MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor says Western elite haven't had time to study bitcoin

The members of the Western elite are continually prodded for an opinion onBitcoin, and they haven't had the time to study it. Michael Saylor, the co-founder and CEO of MicroStrategy, shared his thoughts onBitcoin and billionaire investor Charlie Munger in an interview with CNBC on Friday afternoon.

Saylor talked about Munger's op-ed, published in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week, in which Munger said cryptocurrencies are not a currency, a commodity or a security. He wrote that it was a gambling contract with a nearly 100% edge for the house.

Saylor said that his criticisms of criptocurrencies aren't totally off, he said on CNBC's Squawk on the Street. There are 10,000 cryptocurrencies that are gambling, and I sympathize with him on that matter. The members of the Western elite are constantly prodded for a opinion on the topic of bitcoin, and they haven't had the time to study it. Saylor said if Munger were a business leader in South America or Africa or Asia and had spent hundreds of hours studying the problem, he would even be more bullish onBitcoin than Saylor himself.

I think the Western elites haven't had the time to study it. I've never met someone with an incentive, living in the rest of the world, and who spent some time thinking about it that wasn't enthusiastic about it. Saylor was asked if he had any thoughts on regulation of cryptocurrencies, especially after the collapse of FTX, which filed for bankruptcy in November 2022. On the day before FTX filed for bankruptcy, Saylor said thatBTCUSD was the least controversial of everything. Saylor said Friday that the meltdown of cryptocurrencies was painful in the short term but necessary in the long term for the industry to grow up. The industry has some good ideas, like digital currencies and assets moving at a speed of light, that are unstoppable, and it has a lot of entrepreneurs that implemented those good ideas in an irresponsible fashion. The industry needs maturation, with firms like Goldman Sachs GS, Morgan Stanley MS, and Blackrock BLK coming in, according to Saylor. He said that it needs clear guidelines from Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission.