Metaplanet wants to turn its Bitcoin pile into a credit market. On Friday, Japan’s largest 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 treasury accumulation and toward the role of a financial platform.
The study group brings together Metaplanet, the issuer of the JPYC yen stablecoin, regulated security token platform Progmat, and Siibo Securities, the licensed broker Metaplanet. Bought last month For 2.1 billion yen, or about $13 million. Siiibo became Metaplanet Securities on July 13.
The four companies You will study Whether Bitcoin can be used as collateral for credit instruments that pay interest every day. Metaplanet frames this as a product that exists in the US but not Japan.
The company said that digitization will allow these instruments to be traded and settled around the clock, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with rights managed at the owner level, pro-rata interest calculations handled in software, and redemptions recorded in the general ledger.
Bitcoin-backed credit is Young product category. Public companies that hold Bitcoin use the asset as underlying collateral for debt offerings, and those offerings pay dividends or interest. The design takes a fixed balance of currency and turns it into a money disposer.
Metaplanet has been upfront about how early this is. “The four companies will study issues related to product design, the need for proof-of-concept initiatives, and the possibility of future release,” the company said. “At the moment, nothing has been determined regarding the timing of the release, terms, yield, product details, distribution methods or the form of cooperation.”
Why Japan?
The pitch is based on a gap in the Japanese debt market. That market Help yourself Large companies that can float public bonds. Medium-sized and growing companies face high costs and heavy operational burdens in terms of issuance, sales, investor management, interest payments and redemptions. Many of them remain closed.
According to Metaplanet, digital credit could open the door for these small businesses. Onchain infrastructure will bridge traditional capital markets and blockchain, cutting out manual labor, and giving issuers a path to raise money that selling public bonds didn’t offer them. If successful, a growth company in Tokyo could collect debt on a system that settles at any hour and tracks every holder of the token.
Each partner brings one piece. Metaplanet and its securities arm will design products that integrate bitcoin with credit, sell them to investors, answer customer questions, and manage the instruments after issuance.
JPYC will test whether its yen-pegged stablecoin is able to move payments and refunds through the system. Progmat will provide the structured tokenization layer, which tracks ownership, processes transfers, and delivers everything to the stable payment system.
The business is divided into a complete package: an issuer and distributor with a license, a settlement asset, and a token platform.
Metaplanet’s larger plan
The study fits into the company’s strategy Calls Project Nova, his plan to build a Bitcoin-centric financial platform in Japan. The Siiibo purchase granted Metaplanet a Type 1 Financial Instruments Business Operator Registration, a license required by Japan to regulate and sell financial products to retail investors.
Siiibo, founded in 2019, operates an online platform for privately placed corporate bonds and has backed more than 40 issuers across more than 100 offerings. Metaplanet posted record gains, as well as a shareholder base of about 250,000 investors for sale.
Simon Jerovich, President and CEO of Metaplanet, commented on this shift in stark terms. “We do not 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 holds 43,000 BTC, worth about $2.47 billion. strategy and Twenty One Capital are the two public shareholders ranked above it.
Currently, the digital credit plan consists of a set of questions and four companies you want to study. Whether it becomes a product depends on the work remaining to prove the concept. But the trend is clear: Metaplanet wants its bitcoin to do more than just stay on the balance sheet. It wants the currency to guarantee the market.
