Metaplanet, a Japanese investment firm taking cues from MicroStrategy's Bitcoin playbook, has witnessed an extraordinary surge in its stock price, soaring by 158% in the past week, making it the top gainer among all Japanese stocks.
Currently priced at 93 Japanese yen, Metaplanet's shares have spiked by 127% in just two days, triggering circuit breaker trading halts on the Tokyo Stock Exchange multiple times within the week. With its market cap nearing $1 billion ($940 million or 14.8 billion Japanese yen at present rates), the firm has breached the TSE's rule that stocks priced below 100 Japanese yen can only increase by a maximum of 30 Japanese yen per day, surpassing this limit for two consecutive days.
Director of Bitcoin Strategy, Dylan LeClair, highlighted Metaplanet's recent performance, labeling it as the "best-performing stock in Japan" for two consecutive days.
Since unveiling its Bitcoin investment strategy on April 8, Metaplanet has accumulated 117.7 Bitcoin, currently valued at $7.2 million, leading to a 389% surge in its stock price. Similar to MicroStrategy, the firm plans to utilize various capital market instruments to strategically boost its Bitcoin reserves, aiming to hedge against Japan's escalating debt burden and the depreciating Japanese yen.
Metaplanet attributes its Bitcoin investment strategy to Japan's high government debt levels, extended periods of negative real interest rates, and the resulting weak yen. Japan's debt-to-GDP ratio, standing at 261%, is the highest among developed nations, while the Japanese yen has depreciated by over 34% against the US dollar since the beginning of 2021. In contrast, Bitcoin has surged nearly 190% against the Japanese yen over the past year.
Currently, Metaplanet is solely available for trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, limiting access for US investors.
However, Arnab Naskar, one of the founders of security token platform STOKR, has expressed intentions to tokenize Metaplanet shares on the Bitcoin layer-2 network Liquid, similar to the tokenization of MicroStrategy stock.
May 2024, Cryptoniteuae