Michael Saylor won’t publish Strategy’s proof of reserves: “It’s a bad idea”
A flagship corporate Bitcoin holder, Strategy, has never disclosed its Bitcoin addresses, which has led many people to wonder if the company actually owns the amount it claims to hold. On May 26, 2025, Strategy Chairman Michael Saylor explained why the company would not disclose its addresses.
As of May 27, after the latest $427 million purchase, Strategy claims to hold 580,250 bitcoins. On several occasions, Michael Saylor suggested that Strategy would not sell any of its bitcoins. The lack of full disclosure of Strategyâs addresses raises doubts among skeptics about whether the company fully adheres to Saylorâs words and holds the exact amount it claims to own. Some of them repeatedly demanded that Saylor show the addresses, but he never did. Finally, he took eight minutes to explain why Strategy wouldnât do that.
Arenât Strategyâs addresses already well-known?
Arkham Intelligence reported in January 2025 that it had identified 96% of Strategyâs Bitcoin addresses and published them. The company didnât confirm if these addresses actually belong to it.
Approximately 4% of the BTC funds in Strategy are not located at any of these addresses. Given the BTC price, this tiny particle is a multi-billion-dollar loophole that raises concerns among strategy skeptics who want Strategy to make a full disclosure of addresses.
Read more:Will Michael Saylor pull the rug?
How does Saylor explain the reluctance to show Strategyâs addresses?
In a speech published on X on May 27, Saylor admits that Mt. Gox and FTX were the hard lessons, but he believes that âthe current conventional way to publish proof of reserves is an insecure proof of reserves.â According to Saylor, disclosure of public addresses simultaneously jeopardizes several groups of stakeholders: the issuer, the custodians, the exchanges, and the investors.Â
âItâs like publishing the address and the bank accounts of all your kids and [the] phone numbers of all your kids and then thinking somehow that makes your family better.âÂ
While Strategyâs holdings, oneâs kids are not subjected to investments by third parties, Saylor continued to elaborate on why he sees publishing proof of reserves as not secure. Itâs safe to say that in his speech, Saylor distanced Strategy from Bitcoin purists, emphasizing that Strategy is a publicly traded company and its investors are institutional investors while the demand to reveal the wallets is rather something dictated by a Bitcoin maximalist logic.
The Strategy chair says that in contrast to proof of liabilities, safe proof of reserves is simply impossible. He recommended all the Bitcoin maxis to hold bitcoins in self-custody instead of relying on Strategy. For securities investors, he says, itâs safer to rely on proof of assets and proof of liabilities, and âthe best practice is not to publish the wallet.â It is the responsibility of the Big Four auditors to ensure the solvency and soundness of the company. The data should be confirmed on multiple levels, including by the custodians and the exchanges. In the case of Strategy, the audits are conducted by KPMG LLP, a Big Four audit company. Furthermore, he emphasized that as an American company, Strategy cannot lie about its finances, as its personnel would face jail time due to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which protects investors from inaccurate disclosures and statements.
Saylor added that in the future, he may implement zero-knowledge proof of reserves that would not reveal the wallet addresses publicly. However, this possibility wonât free Strategy from confirming all the data independently by the involved parties and Big Four auditors.Â
According to Saylor, the lesson learned from the failures of FTX and Mt. Gox was not that the missing proof of reserves is bad, but rather not to do business with âshaky offshore exchanges run by juvenile tweakers.âÂ
Saylor finished his speech by saying that the wallets, once they are published, are âthe intact vector for hackers, nation-state actors, every type of troll imaginable. It creates so much liability that you should think twice before you do it.â However, Saylor admitted that there is nothing wrong with publishing addresses at a small level.Â
It is unclear whether Bitwise, whose BTC addresses are disclosed, is on a small scale, according to Saylorâs opinion. Somehow, Bitwise manages to maintain transparency and safety simultaneously. However, there is no other such big company holding bitcoins. In this regard, Bitwise is the only corporation to do so, and others donât follow in its footsteps.Â
Public reaction
Some found Saylorâs speech convincing, while others saw it as just a baseless excuse to hide the shady operations.Â
Seemingly responding to Saylorâs speech, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao jokingly tweeted, âhe probably sold bitcoins.â
CZ is too scared to tag the @, but we all know he's subtweeting @saylor https://t.co/s98EFov6tBâ Pledditor (@Pledditor) May 27, 2025
The skeptics believe that Bitcoin wallets are unhackable. Therefore, Saylor has no good excuse for not publishing proof of reserves. People who defend the Strategy chairâs stance claim that, as the disclosure involves several parties, there is a risk of key leaks at some level, so disclosing the wallets is not secure.Â
Itâs the same process that all of the Coinbase info leaks follow:1) identify owner of address2) dust attack and track address movements3) correlate address to individuals4) social engineering attack and/or wrench attackNobody whoâs lost coin to theft actually had Bitcoinâ¦â William Graham (@williamgrahamiv) May 27, 2025
If hackers associate the addresses of Strategy with certain institutions, they may use social engineering or other sophisticated tactics to obtain private keys.
Trust in Strategy continues to an extent to which we can trust public companies. As Saylor puts it, if you like to have full control over addresses, it is vital to hold bitcoins yourself. Why trust a public company?
You might also like:Bitwise is still the only company that disclosed its BTC addresses. Why donât others follow?
2025-05-28 00:00:38
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