Within a week of the Clarity Act stalling in the Senate, Treasury, the SEC and the CFTC had all issued new guidance on digital assets. Michael Saylor, Founder and Executive Chairman of Strategy, told a special DC Fintech Week edition of Bloomberg Crypto that the bill's failure was the better outcome for his industry.
A stalled bill usually reads as a setback. Michael argued the opposite: the bill carried roughly 600 pages of restrictions, and the agencies' guidance arrived without them.
"I think clarity stalling was the best thing that could have happened to our industry." — Michael Saylor
Michael's company has been buying bitcoin since August 2020, and over that stretch he says the coin has compounded about 38% a year while Strategy's MSTR stock has done about 52% to 53%. The same broadcast brought in two law professors on Washington's next fight, over prediction markets, and a Bloomberg reporter's look at Kalshi data showing most recent volume going into longshot bets.
The full episode is covered here so you can skip it. 42 minutes of video, 9 minutes of reading.
Here are the 10 calls that matter.
Bloomberg Crypto · Oct 13, 2026 · 42m · 33m saved
With Michael Saylor, Founder and Executive Chairman of Strategy · Yesha Yadav, Associate Dean of Vanderbilt Law School · Chris Brummer, CEO of The FinTech Foundation and Professor at Georgetown Law
Key Takeaways
The Clarity Act's stall was "the best thing" for crypto, in Michael's view, and Chris Brummer sees a similar silver lining
Bitcoin has climbed back above its long-term average price, which Michael reads as the start of a bull market
Strategy's small bitcoin sale was a way of "inoculating the market" so later sales of thousands of coins would pass quietly
Strategy pitches its STRC credit as better than money-market funds or private credit, with the tax deferred
Most recent Kalshi volume goes to longshot bets, which a Bloomberg reporter called a bad deal once fees are counted
Whether sports contracts are gambling or derivatives may be settled by the Supreme Court
MSCI's possible exclusion of Strategy is "disappointing," though Michael says it is not that important to the company
1. A Bull Market Is Starting
Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec, who anchor Bloomberg Crypto, opened the special edition with an exclusive interview with Michael, who joined from the World Bank.
Michael Saylor says bitcoin has already turned back up
"We think we are the beginning of a bull market." — Michael Saylor
Bitcoin dipped slightly below its 200-week moving average, the average price of the past 200 weeks, and has since climbed to roughly 25% above it. Michael set that against the past year's headwinds of restrictive trade, currency and monetary policy. He now sees tailwinds: friendlier regulation, faster bank adoption, more tokenized securities and growing digital-credit networks.
Asked whether AI is drawing capital away from crypto, Michael argued the reverse. AI will cut the value of many stocks built on labor and talent, he said, and push investors toward scarce assets such as Palm Beach real estate, gold or bitcoin, which he ranked first among commodities. Since Strategy's first purchase in 2020, only Nvidia among the largest tech stocks has beaten those returns, in his account.
