MicroStrategy’s Saylor offered to buy out shareholders before buying Bitcoin.

Michael Saylor faced obstacles before successfully adding Bitcoin to MicroStrategy’s balance sheet in 2020.

At the 2024 Abundance360 Summit this week, Saylor revealed how he offered to buy out MicroStrategy shareholders in a Dutch move when the company first moved to acquire $250 million worth of Bitcoin.

The comments come after Saylor and his company announced earlier this week that they had purchased approximately 9,245 bitcoins for approximately $623 million. This acquisition brings MicroStrategy’s total holdings to approximately 214,246 BTC.

In a video clip from the conference, Saylor explained how he gave MicroStrategy shareholders the option to offer their shares back to the company when they purchase Bitcoin.

“We announced that we would buy back $250 million of stock at a premium through a Dutch auction. The stock was around $121 or $122. We offered to shareholders to buy it at $140. We had 20 days to talk about it. It gave me time to think.” Sailor explained.

He said his philosophy was to “buy Bitcoin” and that he was willing to do whatever it took to accumulate more. At the time, the price of Bitcoin was around $11,000, down from its 2017 high of $20,000.

Saylor’s aggressive approach to acquiring Bitcoin for MicroStrategy has made the enterprise software company one of the largest corporate holders of Bitcoin. The company currently holds over $13.7 billion in BTC, making Bitcoin a major corporate treasury asset.

MicroStrategy has financed its Bitcoin purchases through bond and stock issuances despite the decline in the Bitcoin market and has made it clear that it has no plans to sell its holdings anytime soon.