Michael Saylor wants US banks to hold Bitcoin (BTC) for customers and lend against it. He also says digital assets could grow into a $100 trillion industry.
Saylor chairs MicroStrategy (now Strategy), the software company best known for buying Bitcoin. He set out the plan in a policy post after speaking at the Bitcoin Policy Institutes Freedom Tech DC summit this week.
What Saylor Wants Banks to Do With Bitcoin
Saylor wants banks to offer custody, meaning they store Bitcoin on a customers behalf. He also wants them to issue loans backed by that Bitcoin under clear, workable rules.
Global capital rules stand in the way, he argues. The Basel framework sets international standards for how much capital banks must hold against their assets. It gives its riskiest class of crypto holdings a 1,250% risk weight.
Saylor cites that figure as an example of how severe current treatment is. He wants regulators to separate three activities. These are:
- Holding Bitcoin for a client
- Lending against it, and
- Taking positions with a banks own money.
He expects bank adoption to become a major driver of growth. In his view, more banks competing for Bitcoin owners would pull fresh capital into an asset with a limited supply.
MicroStrategy already ranks lenders in its Bitcoin Banking Adoption Index, which put major-bank uptake at 32% in July.
Strategy Launches Bitcoin Banking Adoption Index, Fidelity Leads at 71%
However, big banks remain split. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has called Bitcoin a pet rock in public, though Strategy CEO Phong Le says Dimon backs it privately.
“The age of Digital Assets and Digital Intelligence needs a bill of digital rights, not a bill of restrictions,” he explained.
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Where Saylors $100 Trillion Figure Comes From
Saylor ties the figure to artificial intelligence (AI). He expects AI agents, software that acts for a person, to research, negotiate, and buy things on their owners behalf.
That economy needs money that moves at software speed, around the clock, he says. By contrast, todays financial system runs on human identities and human working hours.
Saylor says Bitcoin and other digital assets fit that setting. He puts the industrys potential at $100 trillion but gives no timeline for reaching it.
Why Saylor Is Turning to Regulators, Not Congress
The push follows a defeat. On September 15, the Senate voted 49-50 against advancing the CLARITY Act, a bill that would set rules for US crypto markets.
Saylor says the bill leaned too heavily on restrictions. He now sees the best path over the next two years running through the SEC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Treasury, and the White House.