MicroStrategy Buys $82M Worth of Bitcoin As CEO Michael Saylor Says Apex Crypto Taking Gold's Place

Business intelligence firm MicroStrategy Inc. MSTR has added more Bitcoin BTC/USD to its holdings over the past two weeks.

What Happened: MicroStrategy purchased about 1,434 bitcoins between Nov. 29 and Dec. 8 for about $82.4 million in cash at an average price of about $57,477 per bitcoin, the company said in a regulatory filing.

As of Dec. 8, MicroStrategy held about 122,478 bitcoin that were acquired at an aggregate purchase price of $3.66 billion, the company added.

At the time of writing, the price of Bitcoin is $47,846.66, based on data from CoinMarketCap. This implies that Microstrategy’s bitcoin holdings are now worth $5.9 billion and represents more than $2.2 billion in gains.

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, a self-proclaimed Bitcoin bull, announced the company’s cryptocurrency purchase on Twitter and added that Bitcoin is taking the place of gold as the most desirable store of value.

He added that the price of Bitcoin will be driven by inflation, technology and adoption.

See also: How To Buy Bitcoin (BTC)

Why It Matters: The rise in acceptance of Bitcoin as a major store of value and payment option has been influenced by major corporations adding the cryptocurrency to their balance sheet.

MicroStrategy said in late November that between Oct. 1 and Nov. 29, it purchased about 7,002 bitcoins valued at $414.4 million in cash. The company is the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has not been able to build on the relief rally after touching the $51,000 level earlier this week. The apex cryptocurrency is down 30.2% from its all-time high of $68,789.63 touched in November.

Price Action: Bitcoin is down almost 3.5% during the past 24 hours, trading at $47,846.66 at press time.

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