Peter Schiff: “Other Assets Would’ve Beaten Bitcoin for MicroStrategy”

Veteran gold advocate Peter Schiff took aim at the flagship Bitcoin (BTC) allocation tactics of MicroStrategy, arguing that over the past five years, the firm’s Bitcoin bet has delivered only modest returns compared with many traditional assets.

In a social post shared on December 29, Schiff wrote about MicroStrategy’s long-term Bitcoin exposure:

Schiff’s comment takes aim at an investment thesis that has become one of the most visible corporate uses of Bitcoin on balance sheets, but his critique is rooted in traditional performance comparisons and skepticism around Bitcoin’s risk-return profile.

What Schiff Is Arguing And Why It Resonates With His View

Schiff has long been a critic of Bitcoin as an investment, particularly compared with traditional assets like gold, equities, or bonds. His point here is essentially about opportunity cost.

Specifically, Schifff references MicroStrategy’s $75,000 average Bitcoin entry price, a figure reflecting the company’s cumulative buy-ins over multiple years. Based on that cost, Schiff calculates a paper gain of roughly 16%, or about 3% annually, a return he suggests is underwhelming relative to historical returns of many other assets.

For critics like Schiff, these kinds of performance summaries highlight Bitcoin’s volatility and timing risk rather than the asset’s long-term growth narrative.

As a reminder, earlier this month he also declared the ‘beginning of the end’ for MicroStrategy, calling CEO Michael Saylor a “biggest con man on Wall Street,” and accusing him of propping up a broken business model through what he called increasingly strained financial maneuvers.

What This Doesn’t Account For And Why Context Matters

There are several important matters to take into account when considering Schiff’s critique. 

Above all, Bitcoin’s price history is highly nonlinear, with strong gains concentrated in some years and sharp drawdowns in others. Calculating a straight average over five years can obscure year-by-year variation.

Secondly, MicroStrategy’s leadership has explicitly framed its Bitcoin accumulation as a treasury and store-of-value strategy, not a short-term trade. That approach values Bitcoin more as an alternative to cash than as a speculative asset to be timed.

Lastly, a straight comparison against all other asset returns over the same period doesn’t account for the different risk profiles, liquidity, or utility of those assets. Gold, equities, and crypto behave very differently in risk-on vs. risk-off environments.

What Analysts Say About Long-Term Bitcoin Allocations

Supporters of corporate Bitcoin allocations often make three main points. The first is the diversification benefit, as Bitcoin may serve as a non-correlated store of value over the long term, even if short-term returns lag some equities.

Then there’s the volatility premium, in which higher long-term expected returns come with higher volatility, making annualized returns look muted over interim windows.

Finally, in inflationary or liquidity-driven environments, digital assets may capture value that traditional alternatives don’t.

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