Peter Schiff, the longtime Bitcoin critic and gold advocate, is not done with Michael Saylor. In a fresh pair of posts on X, Schiff accused the Strategy Inc. (NASDAQ: MSTR) executive chairman of quietly walking back his recent admission that the company could sell Bitcoin (BTC) to cover payments on its STRC preferred stock, and once again labelled the entire structure a Ponzi scheme.
In the first post, Schiff wrote that Saylor “walked back his admission that $MSTR may sell Bitcoin to cover $STRC payments by claiming he meant that he would only sell Bitcoin if he were a net buyer at the same time.” He pointed out the obvious problem with that framing: “But to pull that off, he must consistently sell Bitcoin at higher prices than he pays to buy it.”
In the second, Schiff went after how Saylor responded to his Ponzi argument. He wrote that Saylor “dodged my argument that $STRC is a Ponzi by saying, ‘Peter thinks Bitcoin’s a Ponzi scheme. Peter is not really a lover of anything in this space.” Schiff then drew a clear line between his two critiques: “But I’ve called Bitcoin a new variant of decentralized Ponzi. STRC is different: a classic centralized Ponzi run by $MSTR.”
What started this round
This entire exchange kicked off during Strategy’s Q1 2026 earnings call earlier in May, where Saylor made a surprising admission. He told investors that the company “may sell some Bitcoin” if needed to fund the STRC dividend, calling it a way to “inoculate” the market. For a man who once told people to “sell a kidney if you must, but keep the Bitcoin,” the statement caught the entire crypto world off guard.
Schiff jumped on it almost immediately. On May 6, he posted that Saylor’s commitment to sell Bitcoin was “needed to keep the Ponzi going longer,” and predicted that “when the time comes, he’d suspend the dividend and crash $STRC rather than crash Bitcoin.”
Then over the weekend, Saylor tried to walk it back. In an interview, he clarified that what he really meant was that Strategy would “never be a net seller of Bitcoin,” and admitted the original line “just wouldn’t have been so viral or so catchy.” When asked directly about Schiff, Saylor brushed him off: “Peter thinks Bitcoin’s a Ponzi scheme. Peter is not really a lover of anything in this space.”
Today’s posts are Schiff hitting back at exactly that dismissal.
Why Schiff keeps targeting Saylor and Strategy
The Schiff-Saylor feud is one of the longest-running public arguments in crypto and has been going on for years. Schiff, who serves as chairman of SchiffGold and chief economist at Euro Pacific Capital, has built much of his public identity around opposing Bitcoin.
And Saylor, who pivoted Strategy’s entire treasury into BTC back in August 2020 and turned it into the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder, is the biggest target available.
Their exchanges have gone from podcast debates to multi-day X threads, with Schiff comparing Bitcoin to Dutch tulip mania and calling it a “decentralized Ponzi,” and even showing up at the Bitcoin 2025 Conference in Las Vegas last May to deliver “contrarian opinions” on stage.
But the feud hit a new gear after Strategy launched STRC in July 2025. The Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock was designed with a $100 par value and a starting 9% annual dividend that has since climbed to 11.5%, paid monthly in cash. Strategy uses proceeds from STRC issuance to fund continuous Bitcoin purchases through its at-the-market (ATM) program.
Schiff’s core argument has been consistent since STRC launched: the instrument’s 11.5% dividend cannot be sustainably funded by Strategy’s underlying software business, which generates only a fraction of the roughly $80 to $90 million needed in monthly payouts. He has called STRC “the largest Ponzi in the world,” “the most obvious Ponzi,” and has accused the SEC of negligence for letting Saylor promote it.
At a live X Space in April, Schiff spent roughly two hours explaining his case, arguing that “the 11.5% yield on STRC is paid by selling more shares of STRC, and then you get money from new investors to pay old investors.”
Schiff also questioned the logic behind Strategy’s persistent stock premium in a separate post on X. “If Strategy can issue an unlimited amount of STRC at $100 per share, and use the proceeds to buy Bitcoin, why would anyone buy MSTR at a premium to its Bitcoin holdings?” he wrote. “Why pay $454 for $100 worth of Bitcoin when you can buy $100 worth of Bitcoin for $100?”
The post shifted his criticism beyond STRC’s dividend mechanics and toward the broader valuation case for Strategy, arguing that investors are paying far more for indirect Bitcoin exposure than they would by purchasing BTC directly.
Where Strategy stands right now
Meanwhile, Strategy is not slowing down. Earlier today, in a Form 8-K filing, the company disclosed that it purchased another 535 BTC for roughly $43 million at an average price of $80,340 per coin. That brings Strategy’s total holdings to 818,869 BTC, acquired for approximately $61.86 billion at an average cost of $75,540 per coin.
The company has recorded a Bitcoin yield of 9.4% year-to-date in 2026, and STRC continues to trade near its $100 par value with the dividend sitting at 11.5% annualized. Bitcoin itself is currently trading above $81,000, which puts Strategy’s overall BTC stash back into profit territory after several weeks of break-even or paper-loss positioning earlier this spring.
Schiff’s criticism has not dented the buying. But with Saylor now publicly engaging instead of ignoring, and with the structural question of whether Strategy can service its growing preferred-stock dividend obligations through a prolonged Bitcoin downturn still unresolved, this feud is clearly far from over.
Also Read: Michael J Saylor: If We Sell 1 Bitcoin, We’d Buy 10 to 20 More BTC
