Saylor Drops a Crypto "Bill of Rights," Banks Told to Hold $BTC or Hold the Door 🚪

Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor has outlined a proposed "bill of digital rights" covering individuals and companies using digital assets, presenting the framework at the Bitcoin Policy Institute's Freedom Tech DC summit. The plan centers on five rights covering the creation, issuance, custody, transfer and use of digital assets under a common ownership model, giving owners a choice between self-custody and third-party custodians without surrendering control. Saylor also backed smoother transfers between wallets and providers, transparency and anti-fraud measures, and the use of digital tokens to lower the cost and complexity of raising capital, setting a goal for 10 million new companies to seek funding under streamlined procedures.

Speaking on bank access, Saylor called for regulated banks to custody Bitcoin and lend against it on "reasonable commercial terms," and urged regulators to separate three activities: holding Bitcoin for a client, lending against it, and taking positions with a bank's own money. He cited the Basel framework's 1,250% risk weight for Group 2b crypto exposures as an example of treatment policymakers should reconsider. Strategy's Bitcoin Banking Adoption Index put major-bank uptake at 32% in July, with Fidelity leading at 71%, and Saylor said broader bank adoption would pull fresh capital into an asset with a limited supply.

Saylor tied the industry's growth potential to artificial intelligence, arguing that AI agents that research, negotiate and transact on behalf of users will need money that moves at software speed around the clock. By contrast, he said today's financial system runs on human identities and human working hours, conditions he described as suited to Bitcoin and other digital assets. Saylor put the industry's potential at $100 trillion while providing no timeline for reaching that level. "The age of Digital Assets and Digital Intelligence needs a bill of digital rights, not a bill of restrictions," he said.

The push follows the Senate's 49-50 vote on September 15 against advancing the CLARITY Act, a market-structure bill Saylor criticized as overly restrictive. He said the best path over the next two years runs through the SEC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Treasury and the White House rather than Congress, with Treasury and banking regulators setting workable paths for Bitcoin custody and credit while lawmakers move to replace CLARITY.