Bitcoin Big News: Dell CEO Joins the Game

Recently, Michael Dell, CEO of Dell, an American technology company known for developing, selling, repairing and supporting computers and related products and services, shared his views on Bitcoin through the social media platform X. The interaction began with a response from Microstrategy founder Michael Saylor.

It can be said that Michael Dell's post about Bitcoin has sparked a heated discussion among cryptocurrency enthusiasts.

Since it was founded by Michael Dell in 1984, the company has grown into one of the world's largest suppliers of personal computers.

On June 21, Dell tweeted that “scarcity creates value,” a phrase often associated with Bitcoin, as its supply is capped at 21 million and demand continues to rise.

His tweet quickly caught the attention of Michael Saylor, a well-known advocate of Bitcoin as a corporate financial asset.

The real kicker, then, is that Dell later shared a meme of Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster, which was either generated by AI or photoshopped to show the blue furry guy munching on Bitcoin instead of his usual chocolate chips.

The image was interpreted as: Let’s face it, who among us hasn’t felt like Cookie Monster when looking at those tempting cryptocurrency gains?

Now, this little move doesn’t mean Dell is about to go all-in on Bitcoin like Saylor (who owns 226,331 Bitcoins worth $15 billion). But it makes people wonder: Is the tech billionaire developing an interest in cryptocurrency? Maybe. Just maybe.

Dell's cooperation with Bitcoin has a long history. As early as July 2014, Dell began to accept Bitcoin as a payment method.

At the time, Dell was one of the largest e-commerce businesses to adopt this strategy. By February 2015, Dell had expanded its Bitcoin payment option to the UK and Canada after a successful pilot in the US. During this time, Dell also ran promotions, including a 10% discount on Alienware products for customers who paid with Bitcoin.

However, things changed in 2017. Despite initial excitement, Dell stopped accepting Bitcoin payments that year. The Bitcoin pilot program was terminated due to lack of demand, leaving the company unable to continue using this payment method.

In the same year, several well-known brands including Steam also stopped accepting Bitcoin due to network congestion and high transaction fees at the time. The following year, in 2018, Expedia stopped directly accepting Bitcoin.

At the same time as the conversation with Saylor, Michael Dell launched a poll on X, asking the question: "What do you think will be the next big breakthrough in technology?" The options offered included quantum computing, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and space technology.

As of 1:09 PM ET, with 19 hours to go, Blockchain leads the poll with 37.6% of the vote (13,406 votes). Considering there is still nearly a day to go, the results could change a lot.

Additionally, according to a recent filing, Dell had $34.6 billion in liquid assets on its balance sheet as of May 3, of which $5.8 billion was in cash and cash equivalents, with no mention of Bitcoin.

Joe Consorti, an analyst at global macro research firm Bitcoin Layer, believes Bitcoin could benefit from companies such as Dell Technologies that are likely to receive extra cash as cost-reducing artificial intelligence technology emerges.

“The outsized returns these companies are accumulating will provide a further cushion for capital deployment during the AI ​​boom, as spending and expansion in computer manufacturing has not been this rapid or intense in decades,” he wrote, adding:

"Dell has $5.83 billion in cash to make that happen."

For businesses, holding even a small portion of Bitcoin on their balance sheet (say 1%) could give them a clear advantage over their competition.

For example, if Dell Technologies allocated 1% of its $5.83 billion cash reserves to Bitcoin, or $58.3 million, that investment could grow to $118.7 million in one year based on Bitcoin's historical annualized return of about 103.5% over the past decade.