"Michael Saylor is the next Rockefeller," claims a pro-Bitcoin analyst

Michael Saylor has understood Bitcoin like Rockefeller understood oil

At the end of the 19th century, John D. Rockefeller, an American industrialist and philanthropist best known for founding the Standard Oil Company, understood that oil would not only be used to produce kerosene but would become one of the essential resources for the industrialization of the United States.

More than 100 years later, Michael Saylor defends a similar belief with Bitcoin, which he sees as the future monetary foundation of the digital economy.

This comparison was developed by Fred Krueger, a doctor and analyst, in an article on X titled "Michael Saylor is the next Rockefeller. And that’s not a good thing."

According to him, both men first made an extremely concentrated bet before the rest of the market fully understood the asset they were accumulating. Rockefeller consolidated refineries and oil infrastructures, while Saylor uses various financial instruments from Strategy to buy more and more BTC.

Today, Strategy holds 843,775 BTC as well as a reserve of $3 billion. This management also recalls Rockefeller, who kept significant cash reserves to be able to buy assets when his competitors were going through a crisis.

Rockefeller benefited from the American system before being attacked by the state

Rockefeller's success did not solely rely on his understanding of oil. Standard Oil also grew within an economy whose infrastructures had been largely supported by public authorities.

Starting in 1862, the U.S. government granted land and issued bonds to facilitate the construction of several rail lines. This does not mean that the state directly financed Standard Oil, but Rockefeller benefited from a railway network that became essential for transporting oil.

The size of his company also allowed him to negotiate discounts that his competitors did not have access to. According to the Library of Congress, Standard Oil could promise up to 60 carloads of oil per day to the rail companies, obtaining in return rates low enough to further strengthen its dominance.

This relationship initially favored his expansion. It later contributed to the political rejection of Standard Oil, which controlled about 90% of American refining by the late 1880s. In 1911, the Supreme Court ultimately ordered its separation into 34 companies for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Could Michael Saylor experience a similar trajectory?

Since January 2025, the Trump administration has claimed it wants to support mining, self-custody, and the use of public blockchains in the United States. In March of the same year, the White House also created a strategic reserve of Bitcoin from BTC seized by the federal government.

None of these decisions constitute direct aid to Strategy, but they do create a favorable political environment for the development of Bitcoin and, indirectly, for American companies that are heavily exposed to it.

Strategy remains a publicly traded company, dependent on financial markets and subject to U.S. authorities. Thus, if its reserves became significant enough to be considered a matter of financial stability or sovereignty, the state would have many means to intervene, ranging from new regulatory constraints to forced divestitures, or even seizures as part of a judicial process.

Rockefeller thus benefited from a system that facilitated his expansion before becoming too powerful to be politically tolerated. If Fred Krueger's comparison were to go to its conclusion, Michael Saylor could also benefit from American support for Bitcoin, only to discover that a private actor who has become central around a strategic asset is never long out of reach of the state.

In short, the accumulation of BTC by Strategy poses not only a market risk in the event of hacking, theft, or forced liquidation. It also raises a more political question, as the more a significant portion of Bitcoin concentrates in a regulated, publicly traded American company, the more Washington has a potential leverage point over the economic life of BTC.

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