Metaplanet sold 10,000 BTC in the third quarter and repurchased 11,000 BTC. The Tokyo-listed vault company disclosed that these were deliberately arranged transactions aimed at proving to credit rating agencies that it has both the capability and the willingness to liquidate Bitcoin.
The net result was an increase of 1,000 BTC, bringing the group's holdings as of September 30 to 44,000 BTC. The data is from BitcoinTreasuries.
CEO Simon Gerovich wrote on X: "Rating agencies and credit investors ask a question of a Bitcoin company: Can these Bitcoins be converted into cash to fulfill obligations, and will they do so? We have answered this question with concrete actions."
The logic in this document is that, although Bitcoin has liquidity, what rating agencies and bond investors are truly concerned about is not just whether the asset can be sold, but also whether the issuer will actually sell it when the debt matures. Metaplanet did not stop at mere verbal statements; instead, it used a real transaction to prove it.
As a result, the amount of Bitcoin sold by the company exceeded the principal of all its outstanding bonds, loans, and other interest-bearing liabilities, and the proceeds were held in cash. The related debts were not repaid and continued to exist under the original terms. By the end of the quarter, its liabilities, after deducting cash and US dollar-stabilized coins, amounted to 122.4 billion yen, while the proceeds from the sales were 124.7 billion yen.
Metaplanet mentioned "a previously announced credit rating of a foreign peer issuer" as a precedent, stating that this indicates that if an issuer refuses or is unwilling to sell its Bitcoin, such assets may hardly be given any weight in credit assessments. The company did not name that particular issuer. In October 2025, S&P assigned a credit rating to Strategy B – the first rating ever granted to a Bitcoin custodian company. One of the reasons for this was the lower liquidity of the US dollar, and S&P warned that a market downturn might force the company to sell Bitcoin at low prices.
Strategy Later on, they went even further. In June, the company approved Digital Credit Capital Framework, allowing the sale of up to $1.25 billion in assets to support cash reserves, dividends, and share repurchases; by August, they had sold 6,948 BTC, cashing in about $432.5 million. The company's chairman, Michael Saylor, also adjusted his statement to say that he "never sells net" Bitcoin, rather than "never sells" it at all. Thereafter, Strategy resumed buying Bitcoin and surpassed its previous record for highest holdings later last month.
The intentions of both are different: Strategy sells coins in order to fulfill an obligation, whereas Metaplanet sells coins to prove that they are capable of doing so, and then holds the cash to buy back more Bitcoin than they sold. This approach incurs costs. Metaplanet sold coins at an average price of 12.47 million yen each and bought them back at an average price of 13.63 million yen each, which is about 9% higher; therefore, the net increase of 1,000 coins BTC came at a cost of 25.2 billion yen, with the repurchase price being close to 13.60 million yen per coin.
Since these coins were purchased at a price higher than the selling price, this disposal resulted in a capital loss under U.S. tax regulations. The company estimates that the deductible deferred tax assets of its subsidiaries under the U.S. holding company amount to approximately $97 million. However, this figure is still preliminary and unaudited, and it may not necessarily be recognized. Since Metaplanet measures Bitcoin at fair value, this loss will not result in a new accounting loss.
The company stated that it plans to strive for a credit rating in the future, and its Bitcoin Income Generation business has recorded revenue for eight consecutive quarters. Gerovich mentioned that these holdings have made Metaplanet the second-largest listed Bitcoin vault company in the world, and referred to this strategy as "never merely aimed at hoarding Bitcoin."
He also announced a Net Interest Income Strategy, stating that it "aims to create a recurring source of income and reduce our effective cost of capital." This strategy is being pursued in parallel with the pending Superplanet transaction and the construction of Metaplanet Securities. Gerovich describes it as a unified effort towards becoming a bitcoin-based financial institution.
This quarter also saw a further slowdown in the pace of increased holdings. Metaplanet increased its holdings by 2,823 BTC in the second quarter, which was already a cooling down from the beginning of the year; the net increase in the third quarter was about one-third of that of the previous quarter.
