- Michael Saylor’s software business has become second to his love of Bitcoin.
- Revenue at MicroStrategy — now Strategy — has dropped for three years in a row.
Michael Saylor’s software company is making less and less money.
Formerly dubbed MicroStrategy, the publicly traded firm develops software for large companies like hotel chain Hilton and furniture retailer Crate & Barrel.
And that business is waning, according to financial results that Saylor, founder and chairman, announced on Wednesday.
The company notched $463 million in revenue in 2024. That’s the lowest it’s generated since 2010.
And it’s the third year in a row revenue has slumped.
The declining revenue is further evidence of the software business’ declining importance to the success of Saylor’s firm.
(Micro)Strategy
Another signal? MicroStrategy’s rebrand to Strategy,
On the same day Saylor announced his company’s financials for 2024, he also trumpeted the rebrand.
The new name “represents a simplification of our company name to its most important, strategic core,” he said in a statement.
Strategy’s new logo, orange and featuring the Bitcoin symbol, made that core explicit: Bitcoin.
It is perhaps the clearest articulation yet from Saylor of what his 35-year-old company has become.
The company formerly known as MicroStrategy has officially morphed from an enterprise software firm into a Bitcoin behemoth that buys up the world’s largest cryptocurrency at a record pace.
Bitcoin behemoth
In 2020, Saylor, whose firm first went public in 1998, announced that his company bought 21,454 Bitcoin for approximately $250 million.
“This investment reflects our belief that Bitcoin, as the world’s most widely-adopted cryptocurrency, is a dependable store of value and an attractive investment asset with more long-term appreciation potential than holding cash,” Saylor said in a press release.
Since then, that belief has only grown stronger.
Through debt and share issuances, Saylor’s firm has raised capital to buy up more and more of the cryptocurrency.
As of February, Strategy owns over 470,000 Bitcoin, a stash worth now about $47 billion.
And the share price of Saylor’s company has skyrocketed as traders pile into a stock they see as a proxy for Bitcoin.
It’s increased 25 times over to almost $367 since August 2020, when Strategy first bought the cryptocurrency.
Meanwhile, the company’s bread-and-butter business has stagnated, and the number of employees at MicroStrategy has dropped 22% from the end of 2020 to the third quarter in 2024.
Ben Weiss is a Dubai-based reporter for DL News. Got a tip? Email him at bweiss@dlnews.com.
