Michael Saylor, Founder of Strategy: The Digital Economy Needs a Digital Bill of Rights
Michael Saylor, founder of Strategy, published a framework for digital economy policy, stating that artificial intelligence will enhance the productivity of individuals and businesses. He argued that the era of digital assets requires a "Digital Bill of Rights" rather than restrictive legislation.
He outlined five fundamental rights: creation, issuance, custody, transfer, and use of digital assets, asserting that these rights should belong to both individuals and companies. The value of assets depends on what holders can do with them; limiting their use restricts economic potential. He advocated for tiered disclosure based on project size and simplified issuance rules, aiming to enable 10 million new companies to secure funding.
Regarding digital dollars, he called for clear issuance pathways for banks, fintech, and technology platforms, allowing competition around yields. He defined Bitcoin as digital capital, suggesting that banks could custody and collateralize it, while insurance companies could include it in their balance sheets and products. He criticized Basel's 1250% risk weight on certain crypto exposures as overly stringent, arguing that regulation should differentiate between client custody, collateralized loans, and proprietary holdings. He estimated that approximately $1.6 trillion worth of Bitcoin remains largely unbanked, only able to enter the system indirectly through ETFs.
Tokenized securities should allow direct custody, free transfer, and the choice of different custodians and credit providers, rather than merely moving traditional securities onto the blockchain while remaining locked in a single intermediary. On privacy, he argued that ordinary legal transactions below a reasonable threshold of $10,000 should not trigger routine government reporting solely due to the transfer of funds or digital assets. Institutions pushing for reforms in the next two years include the SEC, CFTC, Treasury, banking regulators, and the White House. He criticized the CLARITY Act, claiming that most of its 630 pages are restrictive, and stated that the industry could eventually reach a scale of $100 trillion.
In market mechanisms, buyers are banks and tech platforms competing on custody, credit, and yields; sellers are existing rules that lock holders into single custody and prohibit interest-bearing stablecoins. The impetus for change comes from Congress's stalled bills, leading to demands for power from administrative agencies. Beneficiaries are companies that have built up Bitcoin inventories and want to turn them into collateralizable digital capital, while those under pressure are institutions maintaining old intermediary rents through the 1250% risk weight and reporting thresholds. Funds are shifting from "holding without use" to "custody that can be lent, dollars that can earn interest."
The public text categorizes taxonomy into four layers: tokens, currencies, capital, and securities, with different rights corresponding to different functions.
Source: Public Information
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After rebranding MicroStrategy to Strategy, Saylor's core business is turning Bitcoin into collateralizable digital capital, layering preferred stock and dollar reserves on top. The lengthy policy document serves as a legislative version of the same balance sheet: without bank custody and collateralized credit, corporate holdings can only rely on issuing stock to buy Bitcoin; without interest-bearing digital dollars, products like STRC must act as banks themselves. He criticizes CLARITY because the congressional text includes yield rights in the restrictive list, while his desired growth comes from turning the idle $1.6 trillion in Bitcoin into lendable inventory.
The capital pathway involves first using a two-year window with administrative agencies to change capital rules and tiered disclosures, then allowing banks like Citibank and JPMorgan to open custody and collateralization, and insurance companies to include Bitcoin in liability-side products. He claims that $1 billion in bank credit could buy a year’s organic supply, and a few banks at scale could change pricing. This upgrades the ETF channel to a commercial bank channel: ETFs can only hold, while banks can create credit. Financing for 10 million new companies transforms the token issuance right from an expensive gate of securities registration to an industrial assembly line based on tiered disclosure.
Benchmarks include the 1980s money market funds breaking zero-interest savings, the GENIUS Act opening stablecoins, and Basel's differentiated weights for sovereign debt and housing loans. AI agents are framed as new clients: they cannot enter traditional bank accounts and can only settle using pure digital currencies. The industry is moving from "striving to be recognized as assets" to "striving to be allowed to be used as capital."
Structural changes pertain to the transfer of pricing power. Those who can custody, lend, and pay interest will set the prices for digital assets. The mechanism is that the 1250% weight merges bank proprietary and client custody into the same prohibition, while tiered disclosure reduces small companies' issuance costs from legal fees to form fees; the Bill of Rights shifts competition from scarce licenses to price wars over yields and custody services, with the $100 trillion narrative built on the banking system's willingness to create credit for Bitcoin.
ABAB News · Law of Cognition
- Restrictive legislation protects intermediaries, while the Bill of Rights protects usage.
- Non-collateralizable assets are merely inventory; only collateralizable ones are capital.
- Tiered disclosure reduces legal fees, not the risks themselves.