In brief
- Metaplanet has finalized a $1.45 billion international share sale on Sept. 10.
- Most of the proceeds are allocated to Bitcoin purchases and income-generation operations.
- The company now holds 20,136 BTC worth $2.25 billion, making it the sixth-largest public corporate holder globally.
Metaplanet is betting bigger on Bitcoin.
The Tokyo-listed firm has locked in a $1.45 billion share sale on Tuesday, marking one of Japan’s largest corporate treasury shifts to date.
Formally priced at ¥553 per share ($3.73), the international share offering will issue 385 million shares, raising a total of ¥212.9 billion ($1.45 billion).
Net proceeds of ¥204.1 billion ($1.39 billion) are allocated almost entirely to Bitcoin, with ¥183.7 billion ($1.25 billion) set for purchases and ¥20.4 billion ($139 million) for income-generation operations, according to a notice determining the issue price.
In the same notice, the company reiterated its rationale for buying Bitcoin, pointing to “elevated levels of national debt, prolonged real negative interest rates, and an ongoing depreciation of the yen” as primary factors that motivated it to begin stacking the alpha crypto in April last year.
The share sale follows a September 1 shareholder vote in Tokyo that approved an overseas issuance of up to 550 million new shares, alongside preferred stock, after Metaplanet’s share price had dropped 54% since mid-June.
The latest filing finalizes the terms of that plan, shifting it from shareholder authorization to formal execution, thereby closing a turbulent summer of financing pressures and a collapsing share price.
Metaplanet currently holds 20,136 BTC valued at about $2.25 billion, following its latest purchase of 136 Bitcoin disclosed earlier this week.
Its holdings position it as the sixth-largest public corporate holder of Bitcoin worldwide, ranking behind Strategy, Marathon, and Twenty One, but ahead of Tesla, Coinbase, and the Trump Media & Technology Group.
While still behind others, Metaplanet’s move emerges as a “signal from Japan that corporate Bitcoin adoption is spreading globally, not just in the U.S.,” Dan Dadybayo, research and strategy lead at Unstoppable Wallet, told Decrypt.
Corporate Bitcoin treasuries are “shifting from experiment to mainstream balance-sheet strategy,” Dadybayo said, adding that with “new accounting rules and ETF normalization,” he expects public companies to hold “over 1 million BTC by year-end.”
Further on by 2027, Dadybayo said more firms “could follow treating Bitcoin as digital gold.”
“All of this is unfolding against the backdrop of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), which has become the company’s most profitable ETF, generating more fee revenue than even its S&P 500 flagship (IVV),” he noted, sharing that IBIT is also the “fastest-growing ETF in history,” after hitting over $80 billion in assets under management, in just over a year of inflows tracking over $52 billion.
With terms now set for execution, the scale of Metaplanet’s raise cements its place in the global conversation on Bitcoin.
“From pension funds to hedge funds, the direction of travel is clear: a deeper integration of Bitcoin into traditional finance,” Dadybayo said.
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