Michael Saylor an American entrepreneur and business executive and the executive chairman and co-founder of MicroStrategy, a company that provides business intelligence, mobile software, and cloud-based services in an interview with Al Arabiya English notes that GCC banks could become trusted digital asset custodians, while he calls for their sovereign wealth funds to buy Bitcoin.

In the Al Arabiya English interview with Hadley Gamble, he works to convince the globe on why Bitcoin is the center of the AI economy, and why countries including KSA, Kuwait, Qatar, and UAE as well as the rest of the world should buy Bitcoin. He then states that GCC region with its low taxation, its digital asset regulations, and its trusted banking sector could become the trusted digital asset custodians for the digital economy.

He starts with the fact that there is a change in the status quo and how digital capital is a no brainer, it is like Facebook for money, Google for money because Bitcoin is digital gold and a non-sovereign store of assets, allowing investors to avoid counter party risk.

He adds that it is a safe haven better than gold, 10X more valuable than gold and is growing in value at 20% a year. He says, “It is the best investment idea in the world, and people just want to keep their money, usually doing it through buying real estate, equities, collectible, which all have risk factors.

With increased uncertainty and losing confidence in governmental currencies which are facing a lot of risk because of technology, politics and monetary policy, they will trade it in for Bitcoin. For him Bitcoin is a hedge growing by 55% 2 trillion now to 20 trillion in four years and 280 trillion in 2045.

He goes on to note that this is the dominant network. He also states that USD stablecoin demand is increasing

His case against Gold

He believes that given gold is not as liquid as money, and not a sellable commodity like it was 1000 years ago, it isn’t fast enough. He explains, “400 million companies across the globe cannot settle with gold. To settle $10 billion of gold it would take 10 years.” According to Saylor, Bitcoin represents digital gold, the most liquid and fungible commodity asset, better than gold that can be teleported in seconds, put on 5 billion smart phones, with 0% inflation.

He adds that cash settlement is always difficult but with Bitcoin you can settle billions every four hours. He calls it the “perfect money, perfect capital, that will build an entire digital economic system.”

When asked why people aren’t using it to buy stuff, he simply states, “You don’t pay for things in capital. Money has two aspects high frequency money like the dollar and Euro, and Peso which people don’t hold for more than four years, with local currencies being held only for weeks or months especially in countries like Egypt and Lebanon. 90% of people don’t save in dollars, they save in land, real estate, equities, and Bitcoin.

He also believes that once the United States regulates stablecoins its market cap will go up to $2 trillion.  

The digital economy fused with AI will need Bitcoin

He reasserts what we all know already that the future is digital. He believes everything will be tokenized starting with the dollar. According to him given that AI will be prevalent and it will be smarter and faster, “your AI will want to move your money for better investment opportunities 18 million times an hour.” The intelligent economy will bypass regulated economies. So countries need to advance their regulatory environments, while ensuring ethically responsible friction free environment.

How the GCC countries can benefit

There are many ways countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and UAE can benefit from the rise of digital economies and Bitcoin. First according to Saylor, they could become the repositer of digital energy which is more important for the AI datacenters than it is for Bitcoin. He states, “The AI economy will need massive amounts of energy 400 GWs of electrical power to move forward. If an economy doesn’t have electricity it doesn’t think. He believes nuclear technologies will power the intelligent economy.

He calls on sovereign wealth funds in GCC to invest in Bitcoin, telling them to buy as much as they can buy. “You ought to buy as much as you want money, returns of 29% a year for 21 years.

He also adds that the GCC banking sector could become institutional custodians for Bitcoin. He explains, “digital currencies will want to find a home that has favorable tax regimes, favorable regulations and they will be looking for institutional grade custodians, banks that I trust in the UAE, Qatar, or Kuwait where I can custody my bitcoin, a Bitcoin custodian Bank.”

He adds that we have yet to see who will emerge as a digital Switzerland.

The Risks

According to Saylor there are no risks or impediments to Bitcoin except the regulatory ones.

While he mentions that Armada Spanish fleet hit Gold, he doesn’t mention that a lack of internet could hit Bitcoin, or the fact that if Bitcoin becomes centralized into the hands of the few, it defeats the purpose of the technology, or even the fact that if quantum computing prevails, the security of the Bitcoin network could be at risk.

So while he calls for sovereign wealth funds to buy Bitcoin as he create security products for investors of Bitcoin, and while Micro Strategy invests billions of dollars into Bitcoin, the risks are there even if smaller than the risks of 20th century money.

So yes it might be a great idea for sovereign funds to diversify their portfolios into Bitcoin, it might not be a good idea to try and buy so much that Bitcoin becomes a new central bank digital currency, and definitely not the smartest idea to have banks custody the Bitcoin!

HODLER INVESTMENTS, a UAE based investment company, headquartered in the Dubai, which includes in its portfolio energy, AI, and digital asset mining startups such as PermianChain, Brox Equity and others; and Abu Dhabi’s EHC Investment which leads multiple businesses with operations and investments across the energy, infrastructure, firefighting technology and system integration services have signed a strategic partnership to launch NEXGEN.

NEXGEN will support the creation of a compliant digital energy market to supply critical energy infrastructure that will monetize wasted energy such as flared gas in the UAE, KSA, and Egypt with the aim of hosting global data center operators, reducing carbon emissions and contributing the Digital Energy Infrastructure (DEI) Fund, a local decarbonization innovation fund.

The UAE is a strong supporter of the decarbonization initiative. Over the past 15 years, the UAE has invested more than US$40 billion in clean energy projects. Globally, the UAE supports green infrastructure, investing approximately $16.8 billion in renewable energy projects across 70 countries, primarily in developing nations. It has also provided over $400 million in aid and soft loans for clean energy initiatives.

Moustafa Rashad, Chief Executive Officer of EHC Investment added, “Our partnership with HOLDER INVESTMENTS will solve various challenges facing the energy sector in MENA. We believe that modern technology coupled with smart capital can accelerate decarbonization and address the renewable funding gap. This partnership will address market challenges of commercializing wasted and underutilized energy, while streamlining regulatory compliance for this newfound digital energy market, ensuring compliance with key systems and controls.”

Mohamed El Masri, Managing Director of HOLDER INVESTMENTS, stated, “Our strategic alliance with EHC Investment will accelerate our mission to build distributed energy infrastructure to power compute clusters that optimize wasted energy resources and build equitable energy infrastructure that strengthens the regional position for integrating data mining systems that support a sovereign digital economy.”

The strategic partnership with EHC Investment comes after HODLER announced its ongoing plans for a $500 million Digital Energy Infrastructure (DEI) Fund with the participation of UAE based GEWAN holding. The DEI will be established as a closed-ended Fund, subject to compliance and regulatory approvals. The DEI Fund has already secured soft commitments from lead investors and in-kind contributions in addition to offtake partners seeking energy and connectivity for A.I. and digital asset mining operations.

Ahmed Ebrahim, Managing Director of Hodler Investments, explained, “Through this strategic partnership with EHC Investment, we are ensuring that the evolving regional market for modern data center applications will be built on equitable energy systems that will power on site, and remote data mining farms, including edge computing, bitcoin mining, AI and other critical compute applications.”

Ali Al Gebely, Managing Director of EHC Holding, stated, “We are very pleased to have signed this strategic partnership with HODLER Investments, given the growth that we are witnessing in the MENA region when it comes to the digital economy incorporating AI applications, Blockchain, IoT and others. The partnership is aligned with our goal of shaping a clean energy transition for a sustainable future. We believe public and private investments play a critical role in driving innovation.”

Alaa Al Ali, Founder & Group CEO, Gewan Holding comments, “We are proud of our direct affiliation with Hodler Investments which resulted in the ongoing establishment of the Digital Energy Infrastructure Fund to support such innovative initiatives as we look to streamline sustainable capital to accelerate decarbonization projects in the region, enabling carbon offset opportunities and optimized cash flow from energy assets.”