Michael Saylor’s strategy has once again reignited the long-running Bitcoin acquisition debate after Casa founder and CTO Jameson Lopp challenged whether the company knew its holdings were not considered by third parties. Saylor’s clear answer — “We’re buying real bitcoin. We’re not rebranding.” — quickly turned into a broader dispute about what “proof” looks like from a public company that holds BTC assets to institutional custodians.
The exchange came as the narrative of Su’s accumulation accelerated in early 2026. On Jan. 26, Saylor posted that Strategy bought 2,932 BTC for about $264.1 million at an estimated price of around $90,061 per bitcoin. He added that, as of January 25, the company held 712,647 BTC that was acquired for approximately $54.19 billion at an estimated cost of $76,037 per coin.
That revelation prompted comments from Jesse Myers, who credited Strategy’s speed as strengthening the building’s offerings. Myers said the company has mined 40,150 BTC so far in 2026, versus 11,700 BTC mined year to date. “In the end, the price of BTC should rise. It is too high,” he wrote, relying on a simple imbalance: one big buyer takes more than the new issue.
No Paper Bitcoin?
Lopp pushed back on the consistent assumption that all those transactions translate into differently managed UTXOs. “Your thesis makes sense… under the assumption that you are buying real bitcoin,” Lopp wrote. “Does Strategy guarantee that their bitcoin is theirs only and is not retconned? I doubt it.”
Saylor responded with a short, definitive disclaimer: “We buy real bitcoin. We don’t rebrand.” But Lopp widened the gap from the behavior of Strategy to the motivation and enlightenment of consultants. “But how do you know your custodians don’t have it? They probably put your BTC in different addresses that you can monitor,” he wrote. “People are asking for proof of storage as they don’t even know what precautions/guarantees you put in place. Multiple layers of trusted black boxes scare people.”
We buy real bitcoin. We are not reinventing.
– Michael Saylor (@saylor) January 28, 2026
As the thread grows, some users are looking for a strategy to publish addresses. Another account wrote, “Show that. Show us the addresses.” Others argue that transparency cuts both ways. “Have you ever thought that TradFi could be very scared if Su could do this, since it opens up so many attack vectors?”
Defenders rely on the mechanics of public company controls instead of on-chain transparency. Lawyer Jesse Kobernick from Miller Nash LLP argued that the Strategy documents describe the steps taken by auditors to ensure balances and controls, and that many third parties affect the process, including the separation between the purchase of BTC and the sale of shares and the income that supports them. Lopp rejected that consolation. “Trusted third parties are security holes…” he replied.
Bitcoin OG Adam Back, on the other hand, pointed to the traditional custodial practices as a reason to reduce the fear of “paper bitcoin”. “Think about it. Their guardians I think are Fidelity and Coinbase,” Back wrote, adding that major auditors take authentication and key control standards seriously.
Lopp remained unsure whether outside observers could know what, exactly, was being verified. “Do these auditors merge nodes, verify balances on addresses, verify that no clients have claims for the same BTC?” he wrote. “I doubt it, but in the end we don’t know – it’s a black box.”
Later on Jan. 28, Saylor re-sent the message broadly, growing from a rejection to a prescription: “We buy real bitcoin. We test our guardians. We don’t innovate.” He added: “Neither should you.”
At press time, Bitcoin traded at $88,001.
Featured image from YouTube, chart from TradingView.com
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