Did Michael Saylor pay Bitcoin developers to stop working?

Ten31 managing partner Matt Odell claimed this week that he’d figured out Michael Saylor’s true beliefs about Bitcoin development, specifically that, if asked, “He would encourage you to not support open source developers,” that he has “actively killed deals to support developers,” and that “he is proud of it.”

Odell’s opinion, which he shared on Nostr, is notable because he’s a fundraiser and board member at OpenSats, one of the largest donors to open-source Bitcoin development.

Odell continued to rant against Saylor. “One of the big ETFs was going to donate to open-source developers. Saylor told them if they did it, he would crush them, so they pulled out of the commitment.”

Odell’s rant against Michael Saylor was all in capitals. He meant business.

The conversation between Michael Saylor and $ARK

Jack Dorsey and Samson Mow later clarified that Odell’s unnamed ETF sponsor was Cathie Woods’ $ARK Invest, specifically regarding its 21Shares spot bitcoin ETF.

Odell presumed that Saylor’s 214,246 bitcoin treasury at MicroStrategy, which could be used to develop or capitalize competing ETFs, provided credibility to his alleged threat to “crush them.”

The insinuation was obvious to Odell’s Bitcoiner audience on Nostr: that Saylor wants Bitcoin to ossify and doesn’t want active development on risky software upgrades that threaten Saylor’s thesis of bitcoin as digital gold. The narrative fits the anti-statist ethos of Bitcoin which has rebelled against corporate capture for years.

Odell and many Bitcoiners fear that Saylor, the billionaire CEO of a NASDAQ-listed bitcoin holding company, will use his wealth to stymie innovation and development whenever it threatens bitcoin’s identity as digital gold.

Read more: Cathie Wood’s $ARK joined the Bitcoin ETF race — but does it matter?

According to Samson Mow, however, Odell mischaracterized what actually transpired. In reality, he said, Saylor simply expressed his opinions about funding open-source development in relation to the bitcoin ETF, not about funding Bitcoin developers generally.

Mow also didn’t view Saylor’s tone as in any way a threat to ‘crush’ competing donors. Neither did Saylor encourage corporate or statist capture of Bitcoin development during that conversation, according to Mow. In the end, the interaction had little to do with Saylor’s support of Bitcoin development whatsoever.

Mow concluded, “If $ARK Invest decided to fund or not fund development based on Saylor’s opinion, that really has nothing to do with Saylor and everything to do with $ARK. Saylor can’t really stop them from doing anything. Let’s move onto the next drama.”

In the end, it seems that despite the knee-jerk overreaction of many Bitcoiners, Michael Saylor never offered to pay Bitcoin developers to stop working. He had a private conversation with a group of people at $ARK Invest and elsewhere, and then Odell became upset. Saylor hasn’t commented on the misunderstanding on X or Nostr.