Imagine that when your company is in danger of going out of business, you can easily defeat the pesky bears and return to the center of attention from the brink of liquidation by simply issuing additional shares to buy or simply announcing Bitcoin as an asset reserve. If this were true, would you do it?
After $MSTR once again became the buzzword of the year in the investment community, Bitcoin is rapidly encroaching on the balance sheets of global companies, and in this new capital game around Bitcoin, some people are chasing the trend, some are clumsy imitations, and some people are discovering new business opportunities and turning into the players behind the creation of the “price miracle”.
MSTR flows to the world
In 2024, MSTR’s stock price soared 477%, ranking second among technology companies with a market capitalization of more than $5 billion in the U.S., behind AppLovin. The Bitcoin investment also brought the company a whopping $13.14 billion in paper gains, pushing the market capitalization to exceed $100 billion at one point, becoming a star company in the U.S. stock market.
As of April 2025, the company holds a total of 528, 185 BTC, with a holding cost of about $33.14 billion, an average purchase price of $66, 385, and a total market capitalization of about $43 billion, accounting for more than 2.5% of the global circulation, based on the current price of Bitcoin of about $81, 400.
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As early as August 2020, when the crypto market was at the end of a bear market, MicroStrategy bought 21, 454 BTC for the first time in the $10,000 range of Bitcoin, starting the “Bitcoin Treasury Strategy” and becoming the first publicly traded company to invest corporate funds in Bitcoin on a large scale.
Since then, the company has continued to increase its position during the trough, from 2020 to 2022, and steadily increased its holdings in 2023. After Bitcoin enters the bull market from 2024 to 2025, MicroStrategy will further accelerate the establishment of positions, forming a clear operation path of “building a bottom in a bear market and speeding up in a bull market”. The madness of the stock price is like a pebble thrown into a pond and stirs up ripples. Businesses are starting to ask themselves: if we can’t outperform Bitcoin, why not just buy it?
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According to Bitcointreasuries, as of April 16, 2025, a total of 178 entities collectively held more than 3.16 million BTC, of which listed companies held about 665,636 BTC, and this number is growing rapidly. This “micro” trend has swept the world, involving 26 listed companies in the United States, 22 listed companies in Canada, and 8 listed companies in China (including Hong Kong).
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Source: bitcointreauries.net
Represented by Hong Kong Asia Holdings, a group of traditional enterprises that were originally in the marginal area are reconstructing their business narratives by allocating Bitcoin.
It was originally a marginal company with little presence, mainly engaged in the wholesale and retail business of prepaid products such as SIM cards and value-added vouchers. In February 2025, the company spent $96, 150 on 1 bitcoin for the first time, and the company’s stock price soared by 93% as soon as the news came out.
After tasting the sweetness, Hong Kong Asia increased its position for three consecutive days, becoming the first listed company in Greater China to officially write Bitcoin into its balance sheet.
GameStop, a retailer that became famous for its 2021 “retail wars”, rose more than 18% in pre-market trading on rumors before announcing a $1.3 billion zero-coupon convertible bond to buy bitcoin on March 27, 2025. Japan’s Metaplanet is no exception, with its share price soaring by about 4,000% since it bought Bitcoin in April 2024, with a target of 10,000 BTC in 2025.
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In addition to high-profile companies such as GameStop, Gangya Holdings, and Metaplanet, more and more listed companies around the world that had nothing to do with the crypto field are quietly copying the microstrategy model and making a bold bet against inflation and betting on the future with Bitcoin.
For example, Eric Semler, CEO of Semler Scientific, an American medical company, bluntly said, “If you don’t hold Bitcoin, you are irresponsible to shareholders.” There is also the board of directors of India’s Jerking company that approved to build a large position in bitcoin. KULR Technology directly used 90% of the company’s cash reserves to buy coins in batches, Canadian cannabis company LEEF Brands issued a $5 million bond to back Bitcoin, and Hong Kong’s Boyaa exchanged $50 million of Ethereum for Bitcoin.
Related reading: "Listed Companies “Get Together” to Buy BTC: Top 15 Profit List Announced, Who Has Grown Nearly 30 Times? 》
From medical to cannabis, from North America to Asia, companies from different industries are diving headfirst into a field they may otherwise be completely unfamiliar with, as if they were being caught up in the same craze. Since then, Bitcoin is becoming the “new protagonist” on the balance sheets of more and more companies.
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The “golden finger” behind the price miracle, the bookmaker, the white glove and Eric Trump
When capital meets political grasp, there will always be many “price miracles”, and this trend represented by micro-strategy is far more simple than it seems. Starting with the market frenzy set off by the re-election of “crypto president” Donald Trump, everything began to heat up dramatically.
With the Trump administration’s push for the implementation of the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Program and the SEC’s repeated easing of crypto regulations, these policies are like a gust of wind, pushing the price of Bitcoin to an all-time high of $110,000. When the crypto industry and politicians arbitrage each other, the undercurrents behind it are often rarely understood.
In this capital feast of global stock market undersurge and crypto market frenzy, UTXO Management and Sora Ventures seized the opportunity and turned into “market makers” in the capital market, pushing a number of “demon stocks” to the forefront in turn.
Amplification effect
If you’ve been paying attention to the Hong Kong or Japanese stock markets lately, you may be puzzled by the sudden surge in a few strange companies.
An operator that does cheap hotels, a game manufacturer that relies on playing Texas Hold’em, and an old telecommunications company that sells traffic cards, even though their business is basically no bright spots, can skyrocket their stock prices several times or even thousands of percentage points in a short period of time.
Let’s start with the most typical case of Metaplanet. Originally called Red Planet, the company was a budget hotel operator. In 2024, Simon, the Harvard-born CEO of Goldman Sachs in Tokyo and a former Goldman Sachs executive in Tokyo, changed his name to Metaplanet after selling most of his hotel business, and the CEO is also chairman of Red Planet Hotels and head of a real estate company in Thailand.
In addition to its core BTC strategy, Metaplanet is redeveloping one of its remaining hotels to become “The Bitcoin Hotel”, which will open in the third quarter of 2025, in an attempt to provide the company with a one-stop shop for everything from treasury and operations to bitcoin education.
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Metaplanet’s business scope (holding btc, btc education, btc theme hotels), source: Metaplanet
With this series of capital operations, Metaplanet has become “the first publicly held listed company in Japan”, holding about 3,050 BTC in a short period of time, and issuing 2 billion yen bonds in 2024 to continue to build positions. Its stock price has also soared by more than 4,000% from a long-term slump of below 50 yen.
In April 2024, Jason Fang, the founder of Sora Ventures, wrote on his personal Twitter account that Metaplanet is “Asia’s first micro-strategy” and has helped Metaplanet put Bitcoin on its balance sheet through partnerships with UTXO Management, Mark Yusko, and others, becoming the first publicly traded company in Japan to hold its cryptocurrency.
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This is the first time Jason Fang has brought Sora Venture to the stage as a director of Metaplanet. In fact, Sora has always been very aggressive on the path of “forking micro-strategies”.
A similar operation seems to have happened to Hong Kong-listed gaming company Boyaa Interactive in the same year.
Founded in 2004, Boyaa specializes in board games such as Texas Hold’em, and its founder, Zhang Wei, is a graduate of Shenzhen University, who once relied on the enthusiasm of Chinese players to make the stock price rise from HK$5.35 to HK$15.16. But as the heat subsided, the company quickly hit rock bottom, hovering below HK$1 for many years. On November 14, 2023, Boyaa announced a $100 million foray into cryptocurrency, specializing in Bitcoin and Ethereum.
In November 2024, the company suddenly announced that it would exchange 14,200 ETH for 515 BTC on its balance sheet, and its total holdings skyrocketed to 3,183, surpassing Japan’s Metaplanet in one fell swoop, and its stock price skyrocketed 9 times in a year. Then in December, Sora Venture unveiled its $150 million fund, which is dedicated to driving adoption of Bitcoin treasury strategies by listed companies in Asia, with Boyaa Interactive piloting it for the first time.
Another notable detail is that in July 2024, Boyaa publicly announced a $1 million investment in UTXO Management’s Bitcoin Ecosystem Fund, hoping to increase the visibility of Boyaa’s transformation through BTC Inc.'s resources, such as Bitcoin Magazine.
Sora Venture is not the only one on the road to replication, and in both cases, we can see the shadow of another “good helper” - UTXO Management.
UTXO Management has also played a key role in advancing Metaplanet’s Bitcoin adoption strategy, with partner Dylan LeClair serving as Metaplanet’s Director of Bitcoin Strategy and Tyler Evans serving as Metaplanet’s Independent Director, the main investor in Metaplanet.
And this year, the two institutions joined forces again to operate another “price miracle” in the Hong Kong stock market.
At the beginning of 2025, Sora Ventures and UTXO Management jointly invested about HK$126 million to acquire more than 70% of the shares of Hong Kong Asia Holdings.
Hong Kong Asia Holdings was originally a company that relied on selling traffic cards and running traditional distribution, with extremely low profits, and has long been entered into the ranks of “penny stocks” (stock price less than HK$1) by the Hong Kong stock market. After the completion of the acquisition, the company changed its name to Moon Inc., and carried out a complete “crypto” change from the board of directors to the management, and quickly determined the “bitcoin-centric” treasury strategy.
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However, as of the time of writing, the company only has 28.88 BTC on its books, and Hong Kong financial commentator Li Ming also bluntly said: “This position is not even a temptation”. Despite this, the company’s share price quickly climbed from HK$0.29 to HK$0.38 after the initial announcement of the purchase of 1 BTC, an increase of about 31%. As of 17 April 2025, it closed at HK$4.84, down 32.5% from its 52-week high, but still up about 1669% from HK$0.29 at the beginning of the year.
Critically ill companies are often the target of low-cost, high-return retrofits. Metaplanet and Hong Kong Asia Holdings, whose stock prices were depressed for a long time before the implementation of the Bitcoin strategy, have never been interested in the business of these companies, but their cheap shell resources and potential capital amplification effect.
The Trump Family’s “Bitcoin Traders”
In the global stock market in 2024, Sora Ventures and UTXO Management are like two skilled chess players.
In 2024, Sora Ventures and UTXO Management will launch the $2 million Sora TTP Fund, betting on the TTP ecosystem under the Ordinals protocol, becoming the world’s first decentralized indexing fund based on Ordinals, attracting participation from the founders of BTSE and Origin Protocol. With the help of UTXO and Bitcoin Magazine promotion, the $PIPE token skyrocketed by 150% in a month.
The story of Sora Ventures began in Hong Kong in 2017, when founder Jason Fang gained extensive experience on the exchange BTSE and founded this investment institution focusing on the Bitcoin ecosystem. Initially, Sora focused primarily on early-stage Web3 investments, with over $100 million under management. By 2024, the company’s ambition is becoming apparent: a major push for Asia-listed companies to adopt Bitcoin as a core treasury strategy.
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Sora’s pace of expansion is also due to close collaboration with UTXOs. In the Metaplanet case, UTXO brought Trump’s second son, Eric Trump, as an advisor. For some time now, the crypto believer has been giving the Trump family the green light to crypto through World Liberty Financial.
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Left: Eric and simon, right: Metaplanet core members; Image source from: X, Metaplanet
So what is the origin of UTXOs?
The story of UTXO Management begins in Tennessee, USA, as the investment arm of BTC Inc. (the organizer of Bitcoin Magazine and Bitcoin Conference). Initially focused on allocating Bitcoin assets to high-net-worth clients, they have invested in over 60 mining and early-stage project companies since 2013.
With the approval of the Bitcoin ETF in 2024 (BlackRock recommends a 5% allocation, and traditional capital sends a signal of “configurable” to Bitcoin), UTXO immediately smelled the business opportunities of institutional capital and began to transform, and UTXO’s hedge fund 210k Capital became a new star in this transformation, with an annual return of 164% with heavy positions in “Bitcoin treasury stocks” such as Strategy and Metaplanet, ranking among the top five HFRs.
Its Chief Investment Officer, Tyler Evans, proudly said, “80% of our portfolio is concentrated in Bitcoin-related stocks, with Metaplanet and Strategy being the main source of income.” These companies provide the most comfortable entry point for institutional investors (e.g., Wisconsin Teachers’ Pension Fund, Abu Dhabi Sovereign Wealth Fund) to enter Bitcoin by “securitizing Bitcoin”.
At the same time, UTXO Management’s investment in The Smarter Web Company is planning an IPO on the UK’s Aquis exchange, dubbed the “UK version of Metaplanet”, and its bitcoin treasury model is penetrating the European market. Behind this series of layouts of UTXOs is inseparable from the resourceful parent company BTC Inc., and there is no lack of implicit help from the political resources of the Trump family.
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BTC Inc.'s relationship with the Trump family goes far beyond superficial cooperation and is deeply rooted in the interweaving of business interests and political resources.
BTC Inc., the organizer of Bitcoin Magazine and the world’s largest Bitcoin conference, has provided a platform for the Trump family to control public opinion through its strong industry influence, and has also helped the Trump family through a series of business partnerships.
The roots of this relationship can be traced back to Trump’s 2024 campaign, when Trump first publicly supported the crypto industry as a presidential candidate at the Bitcoin 2024 conference, hosted by BTC Inc. BTC Inc. CEO David Bailey personally organized a high-profile donation dinner, with ticket prices of up to $844,600 per person, raising $25 million in campaign funds.
In his speech, Trump repeatedly mentioned BTC Inc.'s support and praised it as a “pillar of the Bitcoin community.” During the campaign, BTC Inc. continued to report on Trump’s crypto policy stance through Bitcoin Magazine, garnering him the support of a large number of voters in the crypto industry.
After the successful campaign, BTC Inc. continued to provide the stage for the Trump family’s crypto policy through the conventions it hosted. On December 9-10, 2024, Eric Trump, son of Trump, was the keynote speaker at the Bitcoin MENA conference in Abu Dhabi, predicting that Bitcoin would reach $1 million and emphasizing that his father would become “the most pro-crypto president in history.”
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The core of BTC Inc.'s relationship with the Trump family lies in the control of public opinion and the mutually beneficial exchange of political resources. BTC Inc.'s Bitcoin Magazine continues to endorse the Trump family’s crypto projects, such as reporting on the creation of American Bitcoin and the progress of World Liberty Financial.
From the financial support during the election campaign, to the policy promotion at the conference, to the business layout of mining enterprises, the two go hand in hand. This “pas de deux” inevitably evokes many associations with the political influence and business ambitions behind it.
“There will be more and more micro-strategies in U.S. stocks”
As Michael Saylor said, more and more “micro-strategy” companies are emerging in the US stock market. A closer look at these “micro-strategy” companies reveals that the motivations behind them are not the same. Not everyone is as deeply tied to Sora and UTXO as Metaplanet is, and some are more like “borrowing coins”, holding Bitcoin to optimize their balance sheets, or for market capitalization management purposes.
Why should U.S. stock companies buy Bitcoin?
In the ranks of U.S. companies buying bitcoin, GameStop may be a typical representative. The former offline game retail giant is trying to stay alive through the “coin holding transformation”, using Bitcoin hedging to alleviate inflationary pressures and ugly data on its financial statements, more of a “want to buy” than a “have to buy”.
The announcement of a $1.5 billion purchase of bitcoin through a convertible bond and CEO Ryan Cohen’s $10.7 million increase in shares both spurred a short-term rally in the stock price, which was quickly retreated. Although this $1.5 billion investment is not small, it is still a drop in the bucket compared to the loss of more than $100 million in GameStop’s 2024 financial report.
GameStop’s series of operations is more like an attempt to recreate the glory of the 2021 meme stock boom through the Bitcoin boom, and the strategy is more biased towards capital market operations than business transformation.
Cohen’s overweight is more of a short-term stimulus. Judging from the experience of selling pet e-commerce Chewy for $3.2 billion, Ryan Cohen’s style has always had a strong e-commerce marketing flavor.
According to media disclosures, although GameStop’s total assets reached $5.875 billion, nearly 81% of them were cash reserves, and the cash flow from operating activities was only $146 million. The company’s investment of a quarter of its assets in Bitcoin instead highlights the short-term nature of GameStop’s reliance on speculative strategies rather than addressing its core business.
Also a company with a quiet share price and abundant cash is Semler Scientific. Chairman Eric Semler joined the board two years ago and describes himself as “the radical on the board.” He described Semler at the time as a “zombie company that made money but didn’t get market recognition,” with an asset structure very similar to the 2020 microstrategy: more cash, less growth, and low valuations.
Rather than opt for mergers and acquisitions or drastic business reforms, Semler pushed the company to include Bitcoin in its treasury strategy, becoming the second U.S.-listed company to do so after Microstrategy. The move sparked a revaluation of its value and brought long-lost attention to an otherwise neglected business.
However, not all companies blindly follow the “micro-strategy” of bitcoin treasury operations. In October 2024, Microsoft seriously discussed whether to include Bitcoin on its balance sheet at its shareholder meeting, but ultimately rejected the proposal by an overwhelming vote. The main concern is focused on the fact that Bitcoin’s high volatility could disrupt the company’s financial stability. Microsoft CFO Amy Hood also made it clear: “Our capital allocation is more focused on core growth areas such as AI and cloud computing, rather than dabbling in speculative assets.”
Can anyone do micro-strategy?
Comparing these companies, it is not difficult to find that the microstrategy is to deeply bind Bitcoin to the financial structure for a long time. Other companies, some are trying to save themselves with Bitcoin (Hong Kong and Asia), some are using it as a financial hedge (Metaplanet), and some may just want to make an alpha (GameStop).
It is not possible to generalize that they are “bad students” imitation champions, but it would be more accurate to say that they all want to do something with Bitcoin, but in different directions.
At present, MicroStrategy’s holdings are 27, 987 times that of Hong Kong Asia Holdings, 125 times that of Metaplanet, 30 times that of GameStop, and a series of other small companies are also very small.
The more critical difference is the crushing of financing ability, micro-strategy is like having unlimited ammunition, not enough money to issue bonds, and ultra-low borrowing interest rates, the amortized comprehensive cost of Bitcoin is lower.
Since 2020, it has raised more than $10 billion through bond and share increases, and in 2024, it will continue to increase its position by issuing an additional $1 billion in shares, raising a total of $7.69 billion in the first quarter of 2025, and $4.4 billion for currency purchases.
On the other hand, Hong Kong Asia Holdings’ coin purchase funds only came from the acquisition of Sora Ventures and UTXO Management (at a consideration of 126 million yuan), and its follow-up financing ability is almost zero. Although Metaplanet raised funds through the issuance of zero-coupon bonds, the total investment was only about $250 million, which is far less than the scale of MicroStrategy. GameStop’s $1.5 billion convertible bond issuance, but its share price plummeted 22.1% after the announcement, which is a clear indication of the market’s apparent lack of confidence in its financing.
From a stock market perspective, the U.S. stock market is highly liquid, and Saylor’s actions tend to be quickly reflected in stock prices. However, Hong Kong Asia Holdings is limited by the low liquidity of the Hong Kong stock market, and small-cap stocks are easy to manipulate, and the trend is more dominated by retail sentiment. Metaplanet, on the other hand, is limited by the ceiling of the Japanese market itself, and its room for growth is relatively limited.
From the perspective of corporate shareholding, the shareholding structure of Metaplanet and Hong Kong Asia Holdings and GameStop is highly fragmented, with a large number of small and medium-sized investors in the shareholder composition, rather than a single or a small number of major shareholders. For example, about 40% of GameStop’s shares are in the hands of retail investors, and a single post on Reddit or Twitter can make its stock price jump by more than ten or twenty points.
For secondary market investors, perhaps they are more like a leveraged BTC concept ticket.
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Illustration: Metaplanet shareholders are soaring
Behind MicroStrategy stands stable large asset management companies such as BlackRock and Vanguard, as well as founder Saylor holding 20% of his company’s shares, and the overall stability is much higher. One is like a coin speculation group, and the other is like a treasury bond fund, this is not which is better, but it depends on whether you want to chase a gust of wind or press a game.
In terms of market attention and attention, in 2024, the micro-strategy will be included in the Nasdaq 100 index, and the proportion of institutional holdings will also rise to 60%, Defiance and T-REX have successively launched leveraged ETFs (such as MSTX, SMST, MSTU) with 2x long and short micro-strategies, and as of now, the micro-strategy is held by 216 ETFs, and VanEck has the heaviest allocation to it, and the ETF halo is comparable to the “Big Seven of US Stocks”.
As for other “followers” such as GameStop, Metaplanet and Hong Kong Asia Holdings, none of them have exclusive ETF products, and they have not even been included in mainstream ETFs on a large scale.
“Fentanyl addiction”: the risk of a systemic stock market crash
As of April 7, 2025, due to the impact of Trump’s announcement of tariffs, the global market has been violently shaken, and the decline in the price of Bitcoin has been like a cold wind blowing, and the stock prices of Hong Kong stocks 1723 (Hong Kong Asia Holdings), GameStop, Metaplanet and MicroStrategy have fallen in response.
The high degree of correlation between the share prices of these companies and the price of bitcoin exposes an obvious risk: they are like the same trees planted on the same mountain, and if a storm hits, it will inevitably fall en masse. This “copy-job” Bitcoin strategy may seem like a short-term boom, but it also sows the risk of a systemic collapse.
The company bets its fate on a single asset of bitcoin, lacking diversified support, and once the bitcoin market sentiment turns or regulations tighten, the capital chain breaks, debt pressure and market confidence collapse may occur one after another, forming a chain reaction.
Although MicroStrategy is slightly stable in terms of scale and first-mover advantage, its position of more than 440,000 BTC is backed by highly leveraged financing, and the risk of debt default cannot be ignored, while Hong Kong stocks 1723, GameStop and Metaplanet have smaller capital and almost zero risk resistance. The essence of this strategy is to magnify speculation to the extreme, but fail to build a moat on the core business.
Related Reading: How Much Selling Pressure Will MicroStrategy Put on the Market If Forced to Sell BTC? 》
The deeper problem is that most of these companies don’t do the “real thing.” Hong Kong Asia Holdings’ SIM card business is hopeless, GameStop’s brick-and-mortar retail is in decline, Metaplanet’s Web3 transformation is in name only, and even MicroStrategy’s software business has long been marginalized.
They chose Bitcoin not because of its synergy with their main business, but because they saw it as a “lifesaver” for the capital market. If all the companies in the stock market abandon the industry and instead chase speculative outlets like BTC, I dare not imagine that the entire economic ecology may be unbalanced.
Think about it, if giants like Microsoft and Apple also give up technological innovation to hoard Bitcoin, what is the foundation of the global industry? Industry is the backbone of the economy, creating value and addressing demand, rather than relying solely on financial leverage to build bubbles.
In summary, now that the tariff shock has stalled and the tide has receded, those companies that do not have solid business support are doomed to swim naked. Capital markets should reward companies that are down-to-earth and create long-term value, rather than chasing speculative stories. After all, a healthy forest requires a diversity of tree species, not a single speculative tree.
