Schiff argued that the company’s high-yield preferred shares will never pay out and predicted a “death spiral” once investors catch on. His comments were made as Bitcoin slipped below $99,000. Strategy’s stock also plunged more than 50% since July, and its mNAV struggled to recover from a drop below 1. Meanwhile, gold held firmly above $4,000 and remained near record highs, giving Schiff fresh ammunition to argue that Bitcoin is too volatile to serve as a reliable corporate treasury asset. Schiff Says Strategy Faces a Death Spiral Gold investor Peter Schiff reignited his long-running feud with the crypto industry, this time targeting Strategy (MSTR) and its executive chairman Michael Saylor. In a series of posts on X , Schiff called Strategy’s Bitcoin-heavy business model a “fraud” and publicly challenged Saylor to debate him at Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai this December. The attack came during a period of market weakness for both Bitcoin and crypto-treasury-focused companies, while gold surged back above the $4,000 level. Schiff argued that Strategy’s business model hinges on income-oriented funds purchasing the company’s high-yield preferred shares. According to him, the yields advertised to investors will “never actually be paid,” and once fund managers realize that, they will abandon the asset. Schiff believes this will trigger a “death spiral,” and will prevent Strategy from issuing new debt and ultimately undermine its broader strategy of using capital markets to accumulate more Bitcoin. His criticism is similar to his long-standing belief that the crypto sector overpromises and underdelivers while masking fundamental weaknesses with aggressive marketing. The comments landed at quite a sensitive moment. Bitcoin recently fell below $99,000, extending a decline of more than 20% from the record high close to $125,000 that was reached in early October. The flash crash on Oct. 10 erased tens of billions from the market, and seriously shook investor confidence across crypto-exposed equities. BTC’s price action over the past week (Source: CoinMarketCap ) Strategy has been hit particularly hard, with its stock price down over 50% since July and currently trading near $199. One of the most closely watched indicators for the company, its mNAV — which measures the premium at which shares trade relative to the value of underlying Bitcoin holdings — dropped below 1 in November. Although it has recovered to 1.21, this is still well below the “healthy” level of 2 or higher that many treasury-focused investors prefer to see. Meanwhile, gold strengthened in the face of the crypto market’s drawdown. Prices held above the critical $4,000 support level, and climbed to around $4,085 per ounce after briefly dipping earlier in the month. Gold reached an all-time high of roughly $4,380 per ounce in October, which helped push its total market capitalization above $30 trillion before settling back to current levels. Schiff is a longtime gold advocate, and used the metal’s relative resilience as even more evidence that Bitcoin remains too volatile and speculative to justify its growing role in corporate treasury management.
