By
Chimamanda U. Martha
June 28th, 2024
Metaplanet Inc has doubled down on its Bitcoin as a Treasury Reserve Asset as the firm has revealed plans to issue a 1 billion yen bond.
Japanese investment firm Metaplanet Inc. has announced its plan to purchase Bitcoin (BTC price data) worth 1 billion yen ($6.26 million) after it reached an agreement with its board of directors. The capital for the BTC purchase will be raised through an upcoming round of bond issuance. Notably, this is scheduled to be the second series of ordinary bonds with guarantees.
The plan is to set the annual interest rate for the bonds at 0.5% with the maturation date as June 25, 2025. Metaplanet explicitly stated that “the funds raised will be used to purchase Bitcoin,” while also noting that the payment date for the bonds is June 26, 2024.
Following the announcement of the plan to issue bonds and its board of directors’ support, the Japanese investment firm saw its stock price jump over 12% in the early hours of Monday.
At the beginning of June, the Tokyo-listed investment firm acquired 250 million yen worth of Bitcoin, approximately $1.58 million. Metaplanet bought 23.351 BTC, which brought its total Bitcoin holdings to over 141.07 BTC at the time. This was after two earlier BTC purchases on April 23 and May 10. Per a published statement from the company, its average purchase price per Bitcoin was 10.27 million yen, or about $65,300.
All these BTC purchases align with Metaplanet’s latest resolution which was announced in May. The Tokyo-listed company said that it has adopted Bitcoin as its strategic treasury reserve asset, a move that many other institutions are beginning to make. The disposition to Bitcoin hinges on the fact that it offers a better resilience as a store of value when compared to Fiat.
“The move is a direct response to sustained economic pressures in Japan, notably high government debt levels, prolonged periods of negative real interest rates, and the consequently weak yen,” Metaplanet highlighted.
MicroStrategy Leads Charge to Adopt Bitcoin as a Reserve Asset
Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy Inc (NASDAQ: MSTR) is one of the organizations that have adopted Bitcoin as a treasury reserve. It is safe to project that Metaplanet is closely following MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin strategy.
MicroStrategy’s acquisition of the leading digital asset dates as far back as 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world. After recently securing $800 million through convertible notes offerings, MicroStrategy acquired an additional 11,931 BTC for $786 million, according to the press release on June 20, 2024.
The new purchase brings MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin holding to 226,331 Bitcoins. With the market price of Bitcoin at the time of the latest purchase ($66,000), the entire holding is worth nearly $15 billion. At the time of this writing, Bitcoin’s current price is $62,334.78 with a 3.13% drop within the last 24 hours.
Noteworthy, this Bitcoin holding is a clear indication that Saylor and MicroStrategy are leading the charge to adopt Bitcoin as a reserve asset. Metaplanet’s announcement underscores the fact that other corporate treasuries are beginning to follow suit.