Original title: "McDonald's also want to buy Bitcoin reserves? Shareholder's proposal: Real estate has far less long-term potential than BTC, management has responded

Original author: Joe, BlockTempo

McDonald's will hold a shareholders' meeting next month. The company's shareholder, the National Center for Public Policy Research, recently submitted a proposal to include Bitcoin as a reserve asset in the company's financial report. However, the proposal does not appear to be supported by the company's management.

Conservative think tanks propose: Real estate is inferior to Bitcoin

The shareholder of the global fast food giant, the National Center for Public Policy Research, suggested that McDonald's follow some technology companies to include Bitcoin (BTC) on its balance sheet. In the proposal letter, the center pointed out that while real estate has long been considered to maintain value more than cash and bonds, its value-added potential and liquidity are far less than Bitcoin.

They quoted Harry Sonneborn, former McDonald's Treasurer and President: "McDonald's is actually a real estate company that happens to sell burgers”, further stressing that McDonald’s should consider asset allocations with more growth potential.

The proposal also warned: "More and more companies have included Bitcoin in their balance sheets. If McDonald's does not follow up, they may fall behind in their original leading areas."

McDonald's reserved attitude, SEC approved it not to discuss

However, McDonald's is not keen on this. The company’s legal representative has sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) seeking to confirm whether the SEC will take any enforcement action if it chooses not to discuss the proposal in the upcoming general meeting.

The SEC formally responded at the end of last month, expressing its support for McDonald's' right to exclude the proposal from the shareholders' agenda, noting that "the proposal involves the company's daily business operations and is not a major matter that must be submitted to shareholders for voting."

In other words, the SEC believes that whether to buy Bitcoin falls within the scope of daily business decisions of the company's management, so it does not force the shareholders to vote. This also means that McDonald's shareholders' meeting next month is likely not to discuss the proposal.

Businesses embrace Bitcoin as a trend, but disagreements remain

In fact, it is no longer new for shareholders to hope that companies can buy Bitcoin. Since MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor included Bitcoin into the company's core asset allocation, "Bitcoin Reserve" has become the direction of research for many companies, and has also helped the company's stock price soar.

However, not all companies pay. Take Microsoft as an example. At the shareholders' meeting at the end of last year, some shareholders proposed to invest 1% of the company's total assets in Bitcoin, but were eventually rejected by the board of directors.

As cryptocurrencies continue to move to the mainstream, whether and how companies will incorporate digital assets into their financial strategies in the future will become an issue that cannot be ignored. McDonald's' response attitude and SEC's judgment also provide cases for reference for other companies with similar proposals.