Michael Saylor will speak at the Strategy World conference on February 24, marking a shift in his Bitcoin strategy from “buy and HODL” to “digital capital operations.” Article author, source: ApNews

1:00 PM on February 24, 2026, Las Vegas, Michael Saylor will take the stage at the corporate Bitcoin conference. This will be his countless Bitcoin speech. Over the past five years, he has stood on countless similar occasions, telling the world with the same passion: Bitcoin is digital gold, and companies should put it on their balance sheets.

But this time is different. The name of the conference has changed from “MicroStrategy World” to “Strategy World.” Saylor’s title has changed from CEO to Executive Chairman. And the core topic of the speech has changed from “Why buy Bitcoin” to three unfamiliar words: digital capital, digital credit, and digital equity.

If you are still stuck with the impression that “Saylor is shilling again,” you may miss a turning point that is taking place. Source: CCN.com

From “Buying Coins” to “Issuing Bonds”: Saylor’s Script Has Changed

In the past five years, Saylor’s script has been simple: issue stocks, issue convertible bonds, and use the money to buy Bitcoin. MicroStrategy’s stock price has become a leveraged ETF for Bitcoin, rising faster than Bitcoin and falling harder than Bitcoin. This approach has been imitated by countless people and questioned by countless people.

But in 2025, the situation changed. An annual report on corporate Bitcoin adoption showed that what really mattered last year was not “which companies bought Bitcoin,” but “which companies learned to use Bitcoin for financing.”

ATM additional issuance, private placement, convertible bonds, preferred stocks – these capital market tools have been turned into assembly lines by a group of Bitcoin treasury companies. Saylor said it very bluntly in a conversation in January: Bitcoin is evolving into digital capital that supports digital credit, “what drives power is credit, not price.” To translate this into human language: stop staring at the K-line and counting Ks, the real battlefield is in the credit market.

What exactly is digital credit?

If you flip through the agenda of Strategy World 2026, you will find a special section called “Risks, Returns, and Portfolio Roles of Bitcoin Credit Products.” The discussion is not about whether Bitcoin will rise or fall, but how to price and allocate preferred stocks and convertible bonds issued based on Bitcoin in the investment portfolio.

In 2025, these financial products, which Saylor calls “digital credit,” started from scratch and developed into a market of several billion dollars, and paid out approximately $370.00M in dividends by the end of the year.

Strategy itself has issued several series of preferred stocks: STRK, STRF, STRD, STRC, STRE. Each one has different terms, different durations, and different risk levels.

What does this mean? It means that a Bitcoin treasury company can build different ladders in its capital structure like a mini investment bank: the top is common stock, the middle is convertible bonds, and the bottom is various preferred stocks. Different types of investors can choose to sit in different positions on the ladder according to their risk preferences.

When Saylor recently promoted to sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East, he simplified the logic into a number: selling credit instruments equivalent to 1.40% of capital assets can pay dividends forever and increase Bitcoin holdings forever. This “1.40% forever” formula sounds like magic, but behind it is a complete assembly line of capital operations.

Why this speech is worth taking seriously

The opening speech on February 24 is titled “Freedom by Design.” Saylor will work with Strategy’s CEO to depict a “sovereign, independent, and immortal” corporate form – a corporate architecture supported by a Bitcoin treasury, free from the constraints of the traditional banking system, and able to cope with the impact of AI.

This narrative sounds grand, but there are several questions worth asking behind it.

First, who is this model useful for? The report shows that more companies are holding Bitcoin in 2025, but only a few can truly operate the capital market on a large scale. Most companies just buy some coins and leave them there, which is not in the same dimension as Saylor’s approach.

Second, where are the risks? When the market fluctuated in the second half of last year, some companies were forced to sell Bitcoin to repay debts. Once there are fiat liabilities with dates, Bitcoin is no longer an “untouchable” reserve asset. Whether those complexly designed preferred stocks and convertible bonds will become a noose when liquidity dries up has not been truly stress-tested.

Third, how does the market price it? The report mentioned that the credit spreads and risk levels of Strategy’s different series of preferred stocks have been mismatched for a long time. This shows that the market has not yet learned to price these assets. When pricing is chaotic, it is an opportunity for those who understand and a trap for those who do not.

What does Saylor want to prove?

When Saylor stands on the stage next week, he will no longer be holding the “Bitcoin White Paper,” but a set of financial statements and capital structure diagrams. What he wants to prove is no longer “how many tens of thousands will Bitcoin rise to,” but one thing: companies that use Bitcoin as the underlying layer can issue products of different levels, attract different types of money, and form a self-circulating capital ecosystem, just like traditional financial institutions.

If this logic can work, Bitcoin’s role at the corporate level will change. It is not a number on the balance sheet, but the base of an engine. Stocks, bonds, preferred stocks, and all kinds of things that have not yet been invented can be built on the base.

Of course, this logic may not work. The game of the capital market is much more complicated than buying coins. Liquidity, pricing, risk control, and regulation, every link may get stuck.

But at least one thing is certain: Saylor is no longer satisfied with being the “first person to buy coins.” What he wants to be is a definer of a new asset class.

Conclusion

1:00 PM on February 24, Las Vegas. When Saylor takes the stage, those sitting in the audience may be the most concentrated group of “Bitcoin corporate believers” in the world. The companies in their hands have either already bought coins, are considering buying coins, or are already learning from Saylor to issue bonds for financing.

What they will hear, what they will ask, what they will worry about, will be a window for market observation in the next few months. After all, when a person starts talking about “digital credit” instead of “digital gold,” the game behind him has changed.