Metaplanet – Japanese Public Company Buying Bitcoin as a Treasury Reserve Asset
Metaplanet is a publicly traded company in Japan that has set Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset. You can read about it here. You will have to click on their link to their “official disclosure” or you can link directly to the PDF of the official disclosure here.
I highly recommend everyone reads this. It lays out in simple, clear language, the benefits to the company of buying bitcoin as their treasury reserve asset. Most of their reasoning applies to individuals also. I’d like to repost it here directly, but they have requested no reproductions. I have emailed them asking if it’s possible to repost it and will if they allow it. But if not, you can read at the link above. It’s only a 3 page document.
Metaplanet is the first public company in Japan I am aware of that has started using Bitcoin as it’s treasury reserve asset. But it wasn’t the first worldwide and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
Finally, El Salvador is the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. It is also committed to buying 1 bitcoin a day. You can follow directly in their bitcoin address.
Again, it was the first ,but I doubt it will be the last.
At this link is a list of all companies holding bitcoin. The above lists are more recent companies and companies that are actively proclaiming that they are accumulating more bitcoin aggressively.
There are about 8 billion (8,000,000,000) people in the world.
According to Kiplinger, globally there are about 59 million millionaires.
59,000,000/8,000,000,000 = 0.007375 = 0.7375% of people in the world are millionaires. So less than 1% of people are millionaires.
If you divided the 21 million (21,000,000) bitcoin among the 8 billion people
21,000,000/8,000,000,000 = 0.002625
0.002625 x $60,000/btc = $157.50
You only need to buy $157.50 worth of bitcoin to get “your share” today.
There are 21 million bitcoin that will ever be made.
There are 59 million millionaires. So it’s not possible for every millionaire to have 1 bitcoin.
If we divide the 21 million bitcoin by 59 million millionaires we get
21/59 = 0.35593220 btc per millionaire.
0.35593220 x $60,000/btc = $21,355.93 if every millionaire wanted to get “their share” of bitcoin and it was only split among millionaires.
If we go down to units of 0.1 bitcoin then 210 million people could own 0.1 bitcoin.
That is still only
210,000,000 people/ 8,000,000,000 people = 0.02625 = 2.625% of people would have 0.1 bitcoin.
0.1 bitcoin x $60k/bitcoin = $6,000 to buy 0.1 bitcoin today.
If I was someone with no bitcoin today I’d think hard about setting a goal of getting to 0.1 bitcoin.
The market capitalization of Gold is $16,590,000,000,000 ($16.59 Trillion) as of 8-11-2024 when I write this. Note that this changes daily as the price of gold fluctuates and as more gold is mined each year.
If bitcoin was to attaining the same market capitalization
$16,590,000,000,000/21,000,000 bitcoin = $790,000 per bitcoin
$790,000 x 0.1 bitcoin = $79,000
If bitcoin was to reach a value of $10 million per Bitcoin then 0.1 bitcoin would be worth $1 million.
Plenty of people have made a prediction in the millions for the future price of bitcoin. You will have to do research for yourself to determine if you think this is reasonable. But I would encourage you to be inquisitive about why people are prediction such a high price for Bitcoin.
This isn’t all to tell you you have to buy bitcoin. But it’s to encourage you to look into why many people think bitcoin has value.
There is not much bitcoin and we are still early as far as world wide adoption. You don’t need to buy much (0.1 bitcoin = $6k today) to potentially have $1 million in the future.
Of course, only buy as much as you are able to lose! Many people are able to have a risky bet of $6k and if it did happen to go to $0 (which is of course a possibility) they’d still be fine.
But if that is not you then definitely DON’T buy bitcoin.
But if you are a person who has sufficient assets, you might try thinking about why so many people have such a high conviction in bitcoin.
El Salvador, a tiny country, is buying almost 1 full day’s worth of new bitcoin mined each year. Imagine how many other countries and companies could start buying this soon?
I’ve already shared with this post, how many companies and pension funds have started buying bitcoin this year.
I suspect this won’t be the last pension to buy bitcoin, especially since “The Arizona State Senate is considering a proposal to encourage the Arizona State Retirement System (ASRS) and the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System (PSPRS) to explore the inclusion of Bitcoin ETFs in their investment portfolios.”
Also, Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), the world’s largest pension fund by assets under management, announced that it is seeking information on “illiquidity assets,” including bitcoin, as part of its exploration into potential new investments.
In addition to various pension funds, more companies have started using bitcoin as their treasury reserve asset.
The Japanese company, Metaplanet, has set bitcoin as it’s treasury reserve asset.
The Metaplanet, treasury, was christened with the 1 billion Japanese Yen (worth approximately $6.5 million) injection into Bitcoin by the former. Metaplanet said it is set to make Bitcoin its treasury asset moving forward. It said it will start making Bitcoin bets to mimic the related embrace of the coin by American business intelligence and software firm MicroStrategy.
Another company, Semler Scientific, Inc. (Nasdaq: SMLR), a pioneer in developing and marketing technology products and services to healthcare providers to combat chronic diseases, announced today that its board of directors has adopted bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset. In addition, Semler Scientific announced that it has purchased 581 bitcoins for an aggregate amount of $40 million, inclusive of fees and expenses.
The pioneer company of this strategy, Microstrategy, has also Acquired 11.9K More Bitcoin for $786M in June 2024. This is after in March 2024, the company added 9,245 BTC for $623 million after raising money in a similar debt issuance.
In addition to launching 12 Bitcoin Spot ETFs in the USA in January 2024, other countries are continuing to also launch Bitcoin Spot ETF. Australia was the latest.
Finally, some interesting nation state interest has been shown in Bitcoin.
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, has been reelected for a 2nd 5 year term. He made bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador in 2021. No country has followed, yet. But there have been many positive developments since then in El Salvador. It seems only a matter of time before another country makes it legal tender.
Perhaps Argentina?
During an exchange on X (formerly Twitter), he (Argentina’s President) declared: “There will be a free competition of currencies, so if you wish to use Bitcoin, there will be no problem.”
Atlas Shrugged is a 1,000+ page novel that most people will never read, so I don’t feel bad “spoiling” it here. An important part of the book centers around the question “Who is John Galt?”
It turns out John Galt is an inventor who is tired of having his work stolen, taxed or taken advantage of by the government and society.
As a result John Galt organizes a protest of sorts, by hard working people. They all physically withdraw to Galt’s Gulch, a hidden valley where they set up their own society. They are all productive and trade value for value. They don’t take advantage of each other and they don’t print new money from a central bank to dilute the value that others have worked to store!
Bitcoin, in principle and in action, is a way for smart people to create their own productive society alongside the current society. We don’t need to physically withdraw ourselves. We merely need to withdraw our productive capacity and wealth from the system. You simply do this by buying some bitcoin and poof! You have entered the secret society where value is preserved!
Why would you want to enter this society though? Ask yourself “If I want to save $100 today to spend in 2 years how do I do that?”
It is actually a MUCH harder question to answer than it seems at first glance.
Sure you can just put a $100 bill under your mattress but as we have experienced in the last 2 years, you could lose 10% a year or more, and that is just in the USA. In places like argentina (until recently) you could see inflation of 100% a year meaning prices double each year. You could put it in the stock market, which has a 75% chance of being up any 1 year. But it also has a chance of going down. You could buy a bond but with changing interest rates it’s hard to know if you would actually have the same amount of money next year or not!
You could buy gold, but short term it has trading fees in and out and might be up or down in any 2 year period. There is just no really good way to store value! This is all due to central banks and governments printing more money everyday!
As they print more money, the cash you hold becomes less valuable!
People just accept that this is the way things have to be. But it is not! Bitcoin has the potential to be an asset that slowly gains value every year. There is a fixed amount of bitcoin ever to be created, 21 million. These 21 million bitcoins measure the value of all goods in the world. As there is more abundance the value of the fixed amount of bitcoin continues to increase!
Many of the smart, productive, people that I know have purchased at least some bitcoin to join the community. They purchase goods and services from each other in bitcoin. You too can join this exclusive community of productive, smart people. Shoot me an email or leave a comment asking any questions you have about bitcoin!
Why do I spend so much time reading about Bitcoin and writing about Bitcoin and telling others about Bitcoin? I do it because I want the world to be a better place. Historically, I have given money to many charities to try to make the world a better place. I think that is still a good thing to do. But I’ve always wondered why the world is so messed up in the first place? Many things don’t seem to work.
At a more naive point in my life I told a friend “I want to work to get rid of money.” Because I had this feeling that somehow money was making the world a worse place. I have obviously grown in my thinking immensely since then. I now see money as the clear tool it is to foster trade and specialization. Money is actually imperative to a functioning society. Trade and specialization increase efficiency and make the world a more abundant place.
Unfortunately, the money we have is not functional itself. There are over 100 fiat currencies in the world, Yen, Yuan, USD, Euro, and a hundred more. So while there is more abundance for some, the abundance is actually concentrated and many are exploited.
Each currency is dysfunctional in the same way. New units are created everyday, reducing the value of each existing Dollar, Euro, Yen, etc. It is no wonder that there are so many issues in the world when an entity, (the Government) is able to print money and manipulate the market to purchase as much as they want for any pet project that a politician has.
Just 1 example that I am highly against is Social Security. I went through and created a hypothetical person who started working in 1984 at the age of 25 (after being born in 1959).
If that person started making $10k in 1984 that would be equivalent to $30k/year in 2024. I gave this person a 3% raise a year. You can see that in the “income column” below. So this person would have ended working in 2024 with a salary of $32k/year (being 65 years old).
The next column shows the 12.5%/year that this person + their employer is paying into Social Security. After 40 years this person would have paid $98k into Social Security. I went through and put all the earnings data into the Social Security website benefit calculator, found here.
It provided an estimate of $1,378/month or $16,536/year.
I provided an alternative column, where you would instead take that 12.5%/year and invest that in the S&P 500 for 40 years.
As of January 26, 2024, the S&P 500’s price is 4,890.97. If you invested $100 in the S&P 500 at the beginning of 1984, you would have about $6,606.25 at the end of 2023, assuming you reinvested all dividends. This is a return on investment of 6,506.25%, or 11.14% per year. This person would have $1,074,860.37 in their 401k. They could safely withdraw $42,944/year from this (4%) as well as having a portfolio worth $1 million dollars! This is making a relatively low $30k per year equivalent for 40 years!
But most people I know who have made $30k a year for 40 years do not have a million dollar portfolio. Why is that?
It’s because they are unable to invest 12% of their salary a year, because it is required to go to the government and the Social Security Fund. This is robbing millions of workers of $25k/year in their retirement.
And input the dollar amount in the table for each year to find the benefit.
This is bad enough for a $30k/year equivalent worker. The more money you make though, the worse of a deal Social Security is. This is because of the “knee points” in the Social Security return table. The more you pay in, the less you get out. https://retireby40.org/early-retirement-impact-social-security-benefit/
While Social Security being a terrible return on your money is something of a first world problem, there are plenty of other instances of money losing value in other countries that really hurts people in those countries.
You can read from Alex Gladstein to learn about some of those.
“The rate of inflation in the U.S. is paltry compared to many other countries worldwide. The chief strategy officer for the Human Rights Foundation, Alex Gladstein highlighted this issue on Monday in a series of tweets. Gladstein is also a bitcoin (BTC) proponent and has been an evangelist for the leading crypto asset for quite some time.
“Many might think that extreme inflation is a rare occurrence in today’s modern world,” Gladstein said to his 27,000 Twitter followers on Monday. “That’s simply not the case. There are 1.2 billion people currently living in countries experiencing double or triple-digit inflation,” Gladstein insisted.”
F.A. Hayek in 1984: “I don’t believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can’t take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can’t stop.”
First 15 minutes of the podcast “Why Bitcoin Makes The World Better – The Bitcoin Layer”- I think this is a great 15 minute video to learn about “why Bitcoin” if you aren’t sure what “problem Bitcoin is trying to solve”.
Full episode – Why Bitcoin Makes The World Better – The Bitcoin Layer
Inflation/money printing by the government is a hidden tax, or more nefariously, theft of your savings.
I received the below email from a coworker related to this home for sale.
I was walking the dog tonight and there are several new houses down the street. I looked up what they go for. There is a video of it on the page, it’s a just a house. Nothing huge, with some basement finished. – coworker
I shared the below picture with this coworker. If you are measuring the world in USD then things are getting more expensive. But if you are measuring in Bitcoin, things are getting cheaper, as Jeff Booth explains in the initial Youtube video I shared above.
Below is the rest of my reply to this coworker.
You could always try to put multiple families together in one house, as times will get desperate. That would be the historic solution. And as you said, as people are poorer, they will just have to do it again.
There are plenty of very poor both in the USA and abroad already living this way.
As referenced from the trip I just got back from India from.
Most of the world is ALREADY poor. The USA has benefited from being able to export inflation to the rest of the world for the last 50 years.
We do this by everyone having to buy USD to buy oil. Then every country has a huge pile of US treasuries/dollars. Then we print more. Printing money is effectively stealing value from people who hold dollars. That is why NO ONE ever wants to have cash for longer than they have to.
Don’t you think that’s kind of crazy that no one actually wants US dollars “money”?
We buy bonds, gold, real estate, stocks, anything to store the value because we know that dollars lose value over time. It’s wild!
It’s even more obvious in countries like Argentina or Turkey where they have REALLY awful money. But our money also sucks for preserving value over time.
It all started with 1971 and removing the gold backing of the USD. Well really that started in 1930 with executive order 6102 which the government confiscated people’s gold. Paid them $20.67/oz of gold. Then repriced the dollar to $35/oz! they literally stole $15 worth for every oz of gold they took. It is crazy!
So I’m just saying you are noticing the results, extremely high home prices. Things getting more expensive. I am telling you there is a clear history to how we got here. And there is literally 1 solution to this problem. Well 2 but 1 will never happen.
If the US government quit over spending and printing new dollars that would fix it. But that will NEVER happen. So the alternate solution is to save in a currency that has a maximum limit, 21 million bitcoin.
If we DON’T support the bitcoin network we will continue down this path of everything getting more expensive. I have read so many books about the history of money and governments messing with money. It always happens this way.
The Romans debased their money, see below.
See quote below.
I really encourage you to learn more about bitcoin. It is our only hope.
Super short book, 2 hours on audible, but it’s really great.
The Bullish Case for Bitcoin Paperback – May 8, 2021
by Vijay Boyapati (Author)
F.A. Hayek in 1984: “I don’t believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can’t take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can’t stop.”
I wrote a letter to Joni Ernst (and Chuck Grassley) about Bitcoin that you can find here. I have posted Joni’s reply and then my reply to her, trying to correct the many incorrect things she noted in her letter (or her email reply person’s letter). I understand why most people dont’ waste their time contacting their politicians. You never get a straight answer. But unfortunately, beyond voting them out, which is nearly impossible to do as most politicians stay in once elected, the only thing we can do is contact them to try to educate them on topics and encourage others to contact them also. That is why I post my emails with politicians, so others can just copy/paste send them, if they want, to show our politicians that it’s a topic people care about, without making others spend time writing a letter.
Thank you for reaching out to me regarding digital asset regulation. It is important for me to hear from folks in Iowa on this rapidly evolving topic.
Whether it is Bitcoin, central bank digital currencies, or digital currency exchanges like FTX, digital assets have been a big topic of conversation in Washington. Cryptocurrencies can create new avenues for financial transactions, investments, and other economic activity given they do not rely on a government’s central bank. While digital assets offer new possibilities, there are legitimate concerns we must also address.
For example, Bitcoin is among the most popular cryptocurrencies, but we do not know who created it or how much of it exists. These uncertainties raise questions as to how legitimate Bitcoin can be as a currency. Further, cryptocurrencies are volatile. We have seen currencies become extremely valuable, and then, in the blink of an eye, lose their value all-together. This volatility raises questions around the extent to which cryptocurrencies may need to be regulated in some form or fashion so as to create more stability for investors.
Additionally, the decentralized nature of digital assets create potential risks related to fraud and illicit activities. We have already seen how bad actors across the world take advantage of the secrecy digital currencies provide in order to commit crimes, fund terrorism, or evade sanctions.
However, there is much benefit to be had from greater use of technology in the financial system. Cryptocurrencies do open doors for people who may not otherwise have access to capital. Though substantially distinct from digital currencies, the Federal Reserve recently unveiled its new FedNow service to help give people and businesses instant access to their money when they transfer it from account to account.
As we continue to flesh out the use of digital currencies and technology in finance, we must strike the right balance between fostering innovation, protecting individuals, and limiting the ability of bad actors to abuse the system.
You may be interested to know, this year’s National Defense Authorization Act included a provision to tighten oversight of financial institutions working with cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. By instituting regulatory clarity while weeding out bad actors, financial institutions can better ensure digital assets are not improperly used. This is just one of many crucial provisions in the annual defense bill that bolsters our national security and sends a clear sign of strength to our adversaries.
Thank you again for reaching out to my office, and please know that I am closely monitoring this situation as it develops. Please feel free to share any additional insights or concerns you may have regarding digital assets as I always enjoy hearing from Iowans.
Sincerely,
Joni K. Ernst
United States Senator
My reply is below.
Senator –
Thank you for your reply. I wanted to point out that you didn’t really address any of the specific topics I noted and you even shared some incorrect factual information. It concerns me when my elected Senator (or their email writer/advisor) is so wrong on a very basic topic.
It is obvious that this is your canned bitcoin/crypto currency response. I want to emphasize to you there is a fundamental difference between bitcoin and “cryptocurrency”
You can read about the differences in this short blog post .
I also asked you to to learn from Alex Gladstein about the human rights benefits that Bitcoin provides. He has already tried to speak to congress on this.You did not mention that at all.
Are you not interested in the plight of those fleeing authoritarian regimes?
You did mention, unprompted that “Bitcoin is among the most popular cryptocurrencies, but we do not know who created it or how much of it exists.”
While it is true the inventor, Satoshi Nakamato, is unknown, we do know that there will only be 21 million bitcoin ever. This is ingrained in the code.
This is unlike the amount of US dollars of which we truly can’t know how many will ever exist. Every year the US government prints trillions more in new dollars.
While Republicans pay lip service to the budget deficit when Democrats hold the presidency, historically, Republican presidents run even larger budget deficits than Democrats! You are right to fight against deficits but I believe you do it only in word for votes. I don’t believe you have any personal conviction to reduce the deficit.
I encourage you to talk to your fellow Senator, Cynthia Lumis. She seems to understand Bitcoin.
I have written the below open letter to my Iowa representatives about Bitcoin. I have also emailed it to them with a link to this post so they are able to get to the links below. I encourage you to go to your own representatives websites and email them this also.
“Warren’s bill, the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act, aims to solve a problem that no one has. It that would classify nearly all crypto industry participants — from wallet providers to miners to validators — as financial institutions, subjecting them to the onerous compliance regime of the Bank Secrecy Act. Under this bill, a teenager running a bitcoin mining rig in his basement could be subject to the same compliance burdens as JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.
But wallet providers, miners, and validators are not banks. They do not hold custody of assets. They certainly should not be collecting or storing the sensitive personal financial information of individual users of an asset. They merely provide infrastructure — the open-source software and computing power to help secure the network. Much like Microsoft, which also supplies a lot of software and cybersecurity products to financial institutions, they are not financial institutions.
It would be impossible for the industry to comply with Warren’s requirements, and she knows this. The point of her bill is not to improve national security or stop money laundering, but to kill digital asset innovation.” – The Hill
Please also investigate Elizabeth Warren and her collusion with the banks and SEC. I am concerned she is not regulation in good faith.
I want to encourage, you, my representatives, to learn about Bitcoin and it’s many benefits.
I also want you to learn about the benefits of bitcoin mining and it’s ability to mitigate emissions. Specifically, please learn from Daniel Batten and his work into bitcoin mining reducing methane emissions.
It should be difficult (or impossible) to counterfeit.
It should be assayable (easy to verify it is what it says it is).
Bitcoin has all these things already.
It just needs to be “adopted as a treasury reserve asset” to quote Michael Saylor. Meaning people just need to choose to preserve their wealth in bitcoin, over time.
People don’t need to store all their money in bitcoin. A small percentage of people in the world own gold, but it still has value.
Bitcoin doesn’t need to be used in daily transactions to have value. Gold has value but it is not used in daily transactions.
Bitcoin doesn’t need to be “legal tender” to have value. Gold has value but it is not legal tender.
Money should only be used as money. If you give it some other use or value, it’s possible that it’s main use, as money, is twisted such that it’s monetary value gets distorted and it is no longer a good money!
I encourage you to ask questions about “What is Money?” What is the purpose of money? Why do we need money? What things does money need to do to make it useful?
MyWheelLife.com 