Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer believes investors are vastly underestimating the strategic importance of Metaplanet's recent acquisition of Siiibo Securities. In a report released on Monday, Palmer argued that the market has miscategorized the deal as a routine bolt-on expansion, when it actually provides the cornerstone for a pioneering bitcoin-backed fixed-income market in Japan.
Metaplanet closed its ¥2.1 billion (~$13 million) acquisition of the brokerage earlier this year, securing a Type-1 Financial Instrument Business Operator license—a credential that typically takes multiple quarters to obtain from scratch. According to Palmer's discussion with Metaplanet's Dylan LeClair, the acquisition gives the company the regulatory ability to structure and distribute securities, positioning it to bootstrap an entirely new capital market.
Rather than simply using the brokerage as a funding conduit for its own bitcoin purchases, Metaplanet intends to build a platform for what it calls "Bitbonds"—tokenized bonds collateralized by bitcoin, yielding approximately 4% to 6%. The longer-term roadmap includes moving these instruments on-chain with stablecoin settlement and developing a secondary market over the next few years. LeClair emphasized the vision as constructing "a new kind of financial institution from Japan, with bitcoin at its core."
This initiative extends Metaplanet's "Project Nova" strategy, which aims to transform the company from a passive bitcoin treasury into a builder of bitcoin-native financial infrastructure. The firm currently holds 43,000 BTC, valued at nearly $2.8 billion, making it the third-largest publicly traded bitcoin treasury. Palmer maintained a Buy rating and a ¥405 (~$2.47) price target on Metaplanet's stock, asserting that the market is still pricing the company as a mere bitcoin proxy while overlooking its ambitions to invent a bitcoin-backed bond market.
