Two words that marked the first days of Bitcoin 17 years ago were brought to the agenda again at the beginning of 2026. The phrase “Running bitcoin”, shared by Michael Saylor on January 10, 2026, was a direct reference to the first post shared by Hal Finney on January 11, 2009, announcing to the world that Bitcoin was running. The timing was not a coincidence and the message was read as the conscious choice of a name that manages one of the largest Bitcoin treasuries on a global scale. The sharing symbolically reminded us of the new era in which Bitcoin ceased to be a software experiment and settled at the center of the corporate balance sheet.
Two-Word Memory Extending from 2009 to 2026
On January 11, 2009, only a few people were on the network when cryptography pioneer Hal Finney announced that he was running the Bitcoin software on his own computer. At that time, the expression “running bitcoin” meant compiling a software, connecting it to a peer-to-peer network, and putting technical curiosity into practice. It was not possible to talk about a financial claim, a corporate strategy or a trillion-dollar ecosystem.
The intervening years have transformed Bitcoin from an individual software experiment into a global asset class. By 2026, the same statement now represents a stance intertwined with capital markets rather than a technical setup. Bitcoin is being discussed again as a store of value, with spot ETFs approved and entering the agenda of governments and large funds.
Saylor’s post underlined exactly this transformation. Not needing to explain increased the power of the message; history alone made the reference clear enough.
Saylor and Strategy’s Bitcoin-Centric Position
The person who shared the post was Michael Saylor, known for his aggressive approach towards Bitcoin. Strategy, managed by Saylor, the structure transformed from Strategy, holds one of the largest corporate Bitcoin treasuries in the world with 673,783 BTC. It is known that the company collected these assets at an average price of $ 75,024 and reached a value of over $ 61 billion at current prices.
Despite this, the company’s shares are trading at a discount compared to the net value of its Bitcoin holdings. The fact that the underlying net asset value multiple remains below 1 indicates that the market is still cautious. The fact that this gap has not been closed despite more than five years of uninterrupted purchasing strategy is due to the fact that Strategy is perceived as a leveraged Bitcoin representative rather than a classical technology company.
Despite the spread of spot ETFs, Strategy stands out with its structure that has no buyback or redemption mechanism, is not subject to fee pressure, and does not deviate from Bitcoin. The software, which was running on a few people’s computers in 2009, continues to “run” in 2026 through a publicly traded company that holds more than 3 percent of the total supply.
