Japanese firm Metaplanet secures $6.8m loan to bolster Bitcoin holdings

Japanese investment firm Metaplanet has secured a 1 billion yen loan, the entire amount of which will be used to buy Bitcoin (BTC).

Details Metaplanet shared in an Aug. 8 post on X show that the lender is MMXX Ventures, which itself holds shares in Metaplanet. The loan term will run for six months starting Aug. 8 and will attract an interest rate of 0.1% per annum.

The Tokyo Exchange-listed company is expected to repay the collateral-free loan in one lump sum after the loan period elapses.

Were Metaplanet to buy Bitcoin (BTC) right now, the loan amount, which amounts to $6.8 million at current exchange rates, could get it about 119 BTC, with one BTC currently priced at $57,170.

Metaplanet’s announcement comes only days after the investment company said it intended to raise $70 million through a stock rights offerings, with more than 80% of that amount earmarked for buying Bitcoin.

The loan and stock rights offerings are part of Metaplanet’s plan to grow its crypto holding, which is reportedly at 246 BTC, worth just north of $14 million. The company is looking to hedge its long-term growth by leveraging Bitcoin’s potential long-term appreciation, with some analysts predicting the cryptocurrency’s price could go as high as $1 million in the next decade.

This move is quite similar to what MicroStrategy has been doing in the last few years. The U.S. company currently holds more than 79,000 BTC, which is valued at about $4.5 billion. MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, on Aug. 7, revealed that he personally owns Bitcoin worth more than $1 billion, meaning he could hold as much as 20,000 BTC in his trove.

Meanwhile, the price of Bitcoin has gone up slightly in the last 24 hours. At the time of writing, it showed a 0.7% improvement from the previous day, and had registered a 24 hour trading volume of $43.5 billion, making it the second-most traded digital asset after Tether (USDT).