Bill Barhydt, the CEO of Abra and a Bitcoin pioneer who snapped up coins when they were a mere $5, has unleashed a scathing critique of Michael Saylor’s bizarre scheme to lock away his personal stash of over 17,000 BTC—worth roughly $350 million at today’s prices—into an “unsendable wallet” forever.
Speaking on the Supply Shock podcast with Pete Rizzo, Barhydt didn’t hold back, calling the MicroStrategy founder’s idea utterly nonsensical. Saylor, a vocal Bitcoin evangelist, hinted at this drastic move in a recent CoinDesk interview, sparking a heated debate in the crypto world.
A “Gift” the Community Doesn’t Need
Saylor’s logic is that permanently slashing Bitcoin’s price predictions supply—by locking up his hoard—would boost the value of everyone else’s coins by shrinking the total pool. Barhydt isn’t buying it. “His perspective is that this is a gift to the Bitcoin community because if you lower the denominator and the numerator, it helps everybody else in terms of the purchasing power,” he said. “My take is, the Bitcoin community does not need that gift.”
The Abra chief, who gave the first-ever Bitcoin TED Talk back when the coin was dirt cheap, argues that Saylor’s self-imposed scarcity play misses the mark on what Bitcoin really needs to thrive.
Better Ways to Spend a Fortune
Instead of torching his $350 million pile, Barhydt pitched a slew of smarter alternatives. Why not fund education for low-income communities, kickstart bitcoin banking in emerging markets, or build remittance services powered by the crypto?
These moves, he argued, would grow Bitcoin’s user base and cement its real-world impact. Reflecting on Bitcoin’s early days, when he and other enthusiasts handed out coins to spread the word, Barhydt said the goal was education, not enrichment.
“It was like, no, you need to understand how this decentralized system allows you to move value between two parties without some trusted third party in the middle,” he explained—a stark contrast to Saylor’s “burn it to boost it” mindset.
Saylor’s Satoshi Complex Falls Flat
Barhydt also took aim at Saylor’s apparent attempt to cast himself as a modern-day Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s mysterious creator who vanished after kickstarting the revolution. Saylor’s lockup plan might echo Satoshi’s exit, but Barhydt sees it as a false parallel.
“Saylor is not perceived to be a benevolent dictator of Bitcoin,” he said, dismissing the idea that Saylor needs to stage a grand sacrifice for the network’s sake.
In Barhydt’s view, Saylor’s focus on pumping the value of existing holdings—rather than expanding Bitcoin’s reach—shows a fundamental disconnect from the crypto’s original ethos.
Evaluation Tech 