Metaplanet secures $500m Bitcoin credit for buybacks

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Tokyo-listed Metaplanet said it will fund a year-long share repurchase with leveraged Bitcoin exposure after its market value slipped below the worth of its BTC holdings, arguing the stock is mispriced and that buybacks will raise Bitcoin yield per share.
Metaplanet’s board cleared the repurchase of up to 150 million common shares, or about 13% of outstanding stock, with purchases scheduled from October 29, 2025, through October 28, 2026 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange under a discretionary trading mandate. The company tied the program to a financing plan that uses Bitcoin-backed leverage, saying the mix is designed to restore confidence while the equity trades at a discount to the firm’s BTC treasury. 

The discount has become hard to ignore. On October 14, measures of Metaplanet’s market value versus its Bitcoin stash dipped below parity, meaning investors were valuing the operating business at less than the coins on its balance sheet. That follows a month in which the company disclosed it had crossed 30,000 BTC, placing it among the largest public holders.

Сompany’s pitch is straightforward: if the stock trades under its BTC per-share value, buying stock is accretive to remaining holders, and using low-cost leverage against Bitcoin can enlarge the treasury without fresh equity dilution. In September, shareholders also authorized new financing tools, including preferred shares, to support the treasury strategy through cycles.
And context helps, too. Metaplanet accelerated purchases through 2025, including a 5,268 BTC buy in early October and earlier additions over the summer, after outlining large capital-raising plans in January. The accumulation pushed its ranking into the top tier of corporate Bitcoin treasuries.

The company’s market cap, however, has whipsawed. A drawdown of roughly 70% from the peak could be tracked into mid-October even as headline holdings rose, a gap the firm now says it is addressing with the repurchase authorization. Analysts and industry press attributed the slide to concerns over leverage, execution risk and the cost of capital.

Monday’s announcement comes as the firm continues to court global investors. In September, Eric Trump joined Metaplanet as an adviser and appeared at a Tokyo shareholder meeting where investors approved an overseas share issue aimed at buying more Bitcoin – one of several governance steps that broadened the company’s funding options.

Background: the playbook echoes earlier corporate Bitcoin strategies – buy coins, finance cheaply where possible, and repurchase stock when the equity trades under net asset value. The difference in Japan is speed and scale. In 2025, Metaplanet outlined multibillion-yen raises and pushed past 30,000 BTC as USD/JPY weakness and domestic liquidity conditions made a BTC-denominated treasury more attractive to its investor base.

Sebile Fane cut her teeth in blockchain by building tiny NFT experiments with friends in her living room, long before the buzzwords took hold. She’s driven by a curiosity for the human stories behind smart contracts — whether it’s a small-town artist minting her first token or a DAO voting on climate grants — and weaves technical insight with genuine empathy.