Bill Barhydt, Abra’s head and a Bitcoin trailblazer who nabbed coins at $5, tore into Michael Saylor’s wild idea to lock his 17,000 BTC—around $350 million—away forever. On the Supply Shock podcast with Pete Rizzo, he flat-out said it “makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.”
Saylor, the MicroStrategy guy known for his Bitcoin obsession, floated this in a CoinDesk interview, talking about an “unsendable wallet” for his personal holdings.
https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1763544742862762180?t=6BnbFWo7A_ueOAcoNODt7g&s=19
A “Gift” Nobody Asked For
Saylor believes sending his coins to oblivion would shrink the supply and juice up Bitcoin’s value for all. Barhydt sees the point but pushes back hard. “His perspective is that this is a gift to the Bitcoin community because if you lower the denominator and the numerator, it helps everybody else in terms of the purchasing power,” he said.
“My take is, the Bitcoin community does not need that gift.” The guy who gave the first Bitcoin TED Talk isn’t cheering.
Better Ways to Spend It
Instead, Barhydt pitched using the stash for good. Think educational services for low-income people, bitcoin banking in growing markets, or remittance setups. He said that’d boost Bitcoin’s user base over time. He recalled the early days, giving coins out to teach folks.
“When we were giving away bitcoin price predictions, it wasn’t like we were telling people, ‘Here, go build your financial fortune,’” he noted. “It was like, no, you need to understand how this decentralized system allows you to move value between two parties without some trusted third party in the middle.”
Saylor’s Not Playing Savior
Barhydt also questioned Saylor acting like he’s Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s founder who ghosted the scene. He’s not buying the parallel. “Saylor is not perceived to be a benevolent dictator of Bitcoin,” he said.
Saylor doesn’t need to make some noble exit like that. Barhydt thinks it’s more about Saylor’s own game than the community’s gain.
