Metaplanet aspires to acquisition of digital bank
The CEO of Japanese hotel operator turned Bitcoin treasury company, Metaplanet, has suggested that the firm may consider acquiring a digital bank in the future.
Simon Gerovich, the firm’s CEO and a former Goldman Sachs banker, told the Financial Times that part of the second stage of its overall strategy may involve “acquiring a digital bank in Japan and providing digital banking services that are superior to the services which retail now is getting.”
Bitcoin gold rush
Gerovich explained that phase one of Metaplanet’s plan involves participating in what he considers to be “a bitcoin gold rush.” He added:
“We need to accumulate as much bitcoin as we can . . . to get to a point where we’ve reached escape velocity and it just makes it very difficult for others to catch up.”
Other firms are jumping on the bandwagon, as within a very short timeframe, 140 companies around the world have adopted a Bitcoin treasury strategy.
Metaplanet currently weighs in as the fifth-largest corporate holder of Bitcoin globally. Right now, the company holds 15,555 BTC. Its target is a holding of 210,000 BTC, which equates to around 1% of the total Bitcoin supply. Based on current pricing, such a holding would be worth in the region of $23 billion.
Acquiring cash-generating businesses
Once the company has accomplished its Bitcoin accumulation goals, it plans to move on to phase two, acquiring cash-generating businesses while leveraging its Bitcoin holdings in order to do so. Using Bitcoin as collateral, Gerovich said that Metaplanet will “get cash that we can use to buy profitable businesses.”
While inroads are being made with regard to the acceptance of Bitcoin as a corporate reserve asset, it is earlier days still for its acceptance as collateral. Last month, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) in the United States, ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, key government-sponsored players in the American mortgage market, to explore the treatment of Bitcoin as eligible collateral for mortgages.
Standard Chartered and crypto exchange OKX launched a pilot program earlier this year geared towards the use of crypto for collateral purposes. Gerovich talks in terms of Metaplanet’s phase two plan playing out at a time “when bitcoin, like securities or government bonds, can be deposited with banks and then they’ll provide very attractive financing against that asset.”
The Metaplanet CEO stated that he expects the Bitcoin accumulation phase of the plan to play out over a period of between four and six years. The Tokyo-listed firm started accumulating Bitcoin in 2024.
Some market participants are backing Metaplanet’s strategy with their own money. Global investment management firm Capital Group recently became Metaplanet’s second-largest investor.
Bitcoin treasury critics
However, the emergence of Bitcoin treasury firms has also drawn quite a few detractors. Some critics point out that many of these companies have a negative operating income. Market analyst Caleb Franzen asserted that even after buying Bitcoin, they’re still junk companies. Others point out that too many firms have jumped on the Bitcoin treasury bandwagon, making the prospect no longer attractive.
Fakhul Miah, managing director of GoMining Institutional, is also concerned about copycats. He told Cointelegraph that ”if these smaller firms crash, we could see a ripple effect that hurts Bitcoin’s image.”
