The MicroStrategy strategy: Corporates could drive crypto demand in 2025, says Wintermute analyst

The trend of corporates putting bitcoin on their balance sheet could grow into 2025, according to an analyst at market-making firm Wintermute. 

“I think that is now going to be quite a big driver next year when you get the corporates coming in on top of the institutions, and their own institutional base of listed companies that are trying to get exposure,” Wintermute OTC trader Jake Ostrovskis told The Block. "You're likely to see the SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] come in as well."

In recent years, MicroStrategy has bought $10 billion worth of bitcoin and plans to buy $42 billion more — leveraging its equity to do so.

Ostrovskis pointed to bitcoin mining companies Mara and Riot as examples of those following in the footsteps of MicroStrategy, issuing convertible notes to buy more bitcoin. And earlier this week, Metaplanet announced plans to raise $31.8 million in bond issuance to accelerate bitcoin purchases. 

The core idea behind these moves is that they can boost a company's balance sheet while raising its stock price. Call it the MicroStrategy strategy.

“People at the moment are talking about the impact of ETFs and the real driver of that is that you can now have like pension funds and sovereign wealth funds putting cash in,” he said. “But actually there's this whole other pool of capital in corporates, which is arguably a little bit freer and probably faster moving than waiting for pension funds to come and buy Bitcoin ETFs.”

Ostrovskis said traditional hedge funds, which had been waiting for ETFs to provide access to crypto, are moving quickly because they see an opportunity in the market.

“Now people are leaning into crypto not as natives but as traditional institutions who are just applying the old strategies they used to trade in equities to crypto," he said. "You can see a lot of that like turn up in the flows that we're seeing.” 

Ostrovskis predicts that some companies will follow the MicroStrategy playbook but with ether instead.

“It's probably only a matter of time until someone does the equivalent and turns themselves into like an Ethereum investment vehicle," he said. "At that point, you turn into the MicroStrategy of that world.”