Bitcoin advocate and Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) executive chairman Michael Saylor called the approach “a bad idea” because publishing institutional-grade on-chain proofs of reserves could pose serious security risks.
Michael Saylor: “Proof-of-Reserve Chain Threatens Corporate Security”
“The conventional way of issuing proof of reserves today is actually insecure,” Saylor said at a side event at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas.
“This method undermines the security of the issuer, the custodian, the exchanges and the investors. This is not a good idea, on the contrary, it is a bad idea,” he said.
Saylor declined to directly respond to Blockware Solutions principal analyst Mitchell Askew’s question about whether Strategy would publish its own proof of reserves.
“Publishing Wallet Addresses Puts Company Security at Risk”
Cryptocurrency exchanges and ETF issuers have started publishing proof of reserves to ensure transparency and show that user assets are actually available, especially after the collapse of FTX in 2022. Major players such as Binance, Kraken, OKX, and Bitwise have adopted this method.
However, Saylor argued that this practice offered one-way transparency, emphasizing that it only showed the assets held by the company and not its liabilities, that is, its debts.
Saylor also noted that publishing wallet addresses openly would leave organizations open to cyberattacks, adding, “Ask an AI, ‘How would publishing all wallet addresses compromise company security over time?’ It will give you 50 pages of security risks.”
Strategy is currently the world’s largest institutional Bitcoin holder with 576,230 Bitcoins. The company’s reserves are worth around $62.6 billion. It is followed by mining company MARA Holdings with 48,137 Bitcoins.
Today, more than 110 publicly traded companies around the world hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets. But according to Saylor, not every practice implemented in the name of transparency, especially methods such as onchain proof of reserve, aligns with the basic principles of corporate security.
*This is not investment advice.
