As the crypto market enters a correction window, the actions of bitcoin treasury companies have shown significant divergence. The giant Strategy announced last week that it spent $962.7 million to increase its holdings of 10,624 bitcoins at a price of $90,615. In contrast, the fourth largest bitcoin treasury company, Metaplanet, has come to a halt, having not increased its holdings for the tenth consecutive week since September 30.
Metaplanet, a Japanese publicly traded company known as the 'Asian version of MicroStrategy,' was once a radical representative in the DAT field. Since launching its reserve plan in April 2024, the company has rapidly accumulated over 30,000 bitcoins, with a total value of approximately $2.75 billion.
However, since the fourth quarter, Bitcoin prices have retraced nearly 30% from their historic high of $126,000, and just as the market generally expected treasury companies to take advantage of the dip, Metaplanet unexpectedly pressed the pause button after completing its last accumulation on September 29, shifting its short-term capital focus to stock buybacks.
DAT has shifted from aggressive accumulation to risk control priority.
Data shows that the total market value of digital asset treasury stocks in the fourth quarter shrank dramatically from $150 billion to $73.5 billion, with most companies' mNAV falling below 1 times. According to Bloomberg, publicly listed crypto asset treasury (DAT) companies in the U.S. and Canada have seen their stock prices drop significantly this year, with a median decline of 43%, and some companies experiencing declines of over 99%.
Galaxy warns that Bitcoin treasury companies are entering a 'Darwin phase', with stock premiums collapsing, leverage turning negative, and DAT stocks trading at discounts, as the core mechanisms of their once-prosperous business models are collapsing.
In this market context, the second-tier treasury company ETHZilla recently announced that it would redeem a total of $516 million in convertible bonds early. This move is seen as a positive signal for simplifying capital structure, enhancing financial flexibility, and reducing the risks of high-interest liabilities during market downturns.
Metaplanet's actions resonate with this. Currently, the company's outstanding debt is $304 million, theoretically backed by 9 times its Bitcoin assets as a repayment guarantee, yet the company still chooses to pause its accumulation, a behavior that is highly consistent with the industry's trend of transitioning from aggressive accumulation to risk control priority in the current DAT track.
Stock price pressure and tactical adjustments under conservative accounting.
Previously, influenced by Bitcoin holding strategies, Metaplanet's stock price surged from $20 in April 2024 to a peak of $1,930 in June 2025. Despite a significant decline of over 70% since the second half of the year, the stock price still recorded an overall increase of over 20% this year, currently stabilizing around $420, with a total market value of approximately $3 billion.
In response to the continuous decline in stock prices, Metaplanet's CEO Simon Gerovich publicly addressed the stock price fluctuations on October 2, citing Amazon's case during the dot-com bubble, emphasizing that fundamentals and stock prices often diverge, and reiterating that the company will continue to accumulate Bitcoin.
Previously, he stated in September that if the net asset value falls below market value (mNAV below 1 times), continuing to issue new shares would 'mathematically destroy value' and harm the company's BTC yield. The company will prioritize evaluating solutions such as preferred shares and stock buybacks.
Therefore, when faced with a book value drop at the beginning of October, Metaplanet quickly took action, first announcing the authorization to buy back up to 150 million shares and obtaining a $500 million credit line, and then raising $100 million by mortgaging its Bitcoin assets to purchase more Bitcoin, expand revenue operations, and buy back shares, with some funds also allocated for revenue operations. Currently, the company's mNAV has rebounded to over 1 times.
From this perspective, the behavior of pausing accumulation is a tactical protection of its stock price and balance sheet health, prioritizing the value of existing shareholders rather than blindly expanding the balance sheet.
Additionally, pausing purchases is also to mitigate the risks posed by Japan's conservative accounting standards. Given its average Bitcoin cost of about $108,000, the company has already accumulated over $500 million in unrealized losses on its books. To prevent excessive shocks to its short-term profit and loss statement, it has chosen to actively avoid exacerbating this book impairment risk.
Utilizing low-interest rate advantages to build an 'economic moat' in Asia?
On the surface, the pause in accumulation appears defensive, but Metaplanet's true strategic intent may lie in upgrading and innovating its capital structure.
The company's third-quarter financial report shows that its sales reached 2.401 billion yen, a quarter-on-quarter increase of 94%; operating profit was 1.339 billion yen, a 64% increase; net profit was 127 billion yen; net assets were 532.9 billion yen, a growth of 165%. Among them, the options business contributed $16.28 million in revenue, a year-on-year increase of 115%, which covers daily operational and interest costs.
Based on this, Metaplanet is also attempting to imitate Strategy by planning to issue similar preferred stocks to STRC in a more efficient manner to obtain capital.
The company plans to launch two new digital credit tools, 'Mercury' and 'Mars', with 'Mercury' offering a 4.9% yen yield, about ten times the yield of Japanese bank deposits, with 73% of the funds earmarked for Bitcoin accumulation, including $10.7 million in direct purchases and $1.2 million in options trading. This way, the company can bypass equity dilution and shift to low-cost debt leverage, which is highly attractive to local investors.
Additionally, Japan does not allow market sales mechanisms (similar to BitMine's current ATM model) to prevent listed companies from directly 'dumping' stocks in the secondary market, protecting investors from dilution shocks. Metaplanet has cleverly circumvented this restriction by adopting a mobile exercise warrant mechanism (MSW), while retaining the core advantages of flexible fundraising.
MSW is essentially a special stock acquisition warrant, with its main feature being that the exercise price is not fixed but is dynamically adjusted periodically. Typically, every few trading days (Metaplanet's early series was every 3 trading days), the exercise price resets to the average of the closing prices from the previous few days, such as the simple moving average of the last three days. Thus, when the warrant holder chooses to exercise the warrant, the company issues new common shares at a price close to the current market price to raise funds.
In the later stages, the company may integrate this mechanism into the perpetual preferred stock product Mercury: preferred stockholders can convert to common shares at dynamic prices through terms similar to MSW, making the entire financing process smoother and more controllable.
At the same time, MicroStrategy's Executive Chairman Michael Saylor has confirmed that the company will not launch similar products in Japan in the next 12 months, providing Metaplanet with a valuable 12-month market first-mover advantage.
The company successfully issued $150 million in Series B perpetual preferred shares on November 20, and its financing strategy has begun to take shape. This series of actions indicates that Metaplanet is leveraging Japan's low-interest-rate environment to construct a unique financing 'moat' for structural and sustainable expansion.
Local advantages and MSCI review.
In fact, the core value of Metaplanet lies in the unique Alpha provided by its Japanese ecological environment:
On one hand, the continuous depreciation of the yen strengthens Bitcoin's role as an inflation hedging asset, providing Metaplanet's Bitcoin reserves as an effective means for Japanese investors to combat the decline in yen purchasing power.
On the other hand, the tax-exempt advantages of Japan's personal savings accounts (NISA) have attracted 63,000 local Japanese shareholders to Metaplanet. Compared to the 55% capital gains tax on directly holding crypto assets, buying Metaplanet stock through NISA allows investors to gain indirect exposure to BTC at a lower cost.
For this reason, Metaplanet has received recognition from international institutions, with Capital Group increasing its stake to 11.45%, becoming Metaplanet's largest shareholder. Currently, the top five shareholders also include MMXX Capital, Vanguard, Evolution Capital, and Invesco; Syz Capital partner Richard Byworth has publicly withdrawn from MicroStrategy and Bitcoin ETFs to invest in Metaplanet, believing the latter has lower financing costs and higher return elasticity.
An industry observer pointed out that companies like Metaplanet must prioritize ensuring financial resilience during downturns to maintain long-term accumulation goals.
However, despite being beneficial for structural health in the long term, Metaplanet still faces potential short-term selling pressure. For instance, the MSCI index exclusion review affecting Strategy also impacted Metaplanet, which was included in the MSCI Japan Index in February this year; if excluded due to a high proportion of Bitcoin assets, it could trigger a wave of passive fund sell-offs.
Conclusion
Overall, Metaplanet's pause in Bitcoin accumulation is not a failure of strategy or a surrender to the market; it can be seen as a strategic buildup based on risk and efficiency considerations, marking the maturation of the DAT track from aggressive accumulation to risk control priority.
Bitwise's Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan has stated that evaluating DAT companies based on mNAV is incorrect, as this valuation method does not consider the lifecycle of listed companies. Most of the reasons for DAT trading at discounts are certain, while those for premiums are often uncertain. Looking ahead, the price disparities among treasury companies will become more pronounced, and Metaplanet may be reconstructing its valuation system.
