Original author: TechFlow
It is said that the crypto alt season is in the stock market. Among them, Japans Metaplanet and the United States MicroStrategy, as representatives of Bitcoin reserve strategies, have recorded significant increases in their share prices.
As of June 25, 2025, Metaplanets stock price has risen by about 300% from the beginning of the year, with a market value of about 6 billion US dollars (854.8 billion yen); while MicroStrategys stock price has only risen by 35% in half a year, with a market value of about 105 billion.
Metaplanet is known as the Japanese version of MicroStrategy, but public data shows that its bitcoin reserves are only 11,111, far lower than MicroStrategys 590,000.
Comparing the two, Metaplanet has a lower market value and less Bitcoin reserves, but its stock price has risen more.
So, if we simply draw a conclusion - the lower the market value of a Bitcoin reserve company, the greater the potential for stock price growth, is this logic reasonable?
Yes, but also not right.
Looking only at the data on paper, this logic is certainly not a big problem, and it also applies to comparing large-cap coins with small-cap coins in the cryptocurrency circle.
But the uniqueness of Metaplanet is hidden in more financial data.
Metaplanet, a higher valuation premium
There are many comparative analyses of different crypto reserve companies on the market, but when all the data are put together, the key indicator is the valuation premium.
Last week, Primitive Ventures investment partner @YettaSing used a table to dramatically point out the difference in the markets valuation premium for the two companies.
For example, the mNAV indicator (Multiple of Net Asset Value) in the table below shows that Metaplanets mNAV is as high as 10.35, while MicroStrategys is only 2.10, a gap of nearly 5 times.
What does this 5-fold gap mean?
In laymans terms, mNAV is a measure of a companys valuation relative to the value of its Bitcoin assets. The higher the value, the more investors are willing to pay for the companys Bitcoin exposure.
Therefore, it can also become a sentiment indicator to some extent, reflecting the strength of the markets confidence in Bitcoin investment and related companies. Quantitatively speaking, this is equivalent to Metaplanet holding $1 in Bitcoin, and the stock market pays an additional premium of about $9.35, while MicroStrategy only pays $1.10.
In other words, participants in the Japanese stock market are more willing to buy Metaplanet shares than MicroStrategy in the US stock market.
We will not do further analysis on the other data in the table, but from this indicator alone, we can find that Metaplanet relies on small-scale Bitcoin reserves and high premiums, while MicroStrategy relies on huge assets to obtain a stable valuation.
However, with a gap of tens of times in Bitcoin reserves, Metaplanet has received a higher premium. Why is this? Is it just because Metaplanet is a smaller company?
Buying Metaplanet is equivalent to buying tax-free BTC
One difference from the cryptocurrency world is that a country’s stock market is more susceptible to the impact of its own economic environment and policies. The Japanese economy provides a unique environment for Metaplanet’s high premium.
In Japan, cryptocurrency trading income is classified as miscellaneous income and is subject to progressive tax rates up to 55% (including local taxes). This rate applies to gains from individual investors holding and selling cryptocurrencies directly, whether through exchanges or peer-to-peer transactions.
In contrast, capital gains tax on stock investments is only 20% (including local taxes).
In addition, Japan also has a favorable NISA program (Nippon Individual Savings Account), a tax-free account system designed to encourage personal savings and investments.
Under the NISA program, individual investors can invest up to 3.6 million yen (about 25,000 US dollars) per year and receive full tax exemption on capital gains and dividend income from this investment. From 2024, the investment limit of the NISA program will be further increased to 6 million yen, covering a wider range of investors.
That is to say, through the NISA plan, the income from investing in Metaplanets stocks can be completely tax-free within a certain range. This huge tax difference makes the cost of directly holding Bitcoin particularly high in the Japanese market.
Metaplanets Bitcoin Reserve strategy provides investors with a tax-optimized solution. By purchasing Metaplanet shares, investors can not only gain indirect exposure to Bitcoin, but also enjoy lower tax costs.
This tax advantage directly drives the market demand for Metaplanets shares and is also an important source of its valuation premium of 5 times that of MicroStrategy mentioned above.
In addition, Japans macroeconomic situation also provides support for Metaplanets valuation premium.
Japans debt-to-GDP ratio is as high as 235%, and the 30-year bond yield has climbed to 3.20%, showing the structural pressure in the bond market. In such a macro environment, investors are increasingly worried about the depreciation of the yen and inflation.
Metaplanets Bitcoin reserves are seen as a hedging tool that can both hedge against the risk of yen depreciation and provide value preservation in a domestic inflationary environment. This macro hedging demand further increases its market premium.
Secondly, the investor structure of Japans capital market is dominated by retail investors, while the US market is more dominated by institutional investors. Retail investors are more easily driven by policies and market sentiment, which may lead to a higher premium for Metaplanet.
In contrast, institutional investors in the US market pay more attention to fundamentals and asset size, which also explains why MicroStrategy’s core attraction is “huge Bitcoin reserves”, while Metaplanet’s base is “high premium and small scale”.
When environment becomes the new variable
Therefore, Metaplanets high valuation premium is not accidental, but a product of Japans unique policy environment. From tax policies to the NISA plan to the structural characteristics of the capital market, these factors together shape the high premium of its stocks.
It is actually impossible to analyze these contents by only looking at the amount of Bitcoin reserves and the companys market value; the stock market may be more concerned with local conditions and culture than the cryptocurrency circle, and the environment is the key.
Policy-driven premiums open up new opportunities for crypto investments.
It has become a consensus that when the alt season occurs in the stock market, it is not just the amount of Bitcoin reserves or market value that is considered. Policy dividends, investor structure and macroeconomic pressure jointly determine the valuation of coin stocks.
More small and medium-sized crypto reserve companies are also emerging rapidly, copying Metaplanets high premium model, but the reasons for the premium are different.
To some extent, for investors, this is more complicated than trading altcoins in the cryptocurrency circle, as there are more factors to consider.
The rise of cryptocurrency stocks will not only expand the geographical scope of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency investments, but may also reshape global capital flows, which will be more tests for the energy and understanding of cryptocurrency investors.
