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Japan’s ‘MicroStrategy’ adopts own 21 million plan for Bitcoin purchases
Metaplanet, a publicly traded Japanese firm often called “Asia’s MicroStrategy,” is raising more than 116 billion yen ($745 million) to expand its Bitcoin holdings.
On Jan. 28, the company announced it had issued 21 million shares through moving strike warrants, which grant investors stock acquisition rights with adjustable exercise prices. While such warrants are typically issued at a discount, Metaplanet’s offering does not, setting the share price at the full closing value on the pricing date.
The company claims this is the largest capital raise in Asian equity markets dedicated to Bitcoin purchases.
Metaplanet has set an ambitious goal to gobble up 21,000 Bitcoin by 2026, after reporting a 308% BTC yield in Q4 2024. The company has amassed 1,761 Bitcoin since adopting MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin blueprint in April 2024 and plans to push that number to 10,000 by the end of 2025.
According to Bitcoin Treasuries, Metaplanet is the 15th-largest publicly traded Bitcoin investor globally. Under current rankings, 21,000 Bitcoin would help the Japanese firm leapfrog over Riot Platforms as the world’s third-largest corporate Bitcoin holder.
MicroStrategy remains the undisputed leader in corporate Bitcoin holdings, with 471,107 Bitcoin worth $49.6 billion. It added another 10,107 BTC at a price of approximately $1.1 billion throughout last week. It has announced its own “21/21 plan”, fundraising that targets $21 billion in equity and $21 billion in fixed-income securities.
Trump sends South Koreans to crypto exchanges
South Korea’s five licensed cryptocurrency exchanges have reportedly seen a 4.5-fold surge in new account applications following Donald Trump’s victory over former Vice President Kamala Harris in the November US presidential election.
According to data distributed to local media outlets by lawmaker Lee Hunseung, the exchanges averaged 108,695 new applications per month from January to October. That number soared to 492,464 per month in November and December.
In total, 2.07 million new crypto trading accounts were registered in 2024, with nearly half (47.6%) in just the final two months of the year. Lawmaker Lee’s office also noted a significant uptick in applicants aged 40 and above, who made up 47.5% of the new accounts.
South Korea remains a key player in global crypto markets, with the Korean won ranking as the top fiat currency by industry-wide trading volume in early 2024.
The country’s crypto market is largely retail-driven, as local guidelines make it difficult for corporations to trade digital assets. However, regulators are weighing potential rule changes that could open the door to institutional trading.
China’s AI superstar DeepSeek chills Wall Street and Bitcoin
DeepSeek, a China-born AI app, shot to the top of Apple’s App Store in multiple regions, including the US, challenging the assumption that top AI models require high-powered chips —an industry dominated by Nvidia.
The shockwaves hit Wall Street hard as Nvidia led the plunge of US-based AI shares, dragging global markets down with them. Crypto wasn’t spared, with Bitcoin dipping below $100,000 for the first time since the supposedly crypto-friendly US President Donald Trump took office.
As DeepSeek’s popularity soared, so did speculation and scams. At least 75 malicious DeepSeek-themed tokens flooded the market on Jan. 27, according to security firm Blockaid. Some linked directly to DeepSeek’s official website and social media accounts despite the company announcing that it had never launched a token.
One memecoin ballooned to almost $50 million in market capitalization before collapsing, mirroring a pattern similar to the recent Trump-themed memecoin frenzy.
Meanwhile, questions have been raised on the validity of DeepSeek’s success, which claims to have matched OpenAI’s models with just a fraction of the cost.
US export restrictions bar Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips from China, yet DeepSeek claims to have trained its latest model, DeepSeek-V3, on 2,048 Nvidia H800 GPUs, which is far fewer and less powerful than the 16,000 H100 GPUs Meta used for Llama. DeepSeek insists it trained its AI model with just about $6 million in funding, a fraction of the billions backing OpenAI and its rivals.
Doubters like analysts at Bernstein claim DeepSeek’s AI production cost is higher than advertised. Alexandr Wang, CEO of Scale AI, alleged that the company is using Nvidia’s banned chips, though his claims remain unverified.
Microsoft and OpenAI have reportedly launched an internal probe into whether data from OpenAI’s technology stack was improperly accessed by a group linked to DeepSeek.
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Bitcoin’s Lunar New Year rebound
Since DeepSeek spooked markets, Bitcoin has rebounded to above $100,000 during the Lunar New Year period fueled by trading activity in the East leading the way, which digital asset services firm Matrixport calls one of the consistently positive periods for Bitcoin.
Bitcoin’s trading volume ratio is historically tilted toward the West, as IntoTheBlock data shows. But Eastern trading hours closed the gap and scored a nearly even split on the eve of Jan. 29, while surpassing Western trading volumes on Lunar New Year.
The crypto industry also found other ways to celebrate the festivities other than just trading Bitcoin. In classic degenerate crypto fashion, traders rushed to launch snake-themed tokens (a nod to the Year of the Snake), the sixth of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals. And, as expected, most have already crashed.
Meanwhile, crypto exchanges with strong ties to Asia embraced the Lunar New Year with airdrops modeled after the traditional hongbao, or red packets.
In Chinese culture, money is given in red envelopes during celebrations like the New Year, with the color symbolizing prosperity and luck. Other Asian cultures follow similar traditions, and crypto exchanges have adapted by distributing “crypto red packets” to users.
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Hong Kong greenlights first batch of licenses in 2025
Hong Kong has issued its first cryptocurrency service provider licenses of 2025 to YAX and PantherTrade.
The Securities and Futures Commission approved the batch of applications, raising the number of licensed crypto trading platforms in the city to nine.
Until recently, Hong Kong’s crypto market has been dominated by just two exchanges: OSL and HashKey, the first two to receive approvals, with HashKey’s license granted in November 2022. The regulator then went nearly two years without issuing another license before approving Hong Kong Virtual Assets Exchange last October.
Meanwhile, the SFC has warned investors of rising crypto scams impersonating HashKey Exchange. The regulator recently added 33 fraudulent websites to its list of suspicious crypto platforms.
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This article first appeared at Cointelegraph.com News
