“It works for any company,” Saylor said in the retail conference’s keynote speech. “We’re the people building with steel and they’re building with wood.”

At least in the short-term, it can look good, too. Tesla, one of the few non-crypto-focused companies to hold bitcoin on its balance sheet, showed the positive side of this in its most recent quarter when it marked a $600 million profit due to the appreciation of bitcoin. The Financial Accounting Standards Board adopted a new rule for 2025 that mandates that corporate digital asset holdings be marked to market each quarter. 

But so far, the message and broader movement has not spread much wider than the crypto industry. Just 0.55% of votes at Microsoft’s annual meeting supported the plan. Microsoft, as well as proxy advisors Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services, had all suggested shareholders reject the proposal ahead of the vote.

Microsoft said in an October proxy filing that its treasury and investment services team previously evaluated bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to fund the company’s operations and reduce economic risk, adding that it “continues to monitor trends and developments related to cryptocurrencies to inform future decision making.”

At Microsoft’s annual meeting, CFO Amy Hood said: “it’s important to remember our criteria and our goals of our balance sheet and for the cash balances, importantly, is to preserve capital, to allow a lot of liquidity to be able to fund our operations and partnerships and investments .. liquidity is also a really important criteria for us, as well as generating income.”

Bitcoin-backing shareholders aren't going away

The lack of adoption so far isn’t discouraging proponents of companies holding bitcoin on the balance sheet. Ethan Peck, the deputy director of the Free Enterprise Project, which is part of conservative think tank National Center for Public Policy Research, filed the shareholder proposal at Microsoft and said he plans to file similar proposals during the upcoming proxy season at other large companies. In all, it has been recently estimated that the S&P 500 universe of companies collectively holds over $3.5 trillion on balance sheets, though the figure changes quarter-to-quarter.

While Peck said he is not advocating for companies to take as aggressive of a stance as Strategy has, “Companies should consider holding a couple percent of bitcoin in order to negate or offset the base of your cash holdings because you’re losing your shareholders’ money.”

“The bond yields are not outpacing real inflation, so you’re losing money,” Peck said.

The performance of bitcoin over the past five years. Bitcoin has vastly outperformed cash equivalents, though with much greater volatility.