In a newly launched memo dated January 13, 2025, Matt Hougan, Chief Funding Officer (CIO) at Bitwise, argues that the phenomenon of companies buying Bitcoin for his or her treasuries is much extra widespread and influential than most buyers notice. Based on Hougan, “We’ll see hundreds of companies buy Bitcoin for their treasuries over the next 12-18 months, and their purchases will lift the entire Bitcoin market substantially higher.”
Hougan’s memo, titled “Companies Buying Bitcoin: An Overlooked Megatrend,” asserts that whereas MicroStrategy and its outspoken founder, Michael Saylor, typically dominate headlines, they’re merely probably the most seen a part of a quickly increasing company motion into BTC.
Regardless of being ranked 220th globally by market capitalization—“a bit bigger than Chipotle and a bit smaller than Sherwin-Williams,” in line with Hougan—MicroStrategy’s BTC acquisitions considerably exceed your entire new provide of Bitcoin mined final 12 months.
“Last year, MicroStrategy bought ~257,000 BTC… more than all the Bitcoin mined in 2024 (218,829 BTC),” Hougan wrote. He additionally famous that MicroStrategy has introduced plans to boost over $42 billion to buy extra Bitcoin—roughly equal to “about 2.6 years’ worth of new supply” at present manufacturing charges.
Hougan poses a direct query relating to what may occur if “really big companies start to take a page from MicroStrategy’s book,” pointing particularly to Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, which he described as “20x the size of MicroStrategy.”
Whereas MicroStrategy’s strikes have garnered probably the most consideration, Hougan emphasizes that many different corporations are already together with BTC on their stability sheets. In complete, “70 publicly traded companies own Bitcoin on their balance sheets,” a determine that encompasses each crypto-centric companies corresponding to Coinbase and Marathon Digital, and mainstream gamers like Block, Tesla, Semler Scientific, and Mercado Libre.
Collectively—excluding MicroStrategy—these corporations maintain 141,302 BTC. Personal corporations additionally maintain important quantities of bitcoin. Hougan cites knowledge from BitcoinTreasuries.com displaying that personal companies like SpaceX and Block.one collectively personal a minimum of 368,043 BTC. “That’s significant. It means that, even today, MicroStrategy is less than 50% of the corporate BTC market,” he wrote, predicting that MicroStrategy’s share “will be a small fraction of it eventually.”
Why Bitcoin Company Adoption Is Set To Explode
Hougan factors to 2 essential components which have traditionally constrained company adoption—reputational threat and unfavorable accounting guidelines—and explains why each have shifted quickly.
“Last year, the CEO of one large publicly traded company faced huge hurdles in adding Bitcoin as a treasury asset,” he wrote, describing the persistent concern of unfavourable media protection, shareholder lawsuits, and regulatory consideration. “But reputational risks have peeled back significantly in the past few months. Post-election, with Washington embracing crypto at the highest levels, it’s becoming much more commonplace—and popular—to own Bitcoin.”
Hougan then highlights a brand new accounting guideline launched by the Monetary Accounting Requirements Board (FASB) known as ASU 2023-08. Beforehand, BTC was labeled as an “intangible asset” topic to impairment testing, forcing corporations to jot down down the worth of their Bitcoin if its worth fell—however by no means permitting them to mark the worth again up if it rose. Now, corporations can mark BTC to market and ebook a revenue when its worth appreciates.
“If 70 companies were willing to add Bitcoin to their balance sheets when, from an accounting perspective, it literally could only go down, imagine how many will add it… now,” Hougan wrote. “Two hundred? Five hundred? A thousand?”
Addressing skepticism as to why corporations select to carry BTC, Hougan contends that company motivations largely mirror these of particular person buyers. “Some companies are greedy… Others are worried about the debasement of the dollar… Still others want to signal that they’re part of the Bitcoin tribe… Some probably just have a hunch,” he wrote.
Finally, nevertheless, Hougan maintains that understanding every firm’s motivations is much less vital than observing the magnitude of general demand. “You just need to look at the numbers and ask yourself two questions: Where does all of this demand from companies look like it’s going? And what would that mean for the market?”
Hougan’s memo concludes on a bullish word, forecasting that if main companies observe the trail paved by MicroStrategy—now aided by extra favorable reputational and accounting climates—the inflow of company capital may considerably push BTC’s worth increased over the course of the approaching 12 months.
“My prediction: We’ll see hundreds of companies buy Bitcoin for their treasuries over the next 12-18 months.” – Matt Hougan, Bitwise CIO
At press time, BTC traded at $95,039.
Featured picture from YouTube, chart from TradingView.com
