Michael Saylor quits as MicroStrategy CEO after Bitcoin losses

Crypto advocate Michael Saylor stepped down as CEO of MicroStrategy after the software company took a near $1bn (£0.8bn) loss in Bitcoin.

Saylor, a prominent supporter and investor of Bitcoin, will now be Executive Chairman after MicroStrategy faced an impairment charge of over $917m (£757m) on its Bitcoin holding in the second quarter of 2022 as the cryptocurrency’s price plunged in the crypto market crash.

MicroStrategy holds 129,699 Bitcoin, bought for about $30,664 (£25,380) each, totalling $4 billion (£3.3bn). The token’s price has tumbled 50 per cent this year to about $23,350 (£19,250). It has plummeted almost 70 per cent from its all-time high of near $69,000 in November 2021.

The company is the world’s biggest largest publicly-traded corporate holder of Bitcoin and was the first public company to adopt bitcoin as primary treasury reserve asset.

Saylor revealed that he personally held about 17,732 bitcoin and has said he will keep focusing on Bitcoin in his next job.

“I believe that splitting the roles of Chairman and CEO will enable us to better pursue our two corporate strategies of acquiring and holding bitcoin and growing our enterprise analytics software business,” Saylor said.

“As Executive Chairman I will be able to focus more on our bitcoin acquisition strategy and related bitcoin advocacy initiatives, while Phong will be empowered as CEO to manage overall corporate operations.”