Morgan Stanley has bought up 10% of bitcoin major MicroStrategy
The software maker’s massive bitcoin investments appear to be paying off.
According to an official document released by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday, 8 January, Morgan Stanley has bought 792,627 shares of MicroStrategy. This means that the Bitcoin Pro influential investment bank now holds a 10.9% stake in the software maker, which has in turn invested heavily in Bitcoin in recent months.
The purchase was reportedly completed on 31 December, following a particularly strong month for MicroStrategy in which the tech company’s stock climbed from US$289 to US$545.
In August, MicroStrategy had caused a stir in the crypto industry when the software maker invested significant amounts of the company’s capital in Bitcoin. CEO Michael Saylor explained the move at the time as follows:
„This is not speculation or hedging. This is a deliberate corporate strategy to move to bitcoin.“
With this, Saylor alludes to the fact that the market-leading cryptocurrency, often referred to as digital gold, could introduce a new gold standard.
A few weeks ago, MicroStrategy had also announced a US$400 million share sale to fund further bitcoin investments.
As of 21 December, the company had already bought up 70,470 BTC
At the time of going to press, the equivalent value for the software producer’s BTC is over US$2.8 billion.
More and more institutional investors such as Morgan Stanley have recently taken a liking to the crypto market. Many experts see this as the driving force behind the current surge, whereas the great hype of 2017 was largely fuelled by private investors. Accordingly, this was not sustainable.