Strategy’s Michael Saylor Has a Message for Bitcoin Investors as Its Price Falls

The bitcoin faithful are turning to one of their most vocal evangelists for a sign amid an intensifying market rout. His message? HODL.

We’re talking about Michael Saylor, chief of Strategy (MSTR), the enterprise software company known for stockpiling bitcoin. The price of the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency has been falling lately, and rumors broke out on social media that the company was selling amid the slide. Saylor dismissed those rumors, but the notion that latched onto the possibility that the man who might be bitcoin’s best-known bull was turning tail shows the negativity radiating from the market at present.

As X users started to fret, Saylor posted an image of himself on a life raft as a burning ship sank behind him. “HODL,” he said, using an acronym for “hold on for dear life.”

The sell-off in risk assets this week—a bleed that the end of the U.S. government shutdown couldn’t stem—has put a dent in the price of bitcoin and the narrative that it could be a useful hedge against stocks or a safe haven like gold. Bitcoin sank below $95,000 on Friday morning to levels not seen since early May. Some crypto-linked stocks diverged, with MicroStrategy declining about 4%, while Coinbase Global (COIN), and Robinhood (HOOD) were up at least 1%.

Saylor, who in recent months had forecast that bitcoin would climb to $150,000 by the end of the year, said Strategy was “buying quite a lot” lately in a Friday interview with CNBC. He also stopped short of providing a price target, though he said bitcoin over the long-term would “outperform” both gold and the S&P 500.

“Obviously it’s hard to make a forecast for the end of the year right now given what’s happened over the past few weeks,” he said.

The cryptocurrency has erased almost all of its 2025 gains, lagging gold’s 50%-plus climb and the broad market’s 14% year-to-date rise. ETF investors appear to be in selling mode: Spot bitcoin funds including iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin (FBTC) collectively showed nearly $867 million in outflows yesterday, according to Farside Investors.

Meanwhile, crypto watchers have become less sanguine about the market rout as investors rushed to sell. Vitaliy Shtyrkin, chief product officer at Estonia-headquartered platform B2BinPay, said sentiment weakened after bitcoin fell through a key technical support zone of $100,000 to $102,000. Dean Chen, an analyst at derivatives trading platform Bitunix, likened the latest decline as more than “a simple technical correction.”

Though Strategy might be buying at these levels—and just a few days ago, some experts sounded bullish as bitcoin seemed to bounce—others are sitting out. “We’re in this awkward in-between zone. I don’t want to be buying,” All Star Charts’ senior crypto analyst Louis Sykes said during an X live-stream discussing what to do about crypto now. “Just go play some golf.”