Metaplanet wants to turn its bitcoin pile into a credit market. On Friday, Japan’s largest corporate bitcoin holder said it has opened a joint study with three partners to build tokenized credit products backed by bitcoin, a move that pushes the company beyond simple accumulation of treasury and toward the role of a financial platform.
The study group brings together Metaplanet, yen stablecoin issuer JPYC, regulated security token platform Progmat and Siiibo Securities, the licensed brokerage Metaplanet bought last month for 2.1 billion yen, or about $13 million. Siiibo will become Metaplanet Securities on July 13.
The four firms will investigate whether bitcoin can serve as collateral for credit instruments that pay interest every day. Metaplanet frames this as a product found in the US but not in Japan.
Digitization, the company said, would allow trading and settlement of these instruments around the clock, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with rights management at the holder level, pro-rata interest mathematics handled in software and redemptions recorded on a public ledger.
Bitcoin-backed credit is a young product class. Public companies that hold bitcoin use the asset as core collateral for debt offerings, and those offerings pay dividends or interest. The design takes a static coin balance and turns it into an instrument that ejects cash.
Metaplanet was straightforward about how early this is. “The four companies will explore issues in product design, the need for proof-of-concept initiatives and the possibility of future issuance,” the company said. “At this time, nothing has been determined regarding the timing of issuance, terms, dividends, product details, distribution methods or the form of cooperation.”
Why Japan?
The pitch rests on a hole in Japan’s debt market. This market favors large companies that can float public bonds. Medium-sized companies and growth companies face high costs and heavy operational burdens around issuance, sales, investor management, interest payments and redemptions. Many of them stay locked out.
Digital credit, according to Metaplanet, could open the door for the smaller companies. Onchain infrastructure would bridge traditional capital markets and blockchain rails, cutting down on manual labor and giving issuers a path to raise money that a public bond sale didn’t offer them. If it works, a growth company in Tokyo could raise debt on a system that runs at any time and tracks each holder in code.
Each partner brings a piece. Metaplanet and its securities arm will design the products that merge bitcoin with credit, sell them to investors, field customer questions and manage the instruments after issuance.
JPYC will test whether its yen-pegged stablecoin can move payments and redemptions through the system. Progmat will provide the regulated tokenization layer, which tracks ownership, processes transfers, and transfers it all to the stablecoin payment system.
The division of labor is mapped onto a full stack: an issuer and distributor with a license, a settlement asset and a token platform.
The Greater Plan of the Metaplanet
The investigation fits a strategy the company calls Project Nova, its plan to build a bitcoin-centric financial platform in Japan. The Siiibo purchase gave Metaplanet a Type I Financial Instruments Business Operator registration, the license Japan requires to structure and sell financial products to retail investors.
Founded in 2019, Siiibo operates an online platform for privately placed corporate bonds and has supported more than 40 issuers across more than 100 offerings. Metaplanet wins that track record, plus a shareholder base of around 250,000 investors to sell to.
Simon Gerovich, Metaplanet’s president and CEO, has put the shift in stark terms. “We don’t view Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset, but as the foundation for the next generation of financial ecosystems,” he said when the Siiibo deal was announced.
Metaplanet has 43,000 BTC worth about $2.47 billion. Strategy and Twenty One Capital are the two public holders ranked above it.
Currently, the digital credit plan is a set of questions and four companies willing to study them. Whether it becomes a product depends on the proof-of-concept work that remains. But the direction is clear: Metaplanet wants its bitcoin to do more than sit on a balance sheet. It wants the coin to draw a market.