Who’s making the smarter crypto treasury bet?

Who is Peter Thiel, and what’s his crypto treasury strategy?

Peter Thiel has quietly established a large footprint in crypto treasuries by backing companies that invest in Ethereum. This approach gives him significant indirect exposure to the cryptocurrency’s growth while staying aligned with his broader venture capital strategy.

Peter Thiel, best known as the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, approaches crypto exposure through an indirect path. Instead of simply buying Ether (ETH) on balance sheets like Saylor does with Bitcoin (BTC), Thiel’s play is to take significant stakes in companies that transform themselves into Ether-treasury vehicles. This method gives him exposure to ETH’s upside while embedding his capital in firms that can rally markets.

Thiel, through his funds, has backed companies like ETHZilla and BitMine Immersion, both of which later became Ether-holding entities.

ETHZilla, formerly Nasdaq-listed 180 Life Sciences, announced a $425-million private investment in private equity deal to build an Ether treasury and won approval to issue another $150 million in debt securities. Electric Capital will manage its onchain yield programs. 

BitMine, meanwhile, has raised hundreds of millions to amass more than 1.52 million ETH worth $6.6 billion, including 373,000 tokens added during Ether’s latest resurgence. By investing in these firms rather than buying Ether directly, Thiel captures both equity upside and crypto-treasury exposure. This is the same asymmetric playbook he used with Facebook and Palantir.

For Thiel, the initial choice of Ether over Bitcoin was strategic. By concentrating on ETH-treasury firms, he positions himself in the ecosystem where new financial infrastructure is being developed. In his view, this gives Ether higher long-term optionality than Bitcoin’s store-of-value model, making ETH-treasury bets more attractive as asymmetric investments.

Did you know? Peter Thiel co-founded Bullish, a cryptocurrency exchange that launched in 2021 and was valued at more than $7 billion at the time. It raised $1.1 billion in its initial public offering and aims to convert much of that into stablecoins, indicating an institutional treasury shift toward crypto-native liquidity systems.

Who is Michael Saylor, and what’s his crypto treasury strategy?

Michael Saylor has become the face of corporate Bitcoin adoption, turning a once-ordinary software company into the world’s biggest BTC treasury vehicle.

Michael Saylor is the executive chairman of Strategy (previously MicroStrategy), a US tech company that shifted its focus in 2020 to become the largest corporate Bitcoin holder. Since then, Saylor has adopted Bitcoin as a reserve asset and hedge against fiat inflation.\

Saylor’s strategy is simple yet bold: use equity and preferred stock offerings and occasional debt to raise capital that is then converted into Bitcoin. 

According to BitcoinTreasuries.net, as of August 2025, Strategy holds approximately 629,000 BTC, which is nearly 64% of all public-company treasury holdings. The company continues to expand its holdings through carefully timed purchases, even during price volatility.

Guided by Saylor, Strategy maintains a steady accumulation policy, financing it through innovative tools such as at-the-market equity sales, perpetual preferred stock and convertible debt. 

To celebrate five years of Bitcoin adoption, the company purchased over 585 BTC for $69 million in August 2025 alone. These steps indicate Saylor’s staunch dedication and capacity to build a company balance sheet around Bitcoin as a structural asset, even when market conditions seem unclear.

Treasury strategic bets compared: Thiel vs. Saylor

At first glance, both Michael Saylor and Peter Thiel are chasing the same endgame: using crypto as a treasury reserve strategy to generate long-term value. Yet their methods and the ecosystems they have chosen could not be more different.

Saylor’s Bitcoin accumulation has become almost mechanical. MicroStrategy raises capital through equity dilution, convertible notes or even perpetual preferred shares before steadily channeling it into Bitcoin.

Despite holding close to 3% of the total supply, the company’s method doesn’t rattle markets. Executives say its reliance on over-the-counter desks keeps slippage low and avoids price shocks. The outcome is a treasury model that feels predictable, transparent and built for decades of steady accumulation.

In contrast, Thiel’s Ether bet is built on a different foundation. He views ETH as programmable capital — sort of a fuel for applications, smart contracts and tokenized markets. 

His strategy involves identifying underpriced or underutilized companies, backing them financially and encouraging them to pivot into Ether treasury models. 

Rather than betting only on ETH’s scarcity, Thiel is tying his exposure to Ether’s role in broader institutional adoption, where tokenized finance and decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure may capture new capital flows.

One interesting implication is liquidity. Saylor’s BTC is locked away on Strategy’s balance sheet, immovable except through future asset sales. Thiel, however, can exit or expand positions by shifting equity stakes in ETH-treasury firms. 

That flexibility makes his exposure more dynamic but also riskier: Company valuations are tied not just to ETH prices but to corporate governance and execution.

In practice, both strategies create ripple effects. Saylor’s relentless buying has normalized the idea of corporations holding Bitcoin as a primary treasury reserve. Thiel’s Ether pivots are now setting a similar precedent on the ETH side, showing that public companies can restructure themselves entirely around crypto holdings. 

Where Saylor demonstrated scale and conviction, Thiel is demonstrating agility and innovation.

Who is making smarter crypto treasury bets?

When comparing Peter Thiel’s and Michael Saylor’s treasury strategies, the contrast is as much about philosophy and execution as it is about sheer numbers.

Both Thiel and Saylor have sizable positions in the crypto market, but they achieve exposure in fundamentally different ways, creating distinct risk‑reward profiles.

Peter Thiel’s strategy in focus

Thiel’s “strategic agility” allows him to capture asymmetric upside without holding ETH directly:

• Capital deployment flexibility: Thiel can deploy large capital quickly into companies showing upside potential post-pivot, benefiting from coordinated token accumulation and stock price rerating.
• VC background: Thiel’s VC background allows him to look for firms with optionality, scalable upside and the potential to compound gains if ETH becomes more embedded in financial rails.
• Indirect exposure benefits: Risks include reliance on management execution, thinner liquidity in some targets and lack of direct control over token reserves. The upside, however, is avoiding direct custody or regulatory exposure to ETH itself.

Michael Saylor’s strategy in focus

Saylor’s approach advantage comes from process and consistency, not from market timing or speculative plays:

• Cost-averaging: Regular purchases smooth out price volatility, creating a long-term accumulation advantage.
• Layered financing: Using equity, preferred shares and convertible debt to sustainably fund new purchases, even when the company’s market-to-net-asset-value premium (mNAV) drops.
• Scale and transparency: The model is highly visible to investors, regulators and the market, signaling confidence and commitment to BTC as a treasury reserve.

Whose crypto treasury bets are smarter? 

Saylor’s strength is in building reserves using market dips and transparent capital frameworks. It is a play for long-term accumulation and balance-sheet strength.

Thiel’s advantage lies in strategic agility: Smaller firms, higher potential return on investment and indirect exposure that may outperform if ETH demand and reserves surge.

For a scalable, transparent, long-term treasury build-out, Saylor’s model is stronger. For higher-beta, venture-style upside riding macro momentum in Ether, Thiel’s approach may yield outsized returns.

Ultimately, the contrast is clear: One strategy is about building an impregnable fortress of reserves, while the other is about riding waves of institutional realignment.