Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) CEO Phong Le Makes the Case for Bitcoin as a Core Component of Modern Corporate Treasury Strategy

At a recent keynote delivered at the MIT Bitcoin Expo, Phong Le, CEO of Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR), made a bold case for Bitcoin as a core component of modern corporate treasury strategy.

At the MIT Bitcoin Expo, Phong Le, CEO of Strategy (NASDAQ:MSTR), made a compelling case for Bitcoin as a core component of modern corporate treasury strategy.

With over 528,000 BTC held in its reserves, Strategy has become the most visible—and arguably the most successful—public company to adopt Bitcoin as a primary reserve asset.

“We outperformed the entire Nasdaq, the entire S&P 500, the entire Mag Seven… and we outperformed Bitcoin,” Le said, highlighting Strategy’s performance in a challenging market.

While Strategy Chairman Michael Saylor laid the philosophical foundation for Bitcoin’s corporate use case starting in 2020, Le’s keynote drove home the executional and financial results. Part challenge and part case study, the talk urged corporate leaders to question everything from their education to their financial assumptions—and to reimagine their balance sheet in the Bitcoin era.

Corporations Aren’t Performing—And Bitcoin Offers a Way Out

On Day 1 of the MIT Bitcoin Expo, Le opened with a stark assessment of corporate America’s performance problem. Of the 35 million companies in the U.S., only the top tier—primarily S&P 500 firms—are consistently meeting market expectations. The rest are lagging behind.

“Almost every other company is not performing,” Le said bluntly.

He traced this inefficiency to deeply entrenched financial orthodoxy. Elite MBA programs, top-tier consultancies, and Wall Street firms continue to teach the same playbook: optimize the income statement, reinvest in traditional assets, and stick to quarterly thinking. The result is a system that’s designed for incremental gains—and often delivers minimal returns.

As Le pointed out, even private equity, venture capital, and hedge funds rarely beat the S&P 500 benchmark.

But according to Le, it’s not a lack of talent that’s holding companies back—it’s a lack of imagination.

Strategy’s Bitcoin Playbook: From Cash Drag to Digital Capital

What set Strategy apart, Le argued, was its decision to treat the balance sheet not as a passive liability but as a strategic asset.

While most companies typically park cash in low-yielding government bonds or commodities like gold, Strategy chose Bitcoin.

“If you’re a company, why wouldn’t you do the same thing? Make money off of your balance sheet. It stands to reason.”

Le highlighted the fact that Bitcoin offers not just return potential but also structural advantages: it trades 24/7, it isn’t subject to central bank policy, and it provides corporations with instant global liquidity.

In contrast, traditional capital markets operate “252 days a year, 6.5 hours a day—19% of the time.”

Strategy has embraced this fully, updating its Bitcoin reserves in real time.

“We show our results daily. In fact, we update them every fifteen seconds on our website,” Le said, signaling that Strategy is playing by a different—and faster—set of rules.

This also closes the gap on a major challenge for corporations adopting Bitcoin: the mismatch between traditional accounting rules and a 24/7 asset class.

Current standards are built for quarterly earnings and slow-moving financial instruments—not real-time, globally traded digital assets. As Phong Le put it: “Accounting policies update every five years, quinquennially. Accounting policies don’t work for Bitcoin.”

Under GAAP, Bitcoin is treated as an intangible asset—marked down when prices fall but not adjusted upward when they rise—creating a distorted view of financial health.

To close that gap, Strategy has adopted a more transparent approach.

“We show our results daily. In fact, we update them every fifteen seconds on our website,” Le said. This real-time reporting reflects the always-on nature of Bitcoin and signals to the market that Strategy is playing by a different—and faster—set of rules.

Rather than wait for institutions to catch up, Strategy is setting the standard for how the performance of Bitcoin treasury companies should be measured.

Why MSTR Stock Became the Most Watched in the U.S. Market

Since adopting its Bitcoin treasury strategy, MSTR stock has become “the most performant, the most volatile, the highest volume, and most interesting stock in the United States,” according to Le.

Its performance has consistently outpaced traditional benchmarks—not just because Bitcoin appreciated but because Strategy leaned into its identity as a Bitcoin-native public company.

And it’s not alone. Le highlighted the growing list of companies replicating the model: Metaplanet, Semler Scientific, and KULR Technology Group, all of which outperformed the S&P 500 and Bitcoin after adopting similar treasury strategies.

“This is a replicable strategy,” Le said. “Everyone else should be doing this.”

Breaking the Mold: A Corporate Call to Courage

As