You Won’t Believe Why Coinbase Stared at Saylor’s Bitcoin Obsession and Blinked

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Michael Saylor buying Bitcoin is like that relative at Thanksgiving who piles turkey, stuffing, and Aunt Cheryl’s suspiciously gelatinous green salad all onto one plate, declares themselves a trendsetter, and asks, “Aren’t you going to do it too?” That plate, in this case, is MicroStrategy’s balance sheet, now teetering under the collective weight of all the world’s Bitcoin memes. 📈

One might expect Coinbase, the sober, buttoned-up crypto exchange (imagine a guy wearing Patagonia vests and practical shoes), to copy Saylor’s wild buffet balancing act. Surprise! CEO Brian Armstrong took exactly one look at that plate, shuddered, and asked for the salad dressing on the side. “We made a conscious choice about risk,” he said, as if he’d barely dodged death via overzealous carbohydrate ingestion.

Coinbase Fears a Bitcoin Bellyache

Coinbase apparently flirted with the idea of going full Saylor—80% of the whole business in Bitcoin. There must’ve been a point, late at night, when someone on the finance team poured their 3rd Red Bull and solemnly intoned, “Should we just YOLO the balance sheet?” Armstrong, perhaps haunted by the memory of Pets.com, said no. Nothing says responsible stewardship like not gambling the entire company on a coin whose mascot is a laser-eyed Shiba Inu.

Still, Coinbase isn’t exactly eating salad. They bought $153 million worth of crypto in the first quarter—enough to make you wonder if their wallets have the calories tracked. Today, there’s $1.3 billion rattling around in their digital couch cushions. CFO Alesia Haas wants you to know, that’s not the end of it. “Rest assured, we are not stopping there,” he declared, presumably before converting his paycheck to Dogecoin. 🐶

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Watch From Afar (With Snacks)

Meanwhile, other companies have decided they want Saylor’s all-in Bitcoin glory. Japan’s Metaplanet, known as “Asia’s MicroStrategy” (cute, right?), recently outperformed MicroStrategy itself. Somewhere, Saylor is probably clutching a hardware wallet and muttering about Tokyo drift.

The rush doesn’t stop with Japan. A medley of small-cap firms and miners are leveraging every vehicle—stock, debt, sheer willpower—to buy more Bitcoin, chasing that dream of becoming the Saylor of their own block. Whether that’s wise or just another chapter in “How to Lose Money Fast,” we’ll all find out together when the credits roll.

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2025-05-10 17:50