Michael Saylor's Perspective

Saylor argues that publishing on-chain wallet addresses is a dangerous action, similar to revealing "children's address and phone number" in hopes of keeping the family safer. He emphasizes that no enterprise-grade security expert supports this. Once a wallet is public, all future transactions can be tracked, creating opportunities for hackers, competitors, or malicious parties to exploit. According to Chainalysis (2024), 70% of crypto hacks target public wallets, causing losses of 3.7 billion USD. This undermines the ecosystem, especially when organizations like MicroStrategy hold 252,220 BTC (BitcoinTreasuries.NET).

Saylor also criticizes current reserve proof methods, arguing that they only display assets without reflecting liabilities, leading to misunderstandings about financial health. For example, an exchange may announce 10,000 BTC but hide a debt of 1 billion USD, creating an illusion of safety. He emphasizes that reserve proof is only valuable when accompanied by audit reports from the Big 4 firms (Deloitte, PwC, EY, KPMG), ensuring transparency of assets and liabilities.

Security risks when publishing on-chain

Risk management is central to #Saylor 's argument. Publishing on-chain wallets creates vulnerabilities:

Transaction Monitoring: Hackers use tools like Etherscan to analyze cash flow, identifying attack targets.

Targeted Attacks: Large public wallets are vulnerable to phishing or ransomware. In 2024, 1.2 billion USD was lost due to attacks on public wallets (CertiK).

Erosion of Trust: If a wallet is hacked, investors lose faith in the organization, leading to a collapse in token or stock prices.

Legal Risks: Regulations like #MiCA (Europe) require data security, and publishing wallets may violate them.

Saylor suggests that AI could list 50 related risk pages, from doxxing to DDoS attacks. He explains MicroStrategy does not publish on-chain reserve proof to protect 252,220 BTC, valued at approximately 27.5 billion USD.

Risk Management Solutions

Instead of publishing on-chain, Saylor suggests:

Big 4 Audit: Asset and liability reports audited by Deloitte or PwC, ensuring transparency without exposing wallets.

Cold Storage: Store 90% of assets in offline wallets, reducing the risk of hacks.

Multi-layer Security: Use multi-signature (multi-sig) and enterprise-grade encryption.

Indirect Disclosure: Share general figures (e.g., "100,000 BTC in reserves") instead of specific wallet addresses.

Exchanges like Binance use Merkle Tree to prove reserves without disclosing wallets, transparent yet secure. Individual investors should also use cold wallets and avoid sharing private keys.

The information in this article is for reference only and is not investment advice. #anhbacong