On April 12, 2021, business intelligence firm MicroStrategy said that its non-employee board members will now receive their fees in BTC instead of cash.
BTC Payments Are Underway
The announcement came in an 8-K filing with the US SEC, where the firm asserted that they wish to modify their compensation arrangement for non-employee directors as of April 11.
The Nasdaq-listed company currently holds almost 100K units of BTC, making it one of the public companies with the largest holdings in its coffers. Led by bitcoin bull Michael Saylor, the business intelligence firm advocates for more institutions to invest in the coin via its ‘Bitcoin for Corporations’ online courses.
Per the MicroStrategy filing, all board members supported the move and cited their commitment to the world’s leading crypto.
“The Board cited its commitment to bitcoin given its ability to serve as a store of value, supported by a robust and public open-source architecture, untethered to sovereign monetary policy,” an excerpt from the SEC filing read.
The SEC filing further clarifies that the directors’ fees won’t be altered and will initially be nominally denominated in USD. The funds will then be converted to BTC by a payment processor at the time of payment and deposited to each director’s digital wallet.
MicroStrategy Continues to Make Pro-Bitcoin Moves
MicroStrategy Inc started being a major bitcoin corporate backer last August when it procured its first batch of the coin. Since then, the firm has continued to amass more bitcoin as the cryptocurrency soars in value.
To date, MicroStrategy has invested more than $5 billion into BTC. The latest purchase came on April 5 when the company added another 253 coins to its corporate reserves for $15M in cash.
Other top companies such as Tesla and Square Inc. have followed Microstrategy and invested massive amounts from their cash reserves to purchase BTC. CEO Michael Saylor believes that the growing institutional investment into the world’s leading crypto is just the “tip of the iceberg“.
The bitcoin advocate predicts that an avalanche of institutions will enter the BTC market in the coming months. Such wider adoption by investors with deep pockets would push prices even higher in the backdrop of constrained new BTC supplies.
The latest decision from MicroStrategy to start compensating board members in BTC comes as the coin soared above $60K to approach its lifetime highs over the weekend.
Could MicroStrategy Become a Defacto Bitcoin ETF?
The Michael Saylor-led firm’s appetite for BTC has convinced some investment experts that it could be planning to become a de facto Bitcoin ETF in the absence of this service in the US.
Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer at CoinShares, argues that Microstrategy could be procuring as much of the digital asset as possible to fill the bitcoin ETF gap in the US crypto space.
“I think it indicates they don’t have a plan other than becoming a de facto Bitcoin ETF. So maybe bullish for Bitcoin,” Demirors said in an interview with Decrypt.
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