Saylor Likens Bitcoin's Current Slump to Apple and Amazon’s "Wilderness" Years Before Mainstream Success
Michael Saylor, the Executive Chairman of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), frequently draws parallels between Bitcoin and tech giants like Apple and Amazon to contextualize its long-term growth and current market volatility.
His key comparisons include:
The "Wilderness" Years: Saylor argues that Bitcoin is currently in its "wilderness" phase, similar to the multi-year periods of stagnation or "trial-by-fire" endured by Apple and Amazon before they were universally accepted as market leaders.
Apple: He notes it took seven years to fully recover from its 2012 crash and faced a 13-year cycle (2007–2020) to prove it was the "greatest company of its era".
Amazon: He points out that for nearly a decade, "conventional investors" dismissed Amazon, and it wasn't until the 2020 lockdowns that its necessity became undisputed consensus.
Mainstream Endorsement: Saylor highlights that Apple’s valuation (P/E ratio) only surged after receiving endorsements from "icons" like Warren Buffett and Carl Icahn. He believes Bitcoin will experience a similar massive upward re-rating once such mainstream institutional figures provide a definitive "blessing".
Infrastructure & Power: Beyond market sentiment, Saylor compares Bitcoin’s scale to Big Tech's physical footprint. He has claimed that Bitcoin's computational capacity surpasses the combined data center power of Google and Microsoft, framing it as a "dominant monetary network" that is as essential to finance as Apple’s mobile network is to communication.
Capital Preservation: He describes Bitcoin as "digital capital" or "digital property," comparing it to owning a prime apartment in New York City or "refined" energy (like oil into gasoline). He advocates for companies like Microsoft to replace stock buybacks with Bitcoin purchases to significantly boost their market capitalization.
Despite his optimism, critics note that unlike Apple and Amazon, Bitcoin lacks diversified revenue streams and faces significantly different regulatory and market maturity hurdles
