In Shareholder Letter, Seetee Founder Makes Bull Case For Bitcoin

In announcing bitcoin-focused company Settee to shareholders of Aker ASA, billionaire Kjell Inge Røkke made a notably bullish case for BTC.

Aker ASA, a Norwegian holding company that is majority owned by billionaire Kjell Inge Røkke, has announced the formation of a new company called Seetee in a letter to shareholders. The company will focus on investing in Bitcoin-focused projects and will hold all liquid assets in bitcoin.

“First, we will use bitcoin as our trea­sury as­set and join the community,” the letter, penned by Røkke, reads. “In Bit­coin speak, we will be hodlers… Sec­ond, See­tee will es­tab­lish min­ing op­er­a­tions that trans­fer strand­ed or in­ter­mit­tent elec­tric­i­ty with­out sta­ble de­mand lo­cal­ly — wind, so­lar, hy­dro pow­er — to eco­nom­ic as­sets that can be used any­where. Bit­coin is, in our eyes, a load-bal­anc­ing eco­nom­ic bat­tery, and bat­ter­ies are es­sen­tial to the en­er­gy tran­si­tion re­quired to reach the tar­gets of the Paris Agreement…Third, we will build and in­vest in projects and companies in Bit­coin’s ecosystem. This is where our true pas­sion is!”

The letter also noted that Seetee will commit to not only holding bitcoin as a reserve asset, but also actively investing in the physical and digital infrastructure being built on top of and around the network.

This news is extremely bullish because, as Røkke himself addresses, the Bitcoin protocol and the underlying value of bitcoin the asset is a function of the utility it provides to its users and stakeholders. With the statements made in the shareholder letter, Seetee announced its intention to be involved in all aspects.

“Not Investing Is The Riskiest Decision”

“Risk is not an ob­vi­ous con­cept. What’s commonly considered risky is frequent­ly not. And vice ver­sa. We are used to think­ing that cash is risk free. But it’s not. It’s implicitly taxed by inflation at a small rate every year… Inflation is very good for debtors. And the U.S. is the world’s largest debtor. They owe the bond own­ers. And they owe pensions. Both groups may be out of luck in the long term.”

In what is becoming an increasingly-accepted view, the shareholder’s letter raised concerns about the fragility and long-term stability of the global fiat monetary system that has been in place since 1971. While bitcoin may still have significant day-to-day volatility, at the base layer, bitcoin is the antithesis of volatility and fragililty, with a hard-capped supply of 21 million paired with perfect supply inelasticity. Røkke also addressed the asymmetric upside offered by bitcoin and involvement in the broader ecosystem.

“…it may be irresponsible not to in­clude some exposure to bitcoin giv­en the asymmetric re­turn properties. Even if you don’t get the under­ly­ing cypher­punk and lib­er­tar­i­an ideals, which I find most in­ter­est­ing, you still need to con­sid­er the po­ten­tial di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion ben­e­fits of bit­coin: ‘Schmuck in­sur­ance’ in the words of So­cial Cap­i­tal’s Chamath Pal­i­hapitiya.”

As the bitcoin market cap grows in size and liquidity, along with the fact that it has been the best performing asset of the last 10, five, three and single years, it is no longer acceptable to hold a 0 percent allocation in a portfolio. In a reinforcing feedback loop, the probability of bitcoin emerging as the dominant global monetary system increases the larger it becomes, and more investors like Røkke are taking notice.

Turning Challenges To Opportunities

“I was skeptical of bit­coin for many years and my ar­gu­ments were more or less con­sis­tent with every­one else’s: the network’s elec­tric­i­ty con­sump­tion is waste­ful, the net­work is not scal­able, its ideals of anonymi­ty play into the hands of crim­i­nals, and so on.”

Røkke went into detail and swiftly addressed why these common arguments made by Bitcoin skeptics are in most cases naive and ill informed. In particular, Røkke’s comments on the utility of Bitcoin mining were especially meaningful, given Aker ASA’s broad endeavors in the energy industry.

“The fi­nanciers of min­ing op­er­a­tions will in­sist on us­ing the cheap­est en­er­gy and so by de­f­i­n­i­tion it will be elec­tric­i­ty that has no bet­ter eco­nom­ic use. Bitcoin then acts like an economic battery. What otherwise was of lit­tle value locally, is turned into an economic as­set that can be used glob­al­ly.”

The letter also addresses the potential of the Lightning Network to empower billions across the global economic system, the possibilities of micropayments with a digital bearer asset and the applications that arise as a result, comparisons to gold as a monetary asset, the power of digital network effects, the “bond fire” coming to debt markets and much more.