The engine that once made Metaplanet a market darling is sputtering. The Japanese firm’s Bitcoin options business, designed to offset acquisition costs, pulled in just 1.75 billion yen in the fiscal second quarter—roughly $11 million. That marks a 41% plunge from the previous quarter’s 2.97 billion yen, a drop the company attributes to the cryptocurrency’s unusually calm trading around $60,000. Without sharp volatility, option premiums shrink, and the narrative of a “self-funding” Bitcoin accumulator loses its credibility.
Still, the headline number is eye-catching. Metaplanet now holds 43,000 Bitcoin, worth approximately $2.6 billion at current prices, making it the world’s third-largest public Bitcoin treasury behind only Strategy and Twenty One Capital. The milestone arrived without the fanfare it once commanded: shares closed at €1.15, a staggering 87.8% below the 52-week high of €9.42 and just 10% above the 30 June low of €1.04. The stock has shed 48.4% since the start of the year.
The core of the problem lies in the premium investors once paid for access to Metaplanet’s Bitcoin accumulator. That premium, measured as the market value to net asset value (mNAV), has collapsed. The company has historically only issued new equity when mNAV exceeded one. Now the sector’s bellwether, Strategy, is itself trading at an mNAV of 0.99 and said this week it could sell up to $1.25 billion in Bitcoin to shore up liquidity—a tacit admission that the model only works when the market offers a reward.
Metaplanet’s own mNAV has slid below parity, making equity issuance a loss-making exercise. Management therefore turned to debt and credit lines to fund the latest purchases. The Bitcoin yield, which measures the growth of the coin stash relative to outstanding shares, improved to 6.6% in the second quarter from 2.8% in the prior quarter—but only because the company avoided diluting shareholders through stock sales, not because organic growth accelerated.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Metaplanet?
A daunting path to 100,000 Bitcoin
The company maintains a public target of holding 100,000 Bitcoin by year-end. That means acquiring roughly 57,000 more coins in the second half—a pace of nearly 9,500 per month. During the second quarter, Metaplanet added just 2,823. Achieving the goal would require an extraordinary acceleration in buying, funded almost entirely through new debt or equity at depressed prices—a mathematical equation that grows tighter with each passing week.
Meanwhile, the options income tailwind has faded. The business segment called Bitcoin Income Generation peaked at 4.24 billion yen in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, then slid to 2.97 billion yen in Q1 and further to 1.75 billion yen in Q2. Management kept its full-year guidance unchanged, insisting the decline is cyclical, not structural. But the trajectory suggests that even the quieter cash engine is losing power just when the company needs it most.
A securities play as a Plan B
In an attempt to open a new front, Metaplanet has launched “Project Nova”, a plan to acquire Siiibo Securities for 2.1 billion yen. The deal is expected to close on 13 July, after which the brokerage will be renamed Metaplanet Securities. The acquisition provides a regulated platform to offer Bitcoin-linked investment products to Japanese retail investors—a potential new revenue stream that could reduce dependence on options income and equity premiums.
The stock has not reacted to the news. Technically, the shares appear oversold: the relative strength index stands at 37.8, skirting oversold territory, and the price trades 22.9% below its 50-day moving average and 48.6% below the 200-day. But with 30-day annualized volatility at 68.8%, any rally could be sharp and short-lived. The 5.5% bounce over the past seven days shows how quickly sentiment can shift, but sustained recovery will require more than a record Bitcoin stack—it demands renewed faith in a model that the market is increasingly unwilling to reward.
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