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Michael Saylor asserted that the inability of Bitcoin to support the most aggressive predictions is less about a long-term broken thesis and more about the restriction of the credit market: a large part of the wealth of Bitcoin still cannot be financed cleanly within the traditional banking system, pushing the owners to the “shadow” areas where recalculation creates effective selling pressure.
In an interview on Feb. 27 and Coin Stories host Nathalie Brunell, Saylor said the market has matured in ways that naturally soften both volatility as output migrates “from offshore to onshore” and expands US markets. But he put a sharp brake on bond prices. Banks, he said, are slow to recognize Bitcoin as a security, and that delay matters when the asset base is large.
Saylor framed the current high-end market as “$2 trillion worth of Bitcoin,” “about $1.8 billion of which is held by retail investors or offshore investors” who “don’t have access to the traditional banking system.” The bottom line, he said, is that Bitcoin owners who want to unlock liquidity face a narrow menu compared to traditional equity portfolios.
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“If I sent $10 million of Apple stock with JP Morgan or Morgan Stanley, I could take out a $5 million SOFR loan and 50 points and use it,” Saylor said. “But you can’t even send $10 million worth of Bitcoin with JP Morgan or Morgan Stanley right now. So, you can’t borrow money. So, you have to go to the shadow banking system. You have to go overseas.”
He said that it forces, forces the owners to behave in a flexible way. The “safest way” to make money is simply to sell, which “reduces the quality.” The next option is to borrow from a small pool of crypto lenders who don’t re-pledge collateral, but Saylor described that market as expensive and shallow—”about a few billion dollars”—at rates he said are closer to “SOFR plus 400” or “plus 500 basis points,” instead of a typical prime-style spread.
He pointed to a new channel, banks extending credit to Bitcoin ETFs such as BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), but described it as primitive, limited, and still expensive compared to conventional guaranteed loans.
The most controversial way, says Saylor, is where the cheapest funding comes from: partners offering low-debt Bitcoin-backed exchanges for control of the collateral. “I’ve had people give me Bitcoin-backed credit at 1% or 0%,” he said, before emphasizing the trade. “There is always something caught […] they want me to transfer Bitcoin to them so they can rename it.”
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Saylor then tied rehypothecation directly to market pressures, arguing that collateral given by brokers could be successfully “sold” multiple times through rehypothecation. “So, if you have $10 million […] you can get a 3 or 4% loan, but then it gets refinanced,” he said. […] You could actually create $30 or $40 million in sales because of the Bitcoin that you sent […] he repeated it three times.”
Michael Saylor: Shadow bank “rehypothecation” suppresses Bitcoin price
On February 27, 2026, in an interview with Natalie Brunell, Michael Saylor discussed why Bitcoin failed to surpass $126,000.
He suggested that the issuance of Bitcoin to traditional banks like JP… pic.twitter.com/ODpOEvhi2j
– Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) March 4, 2026
In his view, the missing piece is a large, regulated, non-renewable Bitcoin credit system—one that looks a lot like traditional securities financing. “What’s slowing down the price? I think what’s driving down asset prices is the lack of a fully functioning credit system,” he said, adding that rehypothecation “slows down volume” and can increase movement on both sides with profitable placements.
Saylor’s priority was timing, not a thesis: if banks take “four years, 5 years, 6” to “bank” in the full sense, then the supply of Bitcoin’s price will continue to be shaped by the operation of credit in the shadow that can generate artificial supply. If and when conventional debt matures alongside Bitcoin collateral without a strong recovery, he suggested, the market may rely less on forced sales and more on conventional secured lending, which could turn the cap on upward cycles.
At press time, Bitcoin traded at $72,236.
The featured image was created with DALL.E, a chart from TradingView.com
