Anders Bylund, The Motley Fool

Wed, Jun 4, 2025, 8:37 AM6 min read

• Shareholder proposals asking Microsoft and Meta to simply assess Bitcoin for their corporate treasuries were rejected by over 99% of voters.

• Both companies' boards opposed the proposals, claiming they already review all cash management options including cryptocurrencies.

• The lopsided votes may still serve a purpose by forcing more financial heavyweights to at least start thinking about Bitcoin as a long-term investment.

• 10 stocks we like better than Bitcoin ›

The Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) whitepaper compared the cryptocurrency to physical gold in 2008. 17 years later, the cryptocurrency seems ready to take on a more gold-like role in the global economy.

But it's not all good news. A couple of tech giants have recently demonstrated that the traditional business world still lags behind in embracing Bitcoin as a long-term general asset. Here's what crypto investors need to know about this development.

The Bitcoin platform has earned some Street cred in recent years.

• Large-scale investors have access to exchange-traded funds (ETFs) based on spot Bitcoin prices. These spot Bitcoin funds have nearly $121 billion of digital assets under management in June 2025. Some of the most significant buys of these ETFs come from old-school financial giants such as Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS).

• Massive companies like Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) and Block (NYSE: XYZ) have converted hundreds of millions of dollars into Bitcoin. Running even further ahead of the crypto trend, Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) is more of a Bitcoin investment vehicle than a software developer nowadays. The company formerly known as Microstrategy has built a $61.7 billion Bitcoin portfolio with mostly borrowed money and shareholder funds.

• The Trump administration included crypto support in its campaign messages, and is indeed taking some industry-friendly steps already. There is now an official Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a smaller Digital Asset Stockpile for other cryptocurrencies. Also, this iteration of the Securities and Exchange Commission looks ready to approve crypto-investing policies that the previous group kept kicking down the road. These political twists have to be good news for Bitcoin owners.

• Bitcoin-based investments used to be pure high-risk ideas, with sky-high beta values indicating massive volatility. That's no longer the case. Last year's ETF introductions and Bitcoin halving event threw some cold water on the cryptocurrency's volatility. Recently, Bitcoin ETFs have explored negative beta values, suggesting that this asset often moves in the opposite direction of the American stock market. That's taking the hedging thesis to a new extreme. Low beta values signify below-average price swings, while negative ones belong to investments that often move in direct opposition to the stock market.