Key Highlights:
- Metaplanet worked as a music CD company, moved to hotel business and then settled as a Bitcoin (BTC) treasury company in 2024.
- Metaplanet followed the footsteps of MicroStrategy (now known as Strategy).
- The company is the 4th largest company that holds more than 35,000 Bitcoin.
Before Metaplanet started focusing on Bitcoin holdings, it was just a regular Japanese company that worked in hotels and music-related businesses. The company started out in 1999 as a music CD company and when the CD sales declined, it moved into hotel business in 2013 and made its way out in 2017.
The hotel business grew for a while and then the market was hit by COVID-19, which forced the company to sell or shut most of its hotels. By the end of 2024, it had only one hotel left in Tokyo.
Like many other small companies in Japan, the growth of the company was slow and its performance was completely dependent a lot on the country’s economy, which has not been very strong for years now.
At the same time, Japan’s weak currency (yen) and low interest rates were also the factors that were reducing the value of cash sitting on company balance sheets. So, just holding money was not such a great idea or strategy anymore. Moreover, investors also started favoring companies that were innovative and showed growth potential.
Bitcoin Enters the Picture
This is exactly when Bitcoin came into the picture. Metaplanet shifted its strategy and switched to Bitcoin. The company was buying and holding BTC and it was also earning income by trading Bitcoin options. For Metaplanet, it offered a way to protect value and tell a stronger growth story about how its old business model could not really scale and provide growth to the company. As of now, the company is being led by Simon Gerovich, who has been the in-charge of the company since 2015.
Metaplanet first started buying small amounts of Bitcoin around 2021. It was not a big move at that time, but it showed that the company was open to using Bitcoin to protect its money from inflation and weakening currency.
The big shift was finally observed on May 13, 2024, when Metaplanet officially decided to make Bitcoin its main reserve asset. Instead of holding cash in yen, it chose a “Bitcoin-first” approach, where Bitcoin became a core part of how the company manages its money.
Going Full MicroStrategy
From mid-2024, Metaplanet went all-in on Bitcoin, which was exactly what Michael Saylor did with his company. Instead of buying Bitcoin slowly, it started raising money, which was mainly carried out by debt and shares to buy more of it faster.
By late 2024, it even updated its official business purpose to include Bitcoin. This showed that the Bitcoin was not just an investment anymore, it became a core part of the business.
By 2025, the strategy became simple, hold Bitcoin long-term as a store of value, use some of it to earn extra income through trading strategies. By 2026, Metaplanet was widely seen as one of the biggest companies copying this Bitcoin-heavy strategy in the market.
There have been times that Michael Saylor has praised Metaplanet for its work and has also called it to be Japan’s MicroStrategy.
Congratulations to @Gerovich, @DylanLeClair_, and the entire $MTPLF team and shareholder community. 🚀 pic.twitter.com/dPH7UMxIvB
— Michael Saylor (@saylor) June 16, 2025
Recent Moves: Yield, Scale and Self-Reinvention
Once the strategy was set, Metaplanet focused on one thing, buying as much Bitcoin as possible. By early 2025, it held about 2,031 BTC, which was worth $159 million, with an average price of around $78,000 per coin. However, the company did not stop there. It launched a “Bitcoin Plan” for 2025-2026. With this plan, the company wishes to reach 10,000 BTC by the end of 2025 and 21,000 BTC by the end of 2026.
To turn this into reality, Metaplanet planned to raise about 116.65 billion yen, which is around $746 million. It formed a partnership with EVO Fund and introduced something that was called the “21 Million Plan”, which involved issuing 21 million new shares mainly to buy more Bitcoin.
This approach was quite similar to the strategy that was used by MicroStrategy (now known as Strategy), where companies raise money through markets to keep increasing their Bitcoin holdings.
In 2025, the Bitcoin prices sky-rocketed and more and more big investors entered the market. Metaplanet kept increasing its targets. By mid-2025, its holding reportedly jumped to around 16,352 BTC, which was worth about $2 billion. The company even shared a long-term goal of owning 1% of all Bitcoin by 2027. Later that year, it bought another 136 BTC, taking its total to 20,136 and making it one of the largest corporate Bitcoin holders globally.
At the same time, how it raised money also started changing. In the starting the company was dependent on issuing new shares, which helped raise funds but reduced the value for existing shareholders.
By late 2025, the company began shifting to more advanced funding methods like preferred shares and other structured instruments, which was also similar to what MicroStrategy did to raise large amounts of money without putting much pressure on its main stock.
The Goal: How Far Still To Go?
Metaplanet has big plans with Bitcoin. It first aimed for 10,000 BTC and 21,000 BTC but the target is set to 30,000 and eventually 1% of all Bitcoin. According to Arkham Intelligence, it already has more than 35,000 BTC, so it has passed its early goals but it is still far from the 1% target.
Metaplanet also posted on February 16, 2026, that its revenue soared 738% year-over-year and the operating profit was up by almost 1,695%. Metaplanet is Japan’s leading Bitcoin-focused public company and it represents the country’s boldest corporate bet on BTC.
According to bitcointreasuries.net, Metaplanet ranks fourth worldwide. Globally it is still behind players such as MicroStrategy which holds about 600,000 BTC. Not only does the company dominate the Japanese market but it is steadily climbing the global ranks.
Also Read: Tariff Chaos Tanks Bitcoin – Why Strategy Is Still Buying
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