Michael Saylor, the founder of Strategy (previously known as MicroStrategy), identifies ambitious developers as Bitcoin’s most significant threat. While he has hinted at this idea in extended interviews before, he made his stance unmistakably clear by posting it on his social media accounts yesterday.
According to Saylor, developers hold the potential to introduce unforeseen vulnerabilities by prioritizing new features over essential cybersecurity measures.
“Protect the network; don't tamper with it,” Saylor emphasized back in September. “Many protocol modifications can actually destabilize the entire system.”
On September 16th, he reaffirmed this viewpoint: “The biggest danger lies with a highly skilled, well-funded developer who means well but attempts changes that could harm Bitcoin. That is fundamentally where the risk comes from — a competent and resourceful developer aiming to upgrade the protocol.”
Bitcoin: Born from Ambition
Bitcoin embodies numerous concepts — it functions as a decentralized ledger, payment infrastructure, open-source software project, communication channel, timestamping service, cryptographic framework, digital asset storehouse and even an energy and computation marketplace — all built upon decades of driven innovators dating back to the mid-20th century.
Satoshi Nakamoto’s ambition was evident when they introduced Bitcoin as a direct response against government bailouts of banks.
The original whitepaper repeatedly criticizes how “the fate of money depends on those controlling its issuance,” explicitly citing bank rescues as motivation for creating Bitcoin.
Beyond years of contributions from passionate cryptographers worldwide since its 2009 launch on mainnet, thousands more dedicated developers have continuously enhanced Bitcoin itself.
For instance, users today can safeguard their private keys using easy-to-remember dictionary words instead of complex 64-character hexadecimal strings.
Additionally, a single seed phrase now generates multiple key pairs, if desired users can spend funds via multi-signature wallets offering privacy comparable to single-signature ones.
All these once bold innovations are now universally accepted improvements that predate Saylor’s entry into bitcoin investment when he began acquiring BTC for Strategy in August 2020.
However, since turning his focus toward bitcoin development activities recently,Saylor appears dissatisfied with current progress.
Read more: Michael Saylor is running out of ways to boost Strategy’s BTC per share
The Most Pressing Threat According To Saylor
If given free rein,Saylor would prefer developers concentrate solely on defending rather than upgrading or altering Bitcoin’s core network functionality.
The responses sparked by his comments vary widely—some show strong agreement while others express sharp criticism. ”
Samson Mow,Jesse Myers,Cøbra ,Alex Bergeron,and over one thousand others shared or retweeted what he said.
The crucial term here is “<strong>greatest</strong>”. Everyone acknowledges there exists some risk related to unintended bugs or cascading effects caused during protocol upgrades.But whether such risks represent indeed “<strong>the greatest</strong>”’s threat remains debatable.
Taking Jameson Lopp’s perspective highlights disagreement:“
The biggest danger facing bitcoin isn’t upgrades but increasing centralization around key ownership,” Lopp argued while criticizingSaylor’s reliance on custodians like Coinbase.
”
You suggested freezing lost coins,” Pledditor reminded him afterSaylor proposed an ambitious upgrade intendedto freezeSatoshi Nakamoto’s bitcoinsas protection against quantum computing threats.