MicroStrategy CEO Michael Thaler, a huge bitcoin bull, remains confident in bitcoin after the recent crash, comparing the recent cryptocurrency collapse to the early days of the oil and auto industries.
Bitcoin prices have fallen more than 70% from an all-time high of nearly $69,000 in November, leaving MicroStrategy, which holds nearly 130,000 bitcoins, with a paper loss of more than $1 billion. But Mr Thaler insists he will not sell any of his bitcoin holdings.
"We are here for the long term," Mr Thaler said in an interview on Wednesday. Bitcoin will last longer than all of us."
He later added, "We are witnessing the birth of a new industry."
He said thousands of oil and car companies were founded more than 100 years ago, but most of them failed.
"A lot of companies go bankrupt -- 99 percent -- but the rest is history. We have cars, and the oil industry is a huge industry that has changed the future of the world."
Thaler has been a staunch supporter of Bitcoin, propelling MicroStrategy to become one of its largest public holders. Earlier this year, the company borrowed more than $200 million from a crypto lender to buy more bitcoin, bringing its total bitcoin holdings to $6 billion at the time.
But as its bitcoin-related losses have piled up, MicroStrategy's stock has fallen nearly 70% since the start of the year and nearly 16% in the past month, to $170.93 on Wednesday.
Still, Mr Thaler says: "We are here for the long term. It's incorruptible, it's indestructible, it's programmable, and it's going to last forever."