Prominent venture capitalist Jason Calacanis has questioned whether the asset's current price is actually propped up by the accumulation strategy of Michael Saylor’s Strategy.
As reported by U.Today, Strategy recently announced a staggering $2.54 billion acquisition of 34,164 BTC. The company’s total holdings have swelled to 815,061 BTC. Notably, this is the third-biggest BTC purchase to date.
A $20,000 premium?
Calacanis directed his rather provocative query to the AI bot Grok, asking what the price of Bitcoin would be today had Michael Saylor not injected over $61 billion into the market since 2020.
The AI's analysis concluded that the price of Bitcoin could be $10,000 to $20,000 lower than its current level ($75,525) without Saylor's aggressive buying.
This "whale effect" is precisely what worries Calacanis. He has long argued that Strategy's "convoluted" capital structure creates an artificial floor.
The company uses its rather sophisticated at-the-market (ATM) equity offering program in order to make its purchases.
As reported by U.Today, Calacanis has famously stated he would not touch MSTR stock "with a 10-foot pole," even in the event of a crash, and has warned that there should be "no Bitcoin bailouts" if the company’s debt-heavy strategy eventually goes underwater.
However, some users poured cold water on Calacanis's reasoning and Grok's assessment.
"This assumes that the buyers who are funding his purchases would not buy outright themselves if he didn’t offer an easier vehicle where buyers don’t deal with custody risk," one user stated.
Dan Burgin
U.Today Editorial Team
