Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman of Strategy (MicroStrategy), has responded to Peter Schiff after the gold advocate posted data suggesting that Bitcoin (BTC) has underperformed gold, silver, and the stock market over the past five years.
This exchange further reignited the long-running debate between two prominent figures representing opposing viewpoints on Bitcoin and gold.
Schiff's five-year timeframe and why it matters.
Schiff emphasized that Bitcoin has only increased by a mere 12% in the past five years, while the NASDAQ index has risen 57.4%, the S&P 500 59.4%, gold 163%, and silver even 181%.
“If Bitcoin’s strength lies in its superior long-term performance, then why should anyone continue to HODLing it?” Schiff asks .
The five-year period that Schiff referred to begins around April 2021, when BTC was nearing its all-time high of approximately $69,000.
This milestone fully captures the crypto market crash of 2022, as well as the slow recovery period from 2024-2026. At the time of writing, BTC is trading at $66,847.
Bitcoin price movements. Source: BeInCryptoMeanwhile, the price of gold hassurged to over $4,700 per ounce . This represents an increase of over 160% from the April 2021 benchmark of approximately $1,780, consistent with the data cited by Schiff.
This precious metal set a new record high of $5,602 at the end of January 2026, before reversing course and correcting due to the impact of macroeconomic uncertainties related to the Iran conflict and concerns about rising inflation.
Schiff went on to post another article directly targeting Strategy. He stated that MSTR stock had outperformed NASDAQ, rising 68.5% over five years, but argued that this surge was unrelated to BTC's performance.
“MSTR is rising because investors are willing to pay a premium for MSTR so that Michael Saylor can continue to pay a premium for Bitcoin. Sell MSTR before it plummets,” Schiff warned.
Saylor responds to annualized earnings reports.
However, according to Michael Saylor, Schiff's comparison is not entirely accurate. Saylor calculated Bitcoin's performance since August 2020, the time when Strategy officially began its strategy of holding BTC in corporate treasuries.
Based on these figures, Bitcoin proponents say that BTC has grown by an Medium of 36% per year, significantly higher than gold (GLD) at 16%, Nasdaq-100 (QQQ) at 15%, S&P 500 (SPY) at 14%, real estate (VNQ) at 5%, and bonds (BND) at -1%.
Bitcoin Standard era investment performance (annual Medium ). Source: Saylor“The issue lies in the timeframe. From August 2020 to the present, Bitcoin has been the best-performing major asset – far outpacing other investment channels. If we compare over an even longer period, the gap is even larger,” Saylor argued .
Strategy currently owns 762,099 BTC at the time of writing, making it the world's largest Bitcoin holder. The company purchased the coins at an Medium price of approximately $75,699 each, meaning it is currently experiencing a loss compared to the current spot market price.
A familiar match with higher odds.
The war of words between Schiff and Saylor has become a familiar topic in the crypto community. Schiff even criticized Strategy's business model as a "scam" and predicted the company would go bankrupt in the future.
In December 2025, Schiff challenged Saylor to a public debate at the Binance Blockchain Week event in Dubai, but Saylor declined.
However, Schiff and CZ, the founder and former CEO of Binance, recently had a debate on a similar topic – Bitcoin versus gold – highlighting the significant difference between the stability-based perspective of gold and the innovation-driven perspective of crypto.
