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Meta Investors Overwhelmingly Nix Bitcoin Treasury Proposal
- Meta shareholders overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to explore adding Bitcoin to the company’s balance sheet, with over 5 billion votes against and just 0.08% in favour.
- The proposal was submitted by Bitcoin advocate Ethan Peck. He argued that BTC could hedge against inflation and provide other benefits to the company.
- But not even CEO Mark Zuckerberg is buying it. Meta now joins a trend of major tech firms, including Microsoft and Amazon, refusing Bitcoin treasury strategies, unlike institutional investors and companies like GameStop, Strategy, and Metaplanet.
Meta shareholders have crushed a proposal to explore adding Bitcoin to the company’s balance sheet, delivering a near-unanimous rejection in the company’s latest proxy vote.
And by near-unanimous, I mean over 5 billion votes against and 4 million in favour, according to the SEC filing. That’s just 0.08%. What’s funnier is that the firm’s CEO, obviously none other than Mark Zuckerberg, also voted no.
This proposal is pretty much what you’d expect. Submitted in January by Bitcoin advocate Ethan Peck, it called on Meta to ponder whether holding Bitcoin could improve its treasury strategy, with Peck arguing that BTC would protect against inflation. He also criticised Meta’s US$72B (AU$111.2B) cash position as a “consistently diminishing” asset base.
Since cash is consistently being debased and bond yields are lower than the true inflation rate, 28% of Meta’s total assets are consistently diminishing shareholder value.
Ethan Peck, Investor and representative of the National Center for Public Policy Research Time to Take Next Steps, Says CEO
Strive Asset Management CEO Matt Cole backed the pitch and even brought it to the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas, urging Meta to take inspiration from its mascot. “You’ve already taken step one—you named your goat Bitcoin,” Cole said in a live streamed address to Mark Zuckerberg. “Now it’s time to take step two.”
Peck has previously tried to get Microsoft and Amazon to consider similar Bitcoin treasury strategies. Both said no.
Strategy’s Michael Saylor also tried to convince Microsoft, stating that the tech giant “couldn’t afford to miss the next technology wave, and Bitcoin is that wave”… and again, shareholders said no.
Talking about Saylor, his aggressive push towards Bitcoin as part of its corporate mission has inspired a new cohort of public company imitators, like GameStop and Metaplanet among them, each announcing plans to hold over billions of dollars worth of BTC.
Strategy currently holds over 580k BTC, worth around AU$97B.
Related: Bitcoin Hits $111k, Sets New All-Time High, But Analysts Say It Ain’t Done Yet
Author
José Oramas
José is a journalist and translator with a keen interest in blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
