Microsoft asks shareholders to vote against an assessment of investing in Bitcoin in SEC filing

Microsoft suggests shareholders vote against a proposal to conduct an assessment of Bitcoin as an investment asset, due to the company already considering Bitcoin as an investment option.

In an Oct. 24 U.S Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the item “Assessment of Investing in Bitcoin” is listed as one of the proposals that Microsoft shareholders will be voting for or against in a Dec. 10 annual meeting. However, the Microsoft board suggests that they vote against it.

The reasoning behind it is Microsoft claims that an assessment of Bitcoin(BTC) would be unnecessary due to the fact that the company has “already carefully considers this topic.”

“Past evaluations have included Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies among the options considered, and Microsoft continues to monitor trends and developments related to cryptocurrencies to inform future decision making,” the board wrote in response to the proposal.

The proposal was lodged by the independent think tank National Center for Public Policy Research. The supporting statement refers to MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin investment strategy and how the technology firm’s stock has outperformed Microsoft by over 300% this year “despite doing a fraction of the business” that Microsoft has done.

They also pointed out that more and more companies are adopting Bitcoin as instruments of investment. Meanwhile Microsoft’s second largest shareholder, BlackRock, started offering Bitcoin exchange-traded funds earlier this year.

“Bitcoin is an excellent, if not the best, hedge against inflation and corporate bond yields are less than the true inflation rate, companies should also not risk shareholder value by ignoring Bitcoin altogether,” stated the NCPPR.

In addition, they said that at the very least, institutions like Microsoft should consider the “benefits of holding some, even just 1%” of their assets in the form of BTC.

Although it is still unknown whether Microsoft plans to invest in Bitcoin in the near future, the software giant does offer Bitcoin as a payment option for its online Xbox store between 2014 and 2018.

In Sept. 2023, a leaked document obtained by Axios seemingly revealed that Microsoft plans to add crypto wallets to its next Xbox console in 2028. Though this is still subject to change, due to the document being dated May 2022 while the new update is still in a few more years.