Metaplanet wants to turn its bitcoin stack into a credit market. On Friday, Japan’s largest bitcoin mining company said it has opened a joint study with three partners to build a product tokenized loan with the help of bitcoin, a step that pushes the old company easy to accumulate wealth and to the position of a financial platform.
The study team brings together Metaplanet, the yen stablecoin provider JPYC, the security management platform Progmat, and Siiibo Securities, the official lending platform metaplanet. bought it last month for 2.1 billion yen, or about $13 million. Siiibo becomes Metaplanet Securities on July 13.
Four companies will investigate if bitcoin can serve as collateral for debt instruments that pay interest on a daily basis. Metaplanet lists this as something that is available in the United States but not in Japan.
Digitization, the company said, will allow the sale and renewal of these devices around the clock, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with rights management at the level of owners, pro-rata calculations controlled by software, and redemptions written in the public domain.
A loan backed by Bitcoin is a youth drug class. Public companies that own bitcoin use the asset as collateral for debt, and the offering pays dividends or interest. The design takes fixed income and turns it into a money-losing asset.
Metaplanet did not say how this started. “These four companies will review the challenges of product design, the need for proof-of-concept methods, and the ability to deliver in the future,” the company said. “At this time, nothing has been announced regarding delivery times, terms, production, product details, distribution channels, or contracts.”
Why Japan?
The competition is based on the differences in the Japanese credit market. That market nice large companies that can float government bonds. Medium-sized and large companies face low costs and operational burdens in issuing, selling, managing transactions, paying interest, and redeeming. Most of them are closed.
Digital credit, in Metaplanet’s speech, could open the door for small businesses. Onchain infrastructure can connect capital markets and blockchain platforms, cutting out manual labor, and giving issuers a way to raise money that bond sales haven’t. If it works, the Tokyo-based company will be able to raise money on a system that can be fixed at any time and track down whoever has the code.
Each partner brings one piece. Metaplanet and its securities will create products that combine bitcoin and credit, sell them to investors, customer inquiries, and manage the devices after they are released.
JPYC will test whether its yen-pegged stablecoin can move payments and redemptions through the system. Progmat will provide a layer of tokenization rules, which controls the ownership, the method of transfer, and wires the whole thing to the stablecoin payment system.
The division of labor maps to the whole community: the issuer and the distributor have a license, a fixed asset, and a token platform.
The main Metaplanet system
This study is in line with the approach taken by the company phones Project Nova, his plan to build a bitcoin-centric platform in Japan. The purchase of Siiibo gave Metaplanet registration as a Type I Financial Instruments Business Operator, a license in Japan required to manufacture and sell financial instruments to retail traders.
Siiibo, which was launched in 2019, hosts an online platform for corporate bonds and has sponsored more than 40 of the 100-plus offerings. Metaplanet acquires the portfolio, including approximately 250,000 shareholders for sale.
Simon Gerovich, President and CEO of Metaplanet, has made significant changes. “We see Bitcoin not as a storage asset, but as the foundation for the next generation of finance,” he said when the Siiibo deal was announced.
Metaplanet holds 43,000 BTC, which is approximately $2.47 billion. The way and Twenty One Capital are the top two shareholders.
Currently, the digital loan process and questions are four companies that want to study them. Whether it becomes a drug depends on the remaining proof-of-concept work. But the direction is clear: Metaplanet wants its bitcoin to do more than just sit on the web. It wants the money to register in the market.
