Metaplanet to buy 21K Bitcoin, Korean exchange users up 450%: Asia Express

Japan’s ‘MicroStrategy’ adopts personal 21 million plan for Bitcoin purchases

Metaplanet, a publicly traded Japanese agency typically known as “Asia’s MicroStrategy,” is elevating greater than 116 billion yen ($745 million) to develop its Bitcoin holdings.

On Jan. 28, the corporate introduced it had issued 21 million shares by way of shifting strike warrants, which grant buyers inventory acquisition rights with adjustable train costs. Whereas such warrants are usually issued at a reduction, Metaplanet’s providing doesn’t, setting the share value on the full closing worth on the pricing date.

The corporate claims that is the most important capital increase in Asian fairness markets devoted to Bitcoin purchases.

Metaplanet has set an formidable purpose to gobble up 21,000 Bitcoin by 2026, after reporting a 308% BTC yield in This autumn 2024. The corporate has amassed 1,761 Bitcoin since adopting MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin blueprint in April 2024 and plans to push that quantity to 10,000 by the top of 2025.

In line with Bitcoin Treasuries, Metaplanet is the Fifteenth-largest publicly traded Bitcoin investor globally. Below present rankings, 21,000 Bitcoin would assist the Japanese agency leapfrog over Riot Platforms because the world’s third-largest company Bitcoin holder.

MicroStrategy stays the undisputed chief in company Bitcoin holdings, with 471,107 Bitcoin value $49.6 billion. It added one other 10,107 BTC at a value of roughly $1.1 billion all through final week. It has introduced its personal “21/21 plan”, fundraising that targets $21 billion in fairness and $21 billion in fixed-income securities.

Trump sends South Koreans to crypto exchanges

South Korea’s 5 licensed cryptocurrency exchanges have reportedly seen a 4.5-fold surge in new account functions following Donald Trump’s victory over former Vice President Kamala Harris within the November US presidential election.

In line with information distributed to native media retailers by lawmaker Lee Hunseung, the exchanges averaged 108,695 new functions monthly from January to October. That quantity soared to 492,464 monthly in November and December.

In complete, 2.07 million new crypto buying and selling accounts have been registered in 2024, with almost half (47.6%) in simply the ultimate two months of the yr. Lawmaker Lee’s workplace additionally famous a big uptick in candidates aged 40 and above, who made up 47.5% of the brand new accounts.

South Korea stays a key participant in world crypto markets, with the Korean received rating as the highest fiat forex by industry-wide buying and selling quantity in early 2024. 

The nation’s crypto market is essentially retail-driven, as native tips make it tough for companies to commerce digital property. Nonetheless, regulators are weighing potential rule adjustments that would open the door to institutional buying and selling.

China’s AI celebrity DeepSeek chills Wall Avenue and Bitcoin

DeepSeek, a China-born AI app, shot to the highest of Apple’s App Retailer in a number of areas, together with the US, difficult the idea that prime AI fashions require high-powered chips —an {industry} dominated by Nvidia.

The shockwaves hit Wall Avenue exhausting as Nvidia led the plunge of US-based AI shares, dragging world markets down with them. Crypto wasn’t spared, with Bitcoin dipping under $100,000 for the primary time because the supposedly crypto-friendly US President Donald Trump took workplace.

As DeepSeek’s recognition soared, so did hypothesis and scams. At the least 75 malicious DeepSeek-themed tokens flooded the market on Jan. 27, in line with safety agency Blockaid. Some linked on to DeepSeek’s official web site and social media accounts regardless of the corporate saying that it had by no means launched a token.

One memecoin ballooned to nearly $50 million in market capitalization earlier than collapsing, mirroring a sample much like the latest Trump-themed memecoin frenzy.

In the meantime, questions have been raised on the validity of DeepSeek’s success, which claims to have matched OpenAI’s fashions with only a fraction of the fee.

US export restrictions bar Nvidia’s most superior AI chips from China, but DeepSeek claims to have educated its newest mannequin, DeepSeek-V3, on 2,048 Nvidia H800 GPUs, which is way fewer and fewer highly effective than the 16,000 H100 GPUs Meta used for Llama. DeepSeek insists it educated its AI mannequin with nearly $6 million in funding, a fraction of the billions backing OpenAI and its rivals.

Doubters like analysts at Bernstein declare DeepSeek’s AI manufacturing price is increased than marketed. Alexandr Wang, CEO of Scale AI, alleged that the corporate is utilizing Nvidia’s banned chips, although his claims stay unverified. 

Microsoft and OpenAI have reportedly launched an inner probe into whether or not information from OpenAI’s know-how stack was improperly accessed by a bunch linked to DeepSeek.

Bitcoin’s Lunar New 12 months rebound

Since DeepSeek spooked markets, Bitcoin has rebounded to above $100,000 in the course of the Lunar New 12 months interval fueled by buying and selling exercise within the East main the way in which, which digital asset companies agency Matrixport calls one of many persistently optimistic intervals for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin’s buying and selling quantity ratio is traditionally tilted towards the West, as IntoTheBlock information exhibits. However Japanese buying and selling hours closed the hole and scored a virtually even break up on the eve of Jan. 29, whereas surpassing Western buying and selling volumes on Lunar New 12 months.

The crypto {industry} additionally discovered different methods to rejoice the festivities different than simply buying and selling Bitcoin. In basic degenerate crypto vogue, merchants rushed to launch snake-themed tokens (a nod to the 12 months of the Snake), the sixth of the 12 Chinese language zodiac animals. And, as anticipated, most have already crashed.

In the meantime, crypto exchanges with sturdy ties to Asia embraced the Lunar New 12 months with airdrops modeled after the normal hongbao, or crimson packets. 

In Chinese language tradition, cash is given in crimson envelopes throughout celebrations just like the New 12 months, with the colour symbolizing prosperity and luck. Different Asian cultures comply with comparable traditions, and crypto exchanges have tailored by distributing “crypto crimson packets” to customers.

Hong Kong greenlights first batch of licenses in 2025

Hong Kong has issued its first cryptocurrency service supplier licenses of 2025 to YAX and PantherTrade.

The Securities and Futures Fee authorized the batch of functions, elevating the variety of licensed crypto buying and selling platforms within the metropolis to 9.

Till not too long ago, Hong Kong’s crypto market has been dominated by simply two exchanges: OSL and HashKey, the primary two to obtain approvals, with HashKey’s license granted in November 2022. The regulator then went almost two years with out issuing one other license earlier than approving Hong Kong Digital Belongings Change final October.

In the meantime, the SFC has warned buyers of rising crypto scams impersonating HashKey Change. The regulator not too long ago added 33 fraudulent web sites to its listing of suspicious crypto platforms.

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Yohan Yun

Yohan Yun is a multimedia journalist overlaying blockchain since 2017. He has contributed to crypto media outlet Forkast as an editor and has lined Asian tech tales as an assistant reporter for Bloomberg BNA and Forbes. He spends his free time cooking, and experimenting with new recipes.