Metaplanet rallies 10% as it scoops Bitcoin for third time in 2 months

Shares in ‘Asia’s MicroStrategy’ Metaplanet surged double-digits on Tuesday after the company disclosed another million-dollar Bitcoin (BTC) purchase — its third in seven weeks.

A company statement on June 11 revealed the firm bought 23.25 Bitcoin (BTC) — worth almost $1.59 million, bringing its total holdings to 141.07 Bitcoin ($9.6 million) for an average purchasing price of $65,365 (10,278,391 Japanese yen) per Bitcoin.

This puts Metaplanet at a gain of 4.5% on its Bitcoin investment at Bitcoin’s current price of $68,313, according to CoinGecko.

Investors appeared to like the move, with Metaplanet stock rallying 10.8% to $0.59 (92 Japanese yen) before cooling off to $0.57 (89 Japanese yen) at midday on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on June 11, according to Google Finance.

The firm has seen its stock soar nearly fivefold since it unveiled its Bitcoin investment strategy on April 9, 2024.

Its first Bitcoin purchase came on April 23 at 97.85 Bitcoin, followed by an additional 19.87 Bitcoin on May 10, according to Bitcoin Treasuries. It is now the 30th largest corporate holder of Bitcoin in the world.

Similar to MicroStrategy — the largest corporate Bitcoin shareholder — Metaplanet iterated on May 13 that it’ll adopt an “entire range of capital market instruments” to bolster its Bitcoin reserves.

The firm adopted the strategy to hedge against Japan’s worsening debt burden and the fastly-depreciating Japanese yen.

Japan’s debt-to-GDP ratio of 261% is the worst among developed countries, Metaplanet said.

The Japanese yen has fallen almost 35% against the United States dollar since January 2021, while Bitcoin is up nearly 200% against the Japanese yen over the last 12 months.

Related: Bitcoin’s recent price move is the ‘real deal market pump’ to $90K

However, it’s still far below the Bitcoin holdings of the Michael Saylor-run firm, which holds 214,400 Bitcoin — amounting to 1.02% of the roughly 21 million Bitcoin that will ever enter into circulation.

Metaplanet is currently only available on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, walling out access to U.S. investors but efforts are being made to change that.

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