Activist investors have new obsessions. Encourage businesses to lend (or HODL) bitcoin to transform their business by betting on their balance sheet (or HODL or Cryptocurrency's staying power.
Last week, Asset Management CEO Matt Cole revealed that he was investing in Bitcoin with GameStop (the beloved meme stock struggling to find a sustainable revenue stream beyond gaming cartridges).
Cole believes that in 10 years all major companies in the stock market will follow suit. And he told Nynext he plans to advise dozens of them to buy Bitcoin this year.
“Zombie Company” The fact that it doesn't have the possibility of it being present is that having Bitcoin on your balance sheet will help you prepare for the future. My message: I'll buy Bitcoin unless I have the opportunity to use that asset in a way that surpasses Bitcoin,” Cole said. “If a company owns cash, it can be placed in short-term finances or spent on stock repurchases and dividends, but Bitcoin has actually risen in its actual purchasing power over the last few years.”
Strive was co-founded by Vivek Ramaswamy in 2022 as a way to push back ESG (environmental, social and governance) priorities. With ESG and “waking up” policies on retreats at many companies, Cole believes that the next big opportunity for his company is persuading companies to stock Bitcoin.
In a recent letter to GameStop, which holds $5 billion in cash, Cole wrote, “We believe GameStop has an incredible opportunity to change its economic future by becoming the best Bitcoin finance company in the gaming sector.” He has not disclosed his exact investment, but claims a significant share through multiple ETFs.
His approach has precedent.
More than 80 public companies, including Tesla and Reddit, have accumulated Bitcoin over the past few years to diversify their holdings, according to Bitcoin Treasuries, which tracks entities that hold digital coins.
The most notable example is MicroStrategy, Michael Saylor's software company. After the accumulation of Bitcoin in 2020 and the stock price stagnated for many years, the stock price surged more than 2,000% from $10 to nearly $300 per share.
Last month, MicroStrategy announced the brand: Now known simply as a strategy, the company The logo incorporates a Bitcoin symbol to signal its “unique position as a Bitcoin finance company.”
GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen recently posted a photo of herself on X along with Saylor. This was interpreted by Crypto enthusiasts as a hint that GameStop might follow in the footsteps of strategy.
And it's not just companies betting on crypto. Twenty US states, including Texas and Massachusetts, have introduced legislation to establish their own Bitcoin reserves. Bhutan began mining its currency, and El Salvador made it into fiat currency. Earlier this week, President Trump reiterated his intention to create a US crypto sanctuary where Bitcoin, Solana, Ethereum and other coins are in stock.
Skeptics may wonder why investors buy companies like Strategy instead of owning Bitcoin entirely. Like large wealth managers, for institutions that are unable to purchase crypto due to SEC regulations, strategic stocks provide exposure to Bitcoin.
With relatively few proxies in the market now, Call is urging businesses to act as quickly as possible.
It has not yet been seen whether it will become a widely adopted approach. “Less than 5% of companies will adopt this in the next 12-18 months,” Dan Ives, Head of Global Technology Research at Wedbush Securities, told Nynext. “But every public company should strongly consider going that path.”
Ives added: “Saylor and MicroStrategy have changed the game. There are no public committees that aren't researching what they've done.”
