- MicroStrategy's Michael Saylor says bitcoin's price has bottomed.
- Crypto regulation will soon weed out bitcoin's competitors, according to Saylor.
MicroStrategy's Michael Saylor says bitcoin's current rally is in fact the start of a new bull run.
The software company's cofounder chalks up the new bull market to bitcoin's halving, more adoption of the crypto asset, and a regulatory crackdown on the industry that should benefit bitcoin.
Investor and developer interest will begin shifting from other blockchains, Saylor says, and into Bitcoin's network as regulation begins to weed out competitors like Ethereum. Earlier this year, US Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Gary Gensler said that "everything other than bitcoin" falls under securities laws.
"I think the crypto tokens and crypto securities are going to be regulated, perhaps out of existence," he told CNBC on Friday, adding that the token is the one commodity that the SEC is not going to regulate. "Bitcoin is the most secure network. It's the most secure asset. Everything else has got a black cloud hanging over it."
He added: "You're going to see a consistent flow of capital flowing from the rest of the crypto ecosystem [into] bitcoin."
The Financial Accounting Standards Board's also recently proposed guidance on crypto accounting and reporting, Saylor says, which is a significant milestone as well. It provides companies that hold crypto on their balance sheets, like MicroStrategy, further clarity and transparency for their shareholders, which could lead to further mainstream adoption.
"The FASB initiative to adopt fair value accounting is a very auspicious development," he said.
This, along with Bitcoin's halving and a migration of Ordinals inscriptions activity on its network, are bullish as well.
Ordinals is a protocol that expands the blockchain's use case and recently helped drive a new record for daily Bitcoin transactions as well. Bitcoin's halving, a technical event that occurs roughly every four years, is tentatively slated for April 2024. This could pump the price of the crypto by enhancing bitcoin's scarcity because the halving can reduce the number of new bitcoins released.
Although the space is going through "growing pains," Saylor says there are still plenty of bullish factors for bitcoin.
"Nearly all of the bad leverage has been squeezed out. Everyone in the business of shorting bitcoin, rehypothecating bitcoin, loaning bitcoin — they've all [gone] bankrupt. The remaining exchanges where you can short it are under a massive amount of regulatory pressure," Saylor told the outlet.
He added: "I think bitcoin's found the bottom. I think the leverage is out of it. I think we're on a bull run."