The Middle East has a chance to become “the Switzerland of the 21st century” by embracing bitcoin-backed banking, credit, and digital money, said Strategy (MSTR) Executive Chairman Michael Saylor.
In a wide-ranging presentation at Bitcoin MENA, Saylor urged the region to seize what he described as a $200 trillion opportunity by enabling banks to custody bitcoin, offer BTC-backed credit, and eventually launch yield-generating digital money products.
“If you are interested in making your nation the digital banking capital of the world … if you’d like to be the Switzerland of the 21st century, then these are the three ideas: the big, the bigger, and the biggest,” Saylor told the audience.
A “big idea,” said Saylor, was for sovereign wealth funds to invest in bitcoin. A “bigger idea” was to build banks that custody bitcoin and extend credit on it. The “biggest” idea was to create digital money accounts backed by BTC credit instruments, offering up to 8% yield with no volatility.
“You won’t draw a little bit of bitcoin,” Saylor said. “You will actually pull billions and tens of billions and hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars of capital from people that don’t understand bitcoin.”
Saylor claimed that the U.S. now leads the global regulatory shift toward bitcoin, pointing to what he described as near-unanimous support from government officials. “There is a profound consensus amongst everyone running the United States,” he said. “Donald J. Trump says he is intent on making America the bitcoin superpower, the crypto capital of the world, the leader in digital assets.”
He added that he had spoken personally with the Vice President, the Secretary of the Treasury, the head of the SEC, the Commerce Secretary, and other top officials, all of whom, Saylor claimed, view bitcoin as a strategic asset.
Saylor also said U.S. banks that once refused to touch bitcoin are now actively moving to support it.
“All of the large banks in the United States have gone from not banking bitcoin 12 months ago to, in the past six months, I have been approached by BNY Mellon, by Wells Fargo, by Bank of America, by Charles Schwab, by JPMorgan, by Citi,” he said. “They are all starting to issue credit against either Bitcoin or against Bitcoin derivatives like IBIT.”
Strategy holds more than 660,000 BTC and is now issuing a range of BTC-backed credit instruments, including perpetual preferred stocks and short-term notes that pay monthly dividends.
“We’re converting 120 months or 240 months of duration into one month,” he said. “Pay me now.”
Saylor framed these innovations as the foundation for a new kind of financial system. “Digital capital creates digital credit, and digital credit creates digital money,” he said. “That’s the killer app.”
