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Hedge funds bet against Metaplanet. GameStop scenario?

by admin May 23, 2025

On May 23, 2025, Metaplanet topped the list of Japanese stocks as the most active stock. The same day, Metaplanet became the top loser, which didn’t stop it from being the biggest stock in Japan as it still leads by a large margin. The company is allegedly on the brink of a huge short squeeze similar to the GameStop 2021 situation. How did this small hotel operator become the fastest-growing stock in Japan and an international role model Bitcoin accumulator?

While currently Metaplanet poses itself as “Japan’s first and only publicly listed Bitcoin Treasury Company,” it hasn’t always been like that. The company has a rich history predating Bitcoin’s existence, and Metaplanet’s newfound Bitcoin fame is just the latest episode of a long run.

The company started in 1999. At the early stage, it had a different name and was working in various spheres. In 2010, Simon Gerovich, Metaplanet’s CEO, founded a hotel business with budget hotels in Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Japan.

The COVID quarantine harmed the hotel business. Around the same time, Gerovich learned about Michael Saylor’s Stratgy switch to Bitcoin.

The crucial change occurred in 2024. Here’s how the company puts it on its website:

“In 2024, Metaplanet’s management embarked on a strategic pivot, recognizing Bitcoin as the world’s most scarce monetary asset and transformed the company into a Bitcoin Treasury Company.”

Metaplanet sold all the hotels but one. Ever since, Metaplanet has been following its new plan to aggressively stack bitcoins, which are seen as a long-term reserve asset. The company is working to accrue the wealth of Metaplanet’s shareholders and harness transparency and fairness. The company’s aim is to make its stock more profitable than Bitcoin. On top of this, Metaplanet consults other companies about Bitcoin and Web3.

In 2026, Metaplanet plans to open its Bitcoin Hotel in Tokyo, blending its hotel business origins and the company’s current Bitcoin strategy.

I’m standing on top of the next Bitcoin Hotel in Japan.

365 days from now Metaplanet will transform this hotel, the Hotel Royal Oak, to the first Bitcoin Hotel in Tokyo. pic.twitter.com/c4btm151zM

— isa⚡️ (@isabellasg3) March 27, 2025

Today, Metaplanet is one of the few companies that followed the footsteps of Strategy, becoming a Bitcoin-centred company, sometimes referred to as “MicroStrategy of Asia.”

As of May 23, 2025, Metaplanet holds 7,800 BTC. It may seem that it’s a humble amount if we compare it to Strategy, with its BTC stack exceeding 576,000 units. However, Strategy’s treasury is extraordinary, and Metaplanet is actually one of the leading corporate Bitcoin holders. Its Bitcoin treasury is around $800 million in value and ranks tenth globally. To emphasize the significance of Bitcoin over fiat money, the main KPI metric used by Metaplanet is BTC Yield.

Metaplanet is Japan’s most volatile stock.
Volatility is the pulse, the flame, the fuel,
and Bitcoin is the spark that keeps it burning bright. $MTPLF pic.twitter.com/WwQZfEjAaO

— Simon Gerovich (@gerovich) May 23, 2025

Earlier this May, the company went through a strong short-seller pressure that didn’t stop it from gaining more value and continuing its exponential growth. It took only a year for Metaplanet to grow its stock price from around 40 JPY to 1,000 JPY. In 2025, the stock’s price gained over 420%.

Metaplanet’s year-to-date 291.3% return strikingly contrasts with the nearly 5% decline of the Nikkei 225, a compound index reflecting the average value of the top 225 Japanese stocks.

Short squeeze speculations and parallels with GameStop

Despite aggressive Bitcoin accumulation and speedy growth, not all the stats are bullish. According to Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich, Metaplanet is the most shorted stock in Japan. While Bitcoin treasuries are somewhat trendy, and this trendiness attracts retail and institutional investors, hedge funds are betting against Metaplanet and shorting its stocks in bulk. High volatility within 12 months signals an intense battle between Metaplanet bears and bulls.

High volatility and nine-digit trading volumes on the stock exchange signal a possible high-scale short squeeze of the Metaplanet stock. It loosely resembles the 2021 GameStop stock case. In 2021, hedge funds were betting against GameStop. However, the activism of hobby traders from the Reddit group who collectively started to open long positions resulted in an explosive 3,200% growth of the GME stock. Hedge funds couldn’t predict such an outcome and lost $838 million in a single day.

As of May 23, 2025, it is unclear what the future holds for Metaplanet stock and if it will repeat the GameStop trajectory. If hedge funds are not right about the future of Metaplanet, they will pay a hefty price for their mistake. However, if the Bitcoin strategy fails for Metaplanet, the company may get a serious slap.

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May 23, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

Michigan lawmakers file 4 crypto bills on retiree funds, CBDCs, mining

by admin May 23, 2025

Michigan lawmakers have introduced four crypto-related bills covering crypto mining, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and crypto in state retirement funds.

Republican state Representative Bill Schuette introduced House Bill 4510 on May 21, which would amend Michigan’s Public Employee Retirement System Investment Act to allow the state treasurer, currently Rachael Eubanks, to invest in cryptocurrencies that have averaged a market cap above $250 million over the last calendar year.

Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) are the only cryptocurrencies that currently meet that threshold. The bill adds that any cryptocurrencies must be held in the form of an exchange-traded product issued by a registered investment company.

A similar bill was introduced in February, permitting the state treasurer to allocate up to 10% of Michigan’s Budget Stabilization Fund into crypto.

Republican Representative Bryan Posthumus led the introduction of the second bipartisan crypto bill on May 21, HB 4511, which would prohibit Michigan from banning crypto or imposing licensing requirements on crypto holders. It would also prohibit state officials from advocating or supporting a proposed CBDC from the federal government.

The bill defines advocating or supporting a CBDC to involve issuing a memorandum or official statement endorsing a CBDC proposal related to its testing, adoption or implementation.

Source: Bitcoin Laws

Michigan to consider two crypto mining bills

HB 4512, the third crypto bill introduced by a bipartisan group led by Democratic Representative Mike McFall, would create a Bitcoin mining program allowing operators to set up at abandoned oil and gas sites.

A supervisor would be assigned to determine how much oil or gas could reasonably be expected to be produced from the site, who the last operator of the site was and how long it has been left unused.

Related: US Senate moves forward with GENIUS stablecoin bill

Those seeking to participate in the program would need to submit legal documents outlining their organizational structure, demonstrate their ability to operate as a Bitcoin mining entity and provide estimates of the breakeven price for a profitable venture.

The fourth bill, HB 4513 — also filed by a McFall-led bipartisan group — would amend Michigan’s income tax laws to include income obtained from the proposed Bitcoin mining program.

Magazine: Crypto wanted to overthrow banks, now it’s becoming them in stablecoin fight

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May 23, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

Sui validators freeze majority of stolen funds in $220M Cetus hack

by admin May 22, 2025

Cetus, a decentralized crypto exchange (DEX) built atop the Sui blockchain network, said $162 million of over $220 million stolen in a May 22 hack has been frozen.

According to the Cetus team, the DEX is working with the Sui Foundation and other entities within the ecosystem to recover the remainder of the funds. The Sui Foundation also confirmed:

“A large number of validators identified the addresses with the stolen funds and are ignoring transactions on those addresses until further notice. The Cetus team is exploring paths to recover those funds and return them to the community.”

The Cetus hack is the latest in a string of such incidents impacting crypto and Web3 in the first half of 2025. Cybersecurity continues to be a major issue in crypto, with many industry executives calling for the sector to police itself and establish more robust defenses or risk increased regulatory scrutiny.

Source: Cetus

Related: Germany seizes $38M in crypto from Bybit hack-linked eXch exchange

The Cetus hack: the story so far

On May 22, the Cetus DEX was hacked in what is believed to be a smart contract code exploit that saw the DEX drained of approximately $223 million in user funds.

According to the team behind the Extractor Web3 security notification tool, $63 million of the stolen funds were bridged to the Ethereum network.

The Extractor team also identified a wallet address ending in “AF16” used by the threat actors to launder 20,000 Ether (ETH), valued at roughly $53 million.

The Cetus hackers transfer 20,000 Ether to a new wallet address. Source: Etherscan

The recovery efforts and the asset freeze coordinated by different projects, platforms, and validators in the Sui ecosystem drew mixed reactions from the crypto community.

“Good news for the victims, but if validators, 114 only in total, can freeze wallets when they want, it raises a major question about the network’s censorship resistance. Sui is anything but decentralized,” one user wrote in response.

Magazine: $55M DeFi Saver phish, copy2pwn hijacks your clipboard: Crypto Sec

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May 22, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

Fidelity, Ark Funds Pull In $343M As Bitcoin ETF Flows Spike

by admin May 20, 2025

In brief

Bitcoin ETFs saw their best day of trading since May 2 on Monday.
Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund and the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF accounted for more than half of inflows into BTC ETFs.
BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust continues to dominate as the single biggest player in the market, pulling in $305.9 million on Monday.

Bitcoin ETFs have seen their best day of trading since the start of May, with smaller funds enjoying healthy inflows.

Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC), the second-largest spot ETF in the U.S., saw its net assets rise by $188 million in just 24 hours, per data from SoSoValue.

Meanwhile, the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB)—in fourth place after the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust—clocked inflows of $155 million, with the two funds between them accounting for more than half of the funds invested across all spot BTC ETFs on Monday.

Total inflows for the day stood at $667.4 million, with Bitcoin trading above $100,000 for 12 consecutive days and securing its highest weekly close in history.

At time of publication, Bitcoin is trading at $105,137, up 2.1% on the day, per data from CoinGecko.

BlackRock’s IBIT dominates flows

As usual, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT)—which is bigger than Wall Street’s other 11 BTC ETFs combined—took the lion’s share of inflows, pulling in $305.9 million of investment yesterday. That takes IBIT’s total net assets to $66.9 billion, equivalent to about 3.2% of Bitcoin’s market capitalization.

Beyond BTC’s bullish momentum, hedge funds are seeking to capitalize on the difference between Bitcoin’s spot price and long-dated futures, with yields from the basis trade proving attractive.

IBIT’s inflows so far this year stand at $8.3 billion, making it the sixth-most popular fund on Wall Street, according to Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas. That’s streets ahead of the SDPR Gold Trust in 17th place, despite the precious metal outperforming Bitcoin since the start of the year.

Also notable leaderboard action: $IBIT has climbed up to 6th spot and is now nearly DOUBLE the inflow into $GLD which has slid to 17th, despite gold doubling bitcoin’s performance YTD altho that prob won’t last. pic.twitter.com/HYTfC2SZZP

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) May 19, 2025

While gold prices have accelerated by more than 22% so far in 2025—fueled by uncertainty over U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs—BTC’s gains currently stand at a more modest 12%.

One notable absence from the Bitcoin ETF space has been Vanguard, which has long regarded crypto as “more of a speculation than an investment” that doesn’t belong in investor portfolios.

Balchunas believes the asset management giant is unlikely to perform a U-turn and launch a fund of its own—but he suggested that Vanguard may allow existing ETFs to be traded on its platform if Bitcoin continues to rise.

Should Bitcoin’s price hit the $150,000-$200,000 price range, he wrote, “they gonna get sick of being asked about it by customers and their new CEO is one of IBIT’s parents.”

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May 20, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

Investors Snap Up $200M in Ethereum Funds as Interest Grows After Pectra Upgrade

by admin May 19, 2025

In brief

Ethereum products’ inflows surged after the network’s Pectra upgrade.
Year-to-date flows for crypto funds topped $7.4 billion, a new record for 2025.
Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade has made it easier for institutions to integrate staking rewards into their current products, Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks, said.

Ethereum investment products generated $205 million worth of inflows last week following the asset’s climb toward $2,700—far more than the $1.5 million a week prior—according to a report from crypto asset manager CoinShares on Monday.

Overall, investors stuffed $785 million into digital asset investment products, including spot exchange-traded funds, lifting year-to-date inflows to more than $7.4 billion, their highest point of 2025.

“Ethereum was the standout performer,” CoinShares Head of Research James Butterfill wrote, noting that Solana-based funds generated $1 million worth of outflows.

On Monday, the price of Ethereum had fallen to $2,400, a 4.3% decrease over the past day, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko. However, the asset’s price was still up 50% over the past thirty days, and notably higher than the $1,850 mark where it began this month.

Despite notching one of its worst performances on record in the first quarter, Butterfill told Decrypt that Ethereum investors have still been willing to gain exposure to the asset.

“It’s been massively beaten down in price recently,” he said. “What’s been really encouraging, when […] the price has been beaten down, it’s seen a big influx of inflows.”

Less than two weeks ago, Ethereum activated the first phase of its Pectra upgrade. Among sweeping changes to the network, Pectra improved scaling solutions that aim to keep transactions affordable long-term, while increasing the amount of Ethereum that can be staked per validator—another move aimed at honing the network’s overall efficiency.

Although Ethereum funds exhibited notable strength, Bitcoin products attracted more cash. After pulling in $557 million last week, Bitcoin funds have generated $7.2 billion in inflows year-to-date, accounting for the lion’s share of all flows.

Overall, digital asset investment products notched their fifth straight week of inflows. That lifted year-to-date inflows to $7.5 billion, pushing past a peak of $7.2 billion in February, before U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs created weeks of tariff-linked turmoil.

According to crypto data provider Coinglass, spot Ethereum ETFs have lagged behind Bitcoin counterparts in the U.S., pulling in $2.5 billion compared to the latter’s $42 billion, since their debuts in 2024. Part of that disparity, analysts say, is because of a lack of staking rewards for Ethereum ETF investors.

Through staking, users can earn rewards by pledging assets to a network in order to help it process transactions. The process became core to Ethereum with the network’s shift to a proof-of-stake consensus model in 2022.

By bringing a level of operational predictability to Ethereum staking, Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade will make it easier for institutions to integrate staking rewards into their products, according to Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks, which provides crypto pricing data to CME Group.

“This isn’t just a technical upgrade,” he told Decrypt. “To offer an ETH ETF that includes staking, fund managers need infrastructure that mirrors traditional finance with clear redemption timelines, reliable liquidity, and flexible control over assets.”

Edited by James Rubin

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May 19, 2025 0 comments