, Executive Vice President of Engineering at MicroStrategy, said: . MicroStrategy Orange plans revealeda decentralized identity (DID) platform built on Bitcoin blockchain.
MicroStrategy Orange
MicroStrategy Orange is an enterprise platform that enables organizations to adopt DID applications, built directly on the base layer of Bitcoin.
This is the first Bitcoin innovation that MicroStrategy has participated in.
“The platform consists of three basic parts,” Raczko said. “At its core is a hosted service cloud that allows you to issue these identifiers to users within your organization. You can also deploy applications that run on MicroStrategy Orange using the Orange SDK. You can then integrate the application into your own services, and the Orange app will be a pre-packaged solution that addresses your specific digital identity challenges.”
This news signals that MicroStrategy wants to continue to be at the forefront of Bitcoin adoption beyond store-of-value use cases as we enter this new era of Bitcoin adoption by businesses and institutions. And it was a pleasant surprise for many people attending the conference. .
Bitcoin normalization for enterprises
Conversations both on and off the conference stage revolved around the topic of Bitcoin maturing from taboo to more commonplace, making it harder for businesses and organizations to ignore it.
In conversations with Bitcoin industry leaders like Becca Rubenfeld, anchor watch; Sam Abassi, Founder and CEO Hoseki; Nathan McCauley, Co-Founder and CEO anchorage digitalI’ve learned that companies and institutions that once dismissed Bitcoin as nothing more than a scam or a fad are now considering how they can implement it.
“We are excited to be in the adoption phase where access to Bitcoin is being expanded to businesses and their customers,” Rubenfeld told Bitcoin Magazine. “This event is specifically oriented towards that, allowing us to focus the conversation on the benefits and challenges specific to new Bitcoin owners.”
It took a while for businesses to embrace Bitcoin, but it’s clear that we’re at the beginning of an era where companies are starting to realize the value of Bitcoin.
Even if your company or institution isn’t necessarily ready to adopt Bitcoin standards like MicroStrategy, you might want to leverage some of your Bitcoin assets or start using Lightning for payments and apps that leverage the Bitcoin blockchain. The number of companies and institutions seems to be increasing.
Thanks to Michael Saylor and the team at MicroStrategy for this.
