Breaking news hit my screen at 2:07 a.m. Tokyo time, just as most traders in Shibuya were calling it a night. Metaplanet—yes, that tiny Japanese outfit that used to run budget hotels—quietly scooped up another 1,005 BTC, pushing its war chest to 13,350 BTC. In one stroke, they leap-frogged better-known miners like Riot and Hut 8 and crashed the party of the global top-five public holders.
Here's What Actually Happened
The filing dropped on EDINET (Japan’s equivalent of EDGAR) around midnight. Buried in the footnotes was a simple line in Japanese: 「ビットコインを1,005 BTC追加取得」—“acquired an additional 1,005 BTC.” No flashy press release, no Saylor-style laser-eyes emoji. Just a terse update and a line about how the buy was financed with a ¥16.8 billion (roughly $106 million) zero-coupon bond maturing in 2029.
I’ll be honest, a zero-coupon yen bond in 2024 raised my eyebrows. The Bank of Japan finally ditched negative rates back in March, so free money isn’t supposed to exist anymore—yet here’s Metaplanet paying literally 0% interest for five years. Who in their right mind bought that paper? I pinged two fixed-income friends at Nomura. One of them, half-joking, replied, “Probably some family office that wants the BTC exposure without touching a wallet.” I can’t confirm that, but it doesn’t sound insane.
MicroStrategy’s Shadow Looms Large
Metaplanet’s CEO, Takahiro Nakajima, hasn’t been shy about his admiration for Michael Saylor. In April, he even tweeted a photo of himself holding Saylor’s book, The Bitcoin Standard Playbook, with the caption, “We’re just getting started.” That same month, Metaplanet announced a moon-shot target of 210,000 BTC by 2027. Yes, you read that right—essentially MicroStrategy-size but three years faster. Do the math: at today’s price of roughly $63,000 per coin, that’s a $13.2 billion stack. Their current market cap? About $1.1 billion.
I’m not entirely sure how they plan to bridge that gap without annihilating shareholders or racking up dangerous leverage. But here we are—13,350 down, 196,650 to go.
How the Rankings Shake Out Now
Depending on whose spreadsheet you trust—CoinGecko, BitcoinTreasuries.net, or one of those Twitter anon trackers—the public-company leaderboard now looks something like:
- MicroStrategy: ~214,400 BTC
- Marathon Digital: ~17,631 BTC
- Coinbase (on-balance-sheet): ~15,000 BTC
- Metaplanet: 13,350 BTC
- Tesla: 10,725 BTC (assuming they haven’t fiddled quietly again)
That’s right. A Japanese mid-cap that most Western investors can’t spell now outranks Elon Musk’s Tesla in raw coins held. Wild times.
Wait—Who Even Is Metaplanet?
If you’ve never heard of ticker 3350.T, don’t feel bad. Until last year, it was best known as Red Planet Hotels, operating cheap rooms across Southeast Asia. Covid wrecked that model, and post-pandemic, they started pivoting toward “digital asset treasury management.” The rebrand to Metaplanet felt like a Hail Mary—think Block.one meets Travelodge.
The board’s key player is Simon Gerard, a Kiwi entrepreneur who sits on half a dozen SPVs in Singapore. Sources tell me he’s the one whispering “become Asia’s MicroStrategy” in Nakajima’s ear. They also added Yohei Takaoka, formerly of GMO Internet, to oversee mining partnerships. GMO, remember, ran one of the earliest regulated Japanese exchanges and has inside tracks with the Financial Services Agency (FSA). Connecting dots here: if you want regulatory blessings for giant BTC buys in Japan, hiring an ex-GMO guy is basically rubbing the Buddha’s belly.
I Can’t Shake This One Nagging Question
Who is lending them zero-coupon money in a rising-rate environment? A couple of Telegram rumors point to a private placement with one buyer—rumored to be SoftBank Vision Fund 2. That’s unverified, but the Vision Fund has quietly dabbled in crypto infra despite Masa Son’s 2018 Bitcoin PTSD. My gut says the buyers are offshore—Singapore or Abu Dhabi—using the bond as a backdoor way to hold BTC without reporting it on their own books. Sneaky, but not unprecedented.
For context, MicroStrategy’s latest convertibles pay between 0.375% and 0.875%. A bond at 0% is practically a donation. Something doesn’t add up unless the lenders received warrants or other sweeteners we haven’t seen yet. I’ve requested the term sheet; no response so far.
Why This Matters for Your Portfolio
If Metaplanet keeps buying at this clip—roughly 1,000 BTC every six weeks—they’ll add another 8,000 BTC by year-end. That’s 0.038% of total supply removed from circulation in 2024 alone. Not huge, but when you stack that with ETFs, sovereign accumulators (looking at you, El Salvador), and the usual HODLer illiquidity, the float keeps shrinking.
I’m seeing traders on Bybit and BitMEX front-run Asian open every time Metaplanet’s filings hit. The ‘Metaplanet alpha’ is now a meme in Chinese WeChat groups. One quant at Amber Group told me they coded a bot that scans the Tokyo Stock Exchange disclosure feed for the word “ビットコイン” and automatically buys 10 BTC market on Binance whenever it pings. That bot has triggered three times since May and, according to the PnL screenshot he sent me, is up 17%. Small sample size, but you get the point.
Tangential Rabbit Hole: Japan’s Quiet Crypto Swagger
Most outsiders still think of Japan as conservative post-Mt. Gox. But 2024 has been a stealth breakout year. Local giants like Mitsubishi UFJ (MUFG) are pushing Progmat, a tokenized securities platform. SBI Holdings already stakes more ETH than most U.S. hedge funds and recently partnered with Saudi’s Aramco for Bitcoin mining rigs. Metaplanet tapping the bond market at 0% might be the loudest signal yet that Japanese capital—famously flush with cash—wants in on hard money.
So, Can They Actually Hit 210,000 BTC?
Quick back-of-the-envelope:
- Target: 210,000 BTC (≈$13.2 billion)
- Current: 13,350 BTC (≈$841 million)
- Gap: 196,650 BTC (≈$12.4 billion)
- Timeframe: 36 months
- Needed pace: ~5,460 BTC per month
That’s $340 million/month at today’s prices. Even if they rolled fresh zero-coupon bonds every quarter, they’d be drowning in principal repayments come 2029. Unless Bitcoin 10×-es by then—possible, but hardly guaranteed—they’ll need equity raises or asset sales. I keep thinking about 1990s Japanese keiretsu cross-guarantees; when they blow up, they blow up spectacularly.
Still, markets love a bold narrative. Metaplanet stock (3350.T) is up 620% YTD, trading on 11× forward book value—if you can even model a book stuffed with digital gold. Retail in Japan is piling in via Rakuten’s brokerage app like it’s 2020 all over again.
What Could Go Horribly Wrong?
Regulatory risk. The FSA allows corporations to hold BTC as “other assets,” but if audits get stricter—particularly after that recent Toshiba accounting scandal—reclassifying impairments could hammer earnings. Remember how MicroStrategy took $918 million in impairment charges in 2022? Japan’s accounting rules for crypto are even more punitive.
Liquidity risk. If BTC tanks 50% before 2029, bondholders might freak. Imagine forcing Metaplanet to liquidate coins into a falling market. Contagion, anyone?
Competitive risk. As more Asian conglomerates see Metaplanet’s stock chart, they might copycat, sparking a leverage war reminiscent of the 2021 miner arms race. Great for Bitcoin scarcity; terrible for fragile balance sheets.
The Part I’m Still Investigating
I keep coming back to that bond buyer. If it is SoftBank, it would mark a full-circle moment. Masa Son famously bought $200 million of Bitcoin near the 2017 top and panic-sold in 2018. A secret re-entry via Metaplanet debt would be poetic. Another theory floating around is a consortium of Japanese pension funds experimenting with Bitcoin exposure they can’t get approved directly. Either way, I’ll keep digging. If you’ve got receipts, my Proton mail is open.
My Best Guess for the Next 12 Months
Bitcoin above $100k forces more Japanese corporates to rush in. Metaplanet rides that wave, maybe hitting 25,000 BTC by late 2025—well short of 210k, but still enormous for Asia. Volatility will be savage; expect at least one 40% drawdown that bloodies their balance sheet and prompts a dilutive equity raise.
I could be dead wrong. That’s the fun part.
Disclosure: I own a laughably small Metaplanet position via a Futu Securities account. I’ll probably close it by the time you read this.
