Editor’s Note: Michael Saylor, founder of Strategy, the world’s largest Bitcoin treasury company, has published a lengthy article titled “The Path to Prosperity in the Digital Economy,” attempting to answer a more fundamental question against the backdrop of AI rapidly reshaping production methods: Given perspectives on digital rights, corporate financing, digital dollars, adoption of Bitcoin by banks and insurance institutions, securities tokenization, financial privacy, KYC compliance, and AI agent financial infrastructure, does the existing financial system also need to evolve? PANews provides the following translation:
Artificial intelligence will enable individuals and businesses to produce outputs far beyond current levels. This makes it even more important to allow people the freedom to create, finance, own, and exchange assets. A more productive economy requires better money and better capital markets to unlock its full potential.
At the Freedom Tech DC summit hosted by the Bitcoin Policy Institute, I discussed these ideas with Conner Brown. My core policy recommendation is clear: individuals and businesses must have the right to create, issue, custody, transfer, and use digital assets to generate wealth and prosperity.
The digital asset and digital intelligence era requires a Digital Rights Bill, not a restrictive one.
Start by safeguarding the rights of individuals and businesses.
Freedom begins with the ability to act. A useful digital asset framework should establish five fundamental rights.
Create: Develop new digital assets, financial instruments, and applications.
Issue: Launch these assets into the market and use them to finance businesses and productive activities.
Custody: Directly hold assets, or choose a custodian that provides the best service.
Transfer: Move assets between individuals, businesses, wallets, and service providers.
Use: Spend, invest, earn income, and borrow against assets as collateral.
These rights should belong to both individuals and businesses. They must be grounded in financial privacy and practical market access. The value of an asset depends on what its owner can do with it; restricting its usability is equivalent to limiting its economic potential.
Digital tokens, digital currencies, digital capital, and digital securities serve distinct economic functions. Policies should recognize these differences while preserving their common foundations of ownership and freedom.
Clear disclosure, enforceable ownership, and accountability for fraudulent behavior are the foundation of a functioning market. Rules should give honest participants greater confidence to trade, while also leaving room for innovation in products and business models that do not yet exist.
Enable 10 million new businesses to access funding
Digital intelligence will automate jobs, transform industries, and render existing products obsolete. Prosperity will depend on our ability to create new businesses and opportunities at a faster pace.
Someone who can use AI to develop a product should also be able to raise funds for the company bringing that product to market. As the technology for building businesses continues to advance, the cost, complexity, and time required for fundraising should decrease.
Digital tokens offer a faster and lower-cost way to facilitate capital formation. Policymakers should establish clear, practical issuance rules, proportionate disclosure requirements, and straightforward pathways for entrepreneurs to directly reach potential investors. Small business financing should be accessible to those who cannot afford a large team of lawyers.
Our goal should be to enable 10 million new businesses to raise capital. Only then can the productivity gains from digital intelligence be transformed into new jobs, innovative products, and more broadly shared prosperity.
If one side protects existing business models while making it difficult for their successors to secure financing, the economy cannot adequately prepare for technological change.
Let the digital dollar compete
Cryptocurrencies can deliver U.S. dollars to people around the world and enable them to transfer at the speed of light.
If we want the dollar to succeed, we should welcome competition from the best companies to make the dollar more useful. Banks, fintech companies, and technology platforms should all have clear pathways to offer digital dollars. Imagine the scale of reach if dollar-based products were built into the devices and applications already used by billions of people.
Issuers should also be allowed to compete on yield. Customers should be able to choose between different yields, services, and clearly disclosed risks. If yield competition is suppressed to protect institutions that pay little or no interest, such a policy effectively prioritizes the interests of those institutions over those of customers.
My recommendation is to allow this competition. Where laws prevent such competition, those laws should be amended.
The U.S. has an opportunity to further expand the use and reach of the dollar by allowing American companies to build better products around the dollar.
Integrate Bitcoin into the banking and insurance systems
Bitcoin is digital capital. Its utility increases when individuals and businesses can securely hold Bitcoin, efficiently use it for financing, and integrate it into other parts of the economic system.
Banks should be able to custody Bitcoin under clear and commercially viable rules, and offer credit backed by Bitcoin. Insurers should also have viable pathways to incorporate digital capital into their balance sheets and product design. Competition should drive them to improve customer benefits and reduce costs.
This requires reevaluating the accounting, capital, and regulatory rules that unnecessarily complicate the above activities. The Basel Accord’s application of a 1250% risk weight to exposure to Category 2b crypto assets is an example of the excessive strictness of current capital regulations. I believe policymakers should reassess this approach and evaluate digital assets based on their actual risks and the specific business activities involved.
Holding assets on behalf of clients, providing loans based on collateral, and holding an asset on the bank’s own balance sheet are distinct activities that should be differentiated by regulation.
As more institutions compete to serve Bitcoin holders, Bitcoin owners will have more ways to use their capital without selling their assets. Businesses will gain access to financing, financial institutions will acquire new customers, and digital capital will become more productive within the economic system.
I anticipate that bank adoption will become a major driver of growth in this industry. As banks compete to offer custody and lending services, more capital will flow into the market for bitcoin, a core asset with a limited supply.
Enable tokenization to expand owners’ rights
Tokenized securities enable stocks and credit to be accessible 24/7 across markets. Their greatest potential lies in empowering asset owners to do what?
Investors should be able to directly hold tokenized securities, transfer them to their preferred service providers, and use these assets in a competitive custody and credit market. Businesses should also have these rights.
Suppose an investor holds $1 million in stocks. One service provider may offer better financing terms; another may provide yield opportunities; a third may offer superior service. The investor should be able to compare these options and reallocate assets accordingly.
Even if users ultimately choose a custodial service, self-custody remains important. The ability to leave means customers have bargaining power. If assets can be transferred, service providers must compete to retain clients. This competition can improve services, reduce borrowing costs, and allow asset owners to capture more of the economic value generated by their assets.
If securities are merely placed on a blockchain but remain restricted within the same closed system of intermediaries, much of this opportunity’s potential remains unrealized. The policy goal should be to expand the choices available to asset owners.
Protect financial privacy
Financial privacy is part of economic freedom. Individuals should be able to live their lives and businesses should be able to conduct daily operations without unnecessarily disclosing their financial status. Protecting this privacy also means safeguarding personal security, business strategies, and the freedom to choose with whom to conduct business.
My policy preference is clear: for ordinary, legitimate transactions below a meaningful threshold (e.g., $10,000), government reporting requirements should not be triggered solely because funds or digital assets have been transferred. Reporting systems should serve well-defined public purposes, and their burdens should be proportionate to the risks involved. Privacy in everyday commercial activity can coexist with targeted reporting and investigation of suspicious activities.
Current U.S. federal currency transaction reporting rules apply to cash transactions exceeding $10,000, including transactions aggregated under applicable rules. This threshold dates back to 1972. According to a 2024 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the inflation-adjusted equivalent threshold in 2023 was approximately $72,880. If this threshold has remained unchanged for decades, an increasing number of ordinary economic activities are being brought under a system originally designed for much larger transactions.
Policymakers should raise outdated reporting thresholds and index them to inflation. The digital economy also requires clear protections for everyday transfers between individuals, between businesses, and between different accounts or wallets of individuals or businesses themselves. The ability to transfer assets efficiently and privately is part of what gives assets practical value.
Make compliance portable
In the over-the-counter market, the same investor may be required to complete anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) procedures separately for each financial counterparty. Documents are collected repeatedly, identities are verified multiple times, and approvals can take several days. Each new relationship incurs additional costs before any productive activity can begin.
Our goal should be to enable billions of investors to transact with millions of service providers in seconds, at costs nearly negligible. If every new relationship requires manual review, we may end up with the opposite: thousands of investors, dozens of service providers, days of waiting, and enormous costs. These represent two fundamentally different visions for the scale and accessibility of the financial system.
Policymakers should make it practical to “complete identity verification once and reuse trusted credentials across different service providers with customer consent,” while ensuring appropriate updates. Existing banking regulations already permit reliance on another financial institution’s identity verification process in limited circumstances. We should expand this scope of practical reliance, clearly define responsibilities and legal liabilities, and support interoperable credentials that disclose only the information necessary for a single transaction.
Service providers are still responsible for assessing risks and monitoring suspicious activities. However, routine verifications should be reusable, and additional reviews should be conducted based on actual risk levels. Repeatedly collecting the same sensitive documents not only increases costs but also creates more copies of information that require protection.
Lowering the costs of account opening and onboarding makes it easier for investors to compare service providers, enables new businesses to attract customers more easily, and helps firms access capital. When customers can provide only the necessary information without disclosing more than required, privacy and competition can actually reinforce each other.
Make digital currencies truly usable in everyday life
The right to use assets must be practically functional in everyday life. Purchasing dinner or paying for a common service should not require customers to become tax accountants. Under current U.S. tax rules, using digital assets for consumption may require calculating and reporting capital gains or losses. This administrative burden hinders the everyday use of digital assets.
Policymakers should establish a meaningful de minimis exemption for everyday digital asset payments. A purchase threshold of $20 or even $200 is too low for modern commerce—a family dinner can easily exceed $200. Referring to the small amount limit for token payments as financial freedom underestimates the actual conditions citizens need to meaningfully participate in the digital economy.
The specific design is crucial. A threshold based on taxable gains differs from a limit based on purchase amount. The exemption should be sufficient to cover ordinary spending, adjusted for inflation, and simple enough that qualifying payments do not require individual calculation and recordkeeping, thereby eliminating unnecessary administrative burdens.
Tax exemptions and government reporting thresholds address different issues. Both should respect citizens’ time and the economic realities of daily life. An asset that enables instant transfer but requires hours of paperwork has not truly fulfilled the promise of digital currency.
Build a financial system usable by AI agents
We are moving toward an economy where software will take on an increasing number of tasks previously performed by people via phone calls, websites, and in-person meetings. AI agents will increasingly conduct research, negotiate, make purchases, and coordinate with other agents.
This economy requires a financial infrastructure capable of operating continuously. Money and capital must be available at the speed of software—24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
The traditional financial system is built around human identity, human interfaces, and human working hours. As individuals and businesses entrust more activities to AI, they need practical ways for their agents to conduct transactions on their behalf. This requires digital wallets, programmable payments, transferable assets, and financial services accessible directly by software.
Bitcoin and other digital assets are naturally suited to this environment. An agent operating in an internet-based environment requires capital that can be identified and utilized digitally. It cannot move a gold bar at the speed of light, nor can it wait months for a real estate transaction to complete each time it needs to allocate resources.
Digital intelligence will expand the scale of productive activities that can be undertaken. Digital assets can help finance and coordinate these activities. I expect the next wave of significant innovation to emerge at the intersection of the two.
Elevate technological capabilities to a national priority
AI creates both opportunities and risks. Some individuals may use powerful technologies for harmful activities. The response should be to ensure that responsible individuals, businesses, and public institutions have the ability to protect themselves.
If adversaries use AI agents, effective defense may require even more powerful agents. A country that restricts its own technological development cannot assume its opponents will accept the same limitations.
In the domains of air power, space power, and cyber power, we already understand this. National security depends on the ability to develop and deploy advanced technologies.
The United States should put the best tools into the hands of individuals, businesses, schools, and public institutions. We should enable students to use AI for learning and entrepreneurs to use AI for building. The very ability to solve problems more effectively is a sufficient reason to develop a technology’s potential.
Technical leadership requires broad participation. Every person we empower becomes another source of innovation, productivity, and resilience.
Allow regulators to take the lead in areas where they are able to act.
Over the next two years, I believe the most promising path toward greater digital asset freedom will unfold through the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and the White House.
The SEC should make capital formation and tokenized securities more useful and accessible. The CFTC should foster competitive digital commodities and derivatives markets. The U.S. Treasury and banking regulators should establish viable pathways for custody, credit, payments, and the integration of digital capital into financial institutions. The White House should coordinate national direction to support innovation and economic leadership.
Each institution should leverage its legal authority to remove unnecessary barriers and establish clear pathways for new products. Where legislation is needed, Congress should expand the rights of individuals and businesses.
I oppose the path taken by the CLARITY Act because it overemphasizes restrictions. The standard for evaluating any proposal should be what people are able to create, own, transfer, and use once it is implemented.
A long and detailed law that protects existing intermediaries by limiting the utility of new assets may still serve as a poor foundation for a thriving economy. When a law makes productive innovation impossible, certainty itself holds little value.
Build products that enable lasting freedom.
One reason to support comprehensive legislation is that it can protect the industry from future unfriendly governments. This is a reasonable goal. But if a law eliminates most of the industry’s potential from the outset, the cost of this protection is too high.
Another source of lasting freedom is building practical products that people truly rely on.
It is difficult for Washington to protect products that do not yet exist and are not being used by customers. Once millions of people use a product to save money, finance businesses, or improve their lives, its value becomes tangible. These users then possess something concrete worth safeguarding.
The industry should build excellent products, bring them to market, and earn this support. Policymakers should provide it with the space to do so. As the market evolves and real-world challenges become clearer, we can continuously refine the rules.
I believe digital assets can ultimately grow into a $10 trillion industry. Realizing this potential requires millions of individuals and companies to continuously explore better ways of creating and organizing capital.
Grant them the right to create, issue, custody, transfer, and use digital assets. Let competition make these assets more valuable.
This is how we create wealth and prosperity in the intelligent era.