- Metaplanet Inc., inspired by MicroStrategy, has aggressively accumulated Bitcoin, boosting its share price by 388% this year.
- Listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Metaplanet’s trading was halted due to exceeding TSE’s daily price limits.
- The company, now a top performer in Japan, views Bitcoin as a hedge against Japan’s high debt-to-GDP ratio.
While MicroStrategy (MSTR) has become a household name in the crypto sector for its accumulation of Bitcoin, another company following a similar strategy has been flying under the radar for most investors. Unless you regularly catch up with the Japanese share market, you may not be familiar with Metaplanet Inc., the Japanese counterpart of MSTR
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Just as Michael Saylor’s company has been busy buying up Bitcoin over the past few years, so has Metaplanet – although a little more recently, and not to the same extend.
Listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), Metaplanet Inc. seems to have taken notes of what Saylor is up to – and it has paid off. The company’s share price has made massive gains, to the point that trading had to be halted.
The share price is up by a whopping 388% year-to-date but remains highly volatile. Currently trading for around JP¥83 (AU$0.80), the stock has breached TSE listing rules several times.
Director of Bitcoin Strategy Explains Trading Halt
Dylan LeClair, who joined the company earlier in May as Director of Bitcoin Strategy, said Metaplanet is the best performing Japanese share for two days straight.
The trading halt comes as the price breached a daily limit – an increase of JP¥30 (AU$0.29) – which is a TSE rule. The rule says listed shares with a price below JP¥100 (AU$0.96) have a capped daily increase of JP¥30 (AU$0.29).
This amount may seem minuscule but is part of a scaling system that depends on the share price from the previous trading day. These limits are designed to decrease volatility and ensure market stability.
Metaplanet announced its Bitcoin strategy back in April, saying it would adopt BTC as its core treasury asset with an initial JP¥1 billion (AU$9.62 million) commitment.
The company, dubbed Asia’s MicroStrategy, sees the Bitcoin investment as a hedge against rising debt in the East-Asian country. Japan’s debt is close to 255% of gross domestic product (GDP), compared to Australia’s 49.6%.
Metaplanet said current economic policies have created a difficult monetary environment, making BTC a more secure investment:
As the yen continues to weaken, Bitcoin offers a non-sovereign store of value that has, and may continue, to appreciate against traditional fiat currencies.
Metaplanet The company recently disclosed that it bought an additional 19.8698 BTC, bringing the total holdings to 117.7217 BTC worth AU$12.3 million.
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