Michael Saylor is a well known American entrepreneur, founder and executive chairman of Microstrategy—now known as Strategy—a business intelligence firm. Strategy and Saylor have earned recognition for their assertive bitcoin acquisitions since 2020; as of Feb. 2025, Strategy holds 478,740 BTC. On Saturday, Saylor took to the social media platform X and said:
When you buy bitcoin, you strengthen the network. When you sell bitcoin, you weaken it.
The Strategy founder’s comments emerge during a period marked by significantly diminished transactional activity on the Bitcoin network. The backlog of unconfirmed transactions, known as the mempool, has been empty, and at times there are too few transactions to fill blocks. Onchain fees have remained low as well, with bitcoin miners encountering an unpredictable fee rate that is the lowest in quite some time.
Numerous individuals offered a broad spectrum of responses following Saylor’s statement. Bitcoin artist Lucho Poletti wrote, “Spending Bitcoin on goods and services strengthens the network. Selling some of your bitcoin to someone new strengthens the network.” Even the gold bug and ardent advocate for precious metals, Peter Schiff, offered his two cents. Schiff said:
That’s because the whole network is a pyramid scheme and this post proves that you know that. If it was legitimate selling would not weaken it.
One BTC proponent named Colleen offered her opinion, “I agree with you on many things, Saylor – but I see this one differently. The network doesn’t weaken, it just sheds the weak. Bitcoin remains as secure, functional, and decentralized no matter who holds it. In fact, every sale is an opportunity for someone with conviction to strengthen their position.”
Saylor’s admonition against selling carries inherent irony: Strategy’s 478,740 BTC stockpile exists precisely because others liquidated holdings. His narrative—equating sales with network vulnerability—clashes with bitcoin’s inherent resilience, as critics note its security transcends individual transactions.
The paradox highlights a tension between ideological purity and accumulation; while sellers enable whales like Strategy, decentralization still thrives on fluid ownership, rendering “weakness” a matter of perspective.
Source:news.bitcoin.com
