Metaplanet has lost half its market value in under three months. The Japanese firm, which began 2025 as a breakout crypto stock after jumping over 400%, is now in freefall. Since mid-June, shares have dropped 54%, wiping out gains that were driven by aggressive Bitcoin buying and wild investor hype. President Simon Gerovich, the former Goldman Sachs trader who engineered the company’s pivot from hotel management to crypto accumulation, is now racing to patch up the damage and raise billions to keep buying. On Wednesday, Metaplanet announced plans to raise $884 million by selling shares overseas. That’s just the start. Tomorrow, at an extraordinary general meeting in Tokyo, shareholders will vote on whether to allow the company to issue 555 million preferred shares, which could raise up to ¥555 billion ($3.8 billion). If approved, this would become one of the largest single Bitcoin-buying authorizations by a public company in Japan. The company aims to hold 100,000 BTC by the end of 2026, then double that by 2027. Gerovich loses momentum as flywheel funding stalls Simon’s biggest problem right now is that his original financing method, the so-called flywheel, has basically stopped turning. That structure was built on a stock acquisition agreement with Evo Fund, an affiliate of Evolution Financial Group. It allowed Evo to buy shares through moving strike warrants, a setup where the price adjusts over time based on where Metaplanet’s stock is trading. When the shares went up, Evo could buy in low, sell high, and hand Metaplanet the difference to buy more Bitcoin. That model worked well, until the stock crashed. “The flywheel has slowed,” said Mark Chadwick, a former Jefferies analyst now writing for SmartKarma. Evo now has no incentive to exercise those warrants, which means less capital flowing in. Simon admitted as much, saying Metaplanet paid Evo “almost zero” in fees for the deals, but that advantage is now useless. Evo declined to comment. Since June 30, Metaplanet’s Bitcoin holdings have grown less than 50%, down sharply from the 160% spike logged in the two months prior. The stock collapse has also flattened what’s known as the Bitcoin premium, the gap between the value of the company and the value of its Bitcoin. In June, Metaplanet’s market cap was eight times higher than its BTC stash. As of this week, it’s barely 2x. That ratio matters. If the company’s value slips too close to its Bitcoin, any equity sale starts diluting shareholder exposure. Simon doesn’t want to keep selling equity under those conditions. He’s calling the preferred shares a “defensive mechanism” to raise capital without hurting common shareholders. “If our stock continues to fall, theoretically, to the value of our Bitcoin, we don’t really want to be selling equity,” he said. Trump family joins the Bitcoin vote in Tokyo To prepare for the vote, Metaplanet has suspended all Evo-related exercises between September 3 and September 30. Chadwick said the freeze “clears the path for subsequent preferred share issuance.” The new preferreds will carry a maximum 6% dividend, capped at 25% of the value of Metaplanet’s Bitcoin stash. Japan hasn’t seen much of this kind of instrument before, but Michael Saylor’s Strategy Inc. has made heavy use of them in the U.S. to load up on Bitcoin. And here comes the politics. Eric Trump is flying into Tokyo for the shareholder meeting, since becoming an adviser to Metaplanet and has already been granted 3.3 million shares via acquisition rights. There are now more than 170 public companies holding Bitcoin, with combined holdings valued above $111 billion, according to BitcoinTreasuries.net. Strategy Inc. sits at the top with around 630,000 BTC. Metaplanet is currently in seventh place with 18,991 tokens, valued at roughly $2.1 billion. But those numbers only matter if the company can keep buying. Simon wants Metaplanet to stay in the game. But Benoist made it clear : “There isn’t infinite capital available. So I think everyone needs to ask themselves, when does this end?” Sign up to Bybit and start trading with $30,050 in welcome gifts
