UPDATED: METAPLANET SENT 10,270 BITCOIN TO AN EXCHANGE IN SIX DAYS — 24% OF THE STACK, $806 MILLION — AND SAID NOTHING
Metaplanet moved 139 coins six days ago. Then 3,331. Then 2,000. Then 4,800 more today. Add it up and 10,270 bitcoin — about $806 million — went from the company’s own storage to Coinbase Prime in under a week. That is roughly a quarter of a stack the company and its trackers put near 43,000 coins. Metaplanet has not explained it. It did disclose something on August 18: 2,100 coins and $2.5 million in cash going into Super League for about 95.7% of a Nasdaq-listed treasury vehicle called Superplanet. But that deal is pending, expected to close in the fourth quarter, and waiting on shareholder and regulatory approval in two countries. It is not this. So the guessing continues, and the guessing is what moves the stock. A treasury company’s one job is to make its holdings boring: you buy, you hold, you prove it, and the market stops asking. Metaplanet spent six days making its holdings interesting. The coins may be perfectly safe. The silence is the risk. Somebody else’s address is somebody else’s promise, and a promise is not a coin.
CORRECTION · MON AUG 31 · 6:10 PM ET. This story first ran as “29% of the 35,102 coins Cointelegraph reports it holds.” Metaplanet’s own August 18 disclosure values 2,100 coins at “approximately 4.9%” of its holdings, which implies about 42,900. The Block’s treasury page and CoinDesk both carry 43,000. Against 43,000, the week’s transfers are 24%, not 29%. The original figures are left above on purpose. Caught by K, who asked whether a Japanese company files the equivalent of an 8-K. It does, and the answer was on Metaplanet’s own investor page.
Cointelegraph · Mon Aug 31 · 9:15 AM ET