Akshita Jhalani
Crypto Analyst
While most of the crypto market was watching Bitcoin hold above $60,000 this Thursday morning, Metaplanet quietly did what it does every week, it bought more Bitcoin. A lot more.
The Tokyo‑listed company announced the purchase of an additional 2,823 BTC for approximately $170.7 million, bringing its total Bitcoin treasury to 43,000 BTC, worth roughly $2.6 billion at current prices. That number, confirmed Thursday, officially cements Metaplanet as the world's third largest publicly traded Bitcoin holder, trailing only Strategy and Twenty One Capital.
When I think about where Metaplanet was just a year ago, a struggling hospitality company with a handful of Bitcoin, the pace of accumulation since then is genuinely remarkable.
How It Pays for This Without Selling Shares Into Panic
Here's the part of Metaplanet's story that I think gets underreported every time a new purchase is announced. The company isn't just raising equity to buy Bitcoin the way many treasury strategy companies do. It has a functioning revenue business that generates real cash from Bitcoin itself, and the numbers just got notably stronger.
Metaplanet's Bitcoin Income Generation division reported approximately $10.85 million in operating revenue for Q2 FY2026, bringing the first‑half total to approximately $29.30 million. On a trailing 12‑month basis, the division has now generated the equivalent of roughly $70 million in revenue.
This business works by using Bitcoin options strategies to generate recurring income, essentially writing options against the company's Bitcoin holdings to collect premium, similar in concept to how BlackRock's BITA ETF generates yield. The difference is that Metaplanet uses those proceeds to expand its Bitcoin stack rather than distribute them as dividends.
That's a structurally different model from Strategy, which has faced increasing scrutiny over STRC preferred stock falling to record lows and dividend coverage shrinking dramatically. Metaplanet's income‑generating approach means the accumulation is at least partially self‑funding, a detail that matters enormously when Bitcoin's price is under pressure and equity issuance becomes more expensive.
The Stock Responded Immediately
Metaplanet shares closed 3.5% higher at 207 yen on Thursday following the announcement. That's a market that understood what the combined message, more Bitcoin plus stronger revenue, actually signals about the company's trajectory.
For context, Metaplanet shares have been one of the strongest performing stocks in Japan over the past 18 months, driven almost entirely by its Bitcoin strategy and the investor enthusiasm that surrounds it. The stock doesn't track Bitcoin's price perfectly, but it tends to react sharply to accumulation news, and Thursday was no exception.
Third Place in the World, With Momentum Behind It
The rankings among publicly traded Bitcoin holders tell their own story right now. Strategy sits first with roughly 847,000 BTC. Twenty One Capital holds around 75,000 BTC. Metaplanet at 43,000 BTC takes third, and it's still actively buying every week with a revenue stream that funds part of that buying independently.
What I find most interesting about Metaplanet's position is the combination of aggressive accumulation during a price downturn and a business model that generates cash from the very asset it's accumulating. Most corporate Bitcoin holders are purely passive, they buy and hold. Metaplanet has built an active income layer on top of that holding, and the Q2 revenue growth suggests that layer is working.
In a market where the Bitcoin treasury company story has become complicated for Strategy, Metaplanet is quietly demonstrating that the model can work, when the income side of the equation is designed properly from the start.