Vanguard Gains Indirect Bitcoin Exposure via Metaplanet

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• Vanguard’s small-cap international ETF has disclosed its first position in Metaplanet.
• The stake comes from index tracking and does not represent a direct Vanguard bet on Bitcoin.
• Metaplanet’s enterprise value sits below the market value of its Bitcoin treasury.
• The company is financing share buybacks with a new zero-coupon convertible bond.

Vanguard’s FTSE All-World ex-US Small-Cap ETF (VSS) has disclosed its first position in Metaplanet, holding about 4.5 million shares worth roughly $7.5 million, according to the fund’s holdings data. The stake arrives while the Tokyo-listed company, Asia’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder with 44,000 BTC, trades below the market value of its own treasury and is spending heavily to buy back its stock. Investors barely reacted to the filing, and Metaplanet (TSE: 3350) closed Monday at ¥263 (about $1.71), down roughly 0.75%.

VSS Bought Because Its Benchmark Did

VSS tracks a benchmark of small companies in developed and emerging markets outside the United States, and it buys whatever that benchmark contains in proportion to each company’s size. With about $11.34 billion in assets, the $7.5 million Metaplanet position works out to roughly 0.07% of the fund, a weighting that tells investors more about index rules than about any view Vanguard’s managers hold on Bitcoin. The disclosure also leaves open when the shares were acquired, so a newly reported holding should not be read as a purchase made on October 26.

Vanguard funds held Metaplanet well before this filing, with the Total International Stock Index Fund (VGTSX) building a position of 15.64 million shares and the FTSE Japan ETF (VJPN) reporting its first 704,500 shares in October 2025.

Figures come from different disclosure periods.

Ramji Opened the Door Only to Rivals’ ETFs

In January 2024, Vanguard blocked newly approved spot Bitcoin ETFs from its brokerage platform, and the arrival of Salim Ramji, a former BlackRock executive, as chief executive in July 2024 did not immediately change that stance. The firm reversed course in December 2025 when it opened its brokerage platform to third-party crypto ETFs tied to Bitcoin, Ether, XRP and Solana, citing the products’ operational resilience and liquidity. It also said it had no plans to issue crypto funds of its own and continued to favor assets that generate cash flows such as interest and dividends.

Owning Metaplanet through equity index funds fits within that policy, since Vanguard clients gain indirect Bitcoin exposure through a listed company while the asset manager never has to hold a single coin.

44,000 BTC Priced at 0.85x

According to Metaplanet’s Bitcoin strategy tracker, the company carries an enterprise value of $3.15 billion against a Bitcoin treasury valued at $3.71 billion, a ratio of 0.85x. Enterprise value adds the company’s $699.57 million in debt and $149.26 million in preferred capital to its $2.37 billion equity market capitalization, so the figure reflects what the whole business costs to own, and a reading below 1.0x means the market prices Metaplanet at about 15% less than its Bitcoin on that basis.

The coins also sit below their purchase price, with Metaplanet paying an average of $103,764 per BTC while the tracker’s valuation implies a reference price near $84,300, a gap of roughly $783 million between acquisition cost and value. That gap has widened since Bitcoin slipped below $80,000 this week, a level at which the 44,000 BTC would be worth about $3.5 billion, roughly $1 billion less than Metaplanet paid for them. Shareholders have absorbed a one-year share-price decline of about 41.4%, and accumulation has slowed sharply, from 5,075 BTC added in the first quarter of 2026 to a net 1,000 BTC in the third.

74 Million Shares Retired in One Trade

Under its capital allocation policy, Metaplanet generally avoids selling new common shares while the ratio stays below 1.0x, because issuing stock at a discount would shrink each existing shareholder’s slice of the Bitcoin pile. Buying shares back works in the opposite direction, since every share retired below asset value raises the amount of BTC attributable to the shares that remain, without the company buying any additional Bitcoin. Other treasury companies are making the same trade-off, with Bitmine recently spending more on buybacks than on new ETH while Strategy skipped Bitcoin purchases.

On October 14, Metaplanet repurchased 73,981,400 shares at ¥261 (about $1.69) each through the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s ToSTNeT-3 off-auction system, spending roughly ¥19.31 billion (about $125 million). A new authorization allows up to 200 million shares, about 14.7% of the stock, capped at ¥60 billion (about $390 million) through October 13, 2027.

The money comes partly from a ¥52 billion (about $338 million) zero-coupon euroyen convertible bond due in October 2031. Metaplanet plans to put ¥23.6 billion (about $153 million) toward repaying Bitcoin-backed loans in November and up to ¥28.3 billion (about $184 million) toward buybacks through December. Capital Research and Management, meanwhile, lifted its voting-rights stake to 11.11% as of October 16 with 143.3 million shares, a percentage boosted in part by the shrinking pool of voting shares.

November Loan Payoff Frees Bitcoin Collateral

The bond swaps loans secured by Bitcoin for unsecured debt that does not mature until 2031, which reduces the risk that a further drop in BTC forces the company to post more collateral or sell coins. It does not cut total borrowing by much, and any conversion into common stock would add shares back, offsetting part of the buybacks, so investors will want to track BTC per fully diluted share rather than the headline BTC total.

Index mechanics can also turn against the company, because a smaller share count and lower market value can shift Metaplanet’s weight at the next benchmark rebalance, and passive funds such as VSS may then trim as easily as they added.

Bondholders can begin converting on November 12, and the same quarter should settle Metaplanet’s planned contribution of 2,100 BTC and $2.5 million to U.S.-listed Super League, a deal designed to create a U.S. Bitcoin treasury vehicle called Superplanet. Super League shareholders have approved the relevant resolutions, but closing still depends on outstanding conditions, and the final ownership structure will determine whether those coins stay on Metaplanet’s consolidated books.