MSTY

Michael Saylor has never been accused of bearishness. Now the executive chairman of Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, says the next Bitcoin bull market is not coming. In his view, it is already here.

In interviews on Schwab Network and Bloomberg Television between October 13 and 20, 2026, Saylor argued that Bitcoin had started a new four-year bull cycle. His timing points back to late June, when the asset found what he describes as its bear-market floor. Coming from the man whose company holds roughly 4% of all Bitcoin, the call carries some obvious personal interest.

The centerpiece of Saylor's argument is technical. Bitcoin hit a bear-market low slightly below $60,000 in late June 2026, then rebounded off its 200-week moving average.

For the uninitiated, the 200-week moving average is the average closing price over roughly four years. Think of it as the market's long-term memory, a line many traders treat as the boundary between a bruised market and a broken one.

Since that bounce, Bitcoin has climbed approximately $20,000. In late October it traded in a range of about $77,000 to $83,500.

That move represents a 42% increase from under $65,000 in the third quarter, according to the research compiled on the rally. It also leaves Bitcoin roughly 34% below its all-time high near $126,000, set in October 2025.

Saylor did not rest his case on the chart alone. He credited several structural shifts that he believes are feeding demand:

• Bank lending against Bitcoin, which lets holders borrow against their coins rather than sell them
• Tokenized securities, the growing practice of representing traditional assets on blockchains
• Digital credit issuance, an area where Strategy itself has been active
• A favorable regulatory environment for digital assets

Not every factor points up, though. Restrictive monetary policy remains a headwind, since tighter money tends to drain enthusiasm from risk assets of all stripes.

Saylor attached targets to his optimism. He asserted that Bitcoin could reach $100,000 within the next year.

He also anticipates an annual growth rate of 20-30% over the next two decades.

Context matters here. Strategy holds approximately 845,000 to 848,250 BTC, about 4% of Bitcoin's total supply.

That stack is worth approximately $70-76 billion, and the company also carries $5 billion in cash. When Saylor says Bitcoin is heading higher, he is effectively talking about the single largest line item on his company's balance sheet.

None of that makes him wrong. It does mean readers should treat the call as an argument from an interested party, not a neutral reading of the tape.

The most recent wave peaked in October 2025 near $126,000. What followed was a slide that bottomed slightly below $60,000 in late June 2026, cutting the price roughly in half from peak to trough.

Strategy rode the whole thing with its holdings intact. The company has built its identity on accumulating Bitcoin through good markets and bad, which turns every cycle call from Saylor into something of a referendum on the company's own strategy.

What has changed since earlier cycles is the plumbing around the asset. Saylor's list of tailwinds, from bank lending to tokenization, describes a market increasingly wired into traditional finance rather than sitting off to the side of it.

The first thing to watch is that 200-week moving average. Saylor's thesis leans heavily on Bitcoin having bounced off it, so a decisive break back below that line would undercut the argument at its foundation.

The second factor is the gap between the current price and the prior peak. At roughly 34% below the October 2025 high, Bitcoin has meaningful ground to recover before anyone can call it a full comeback.

Saylor's $100,000 target sits above the late-October range but well short of the old record. Even if his call proves right, it implies a recovery, not a new frontier, within his one-year window.

The third variable is the one Saylor himself flagged as a challenge: monetary policy. Restrictive conditions can weigh on assets that offer no yield, and Bitcoin has shown sensitivity to shifts in the broader rate outlook in the past.

For Strategy shareholders, the stakes are more direct. With roughly 845,000 or more coins on the books, the company's fortunes remain tightly bound to whether Saylor's latest cycle call holds up.