Metaplanet CEO rejects underperformance claims, defends Bitcoin treasury and disclosure

Metaplanet’s chief executive, Simon Gerovich, has pushed back on social media criticism aimed at the company’s Bitcoin strategy and level of disclosure. He disputed the idea that the firm has lagged, arguing the market is using the wrong yardstick to judge a listed company that holds BTC on its balance sheet.

The criticism is predictable any time a corporate adopts a Bitcoin-first treasury. Investors often default to a crude test—did the equity outperform spot BTC over a short window? That’s the wrong benchmark. A public company is not a swap. Equity reflects operating cash flows, capital structure, dilution, tax, accounting, and market microstructure. If you grade a treasury-led strategy without controlling for those variables, you’ll always chase noise.

The proper benchmark for a BTC-heavy balance sheet starts with two anchors: - Bitcoin per share: Is the firm growing net BTC per share after fees, interest, and dilution? This strips away narrative and measures compounding. - Tracking error to BTC beta: Over defined horizons, how closely does the equity reflect a blended exposure to BTC plus the core business? Deviations need to be explained by financing choices (e.g., equity issuance), cash buffers, or operating performance.

If Metaplanet is managing issuance opportunistically—raising equity into strength to add BTC—near-term “underperformance” versus spot is not a bug; it’s the cost of increasing long-term BTC per share without reckless leverage. Many forget that equity best expresses a treasury strategy through cycles, not weeks.

Where the skeptics do have a point is transparency. Critique fills the void when disclosures lag. For a corporate Bitcoin program, baseline clarity should include: - Treasury policy: cadence (DCA vs opportunistic), target cash runway, leverage limits, and circumstances for selling BTC. - BTC accounting and audit: fair value methodology, impairment reversals, and independent attestation of holdings. - BTC per share and cost basis: monthly snapshots with a clear reconciliation for changes (purchases, issuance, operating cash burn). - Risk controls: custody architecture, multi-sig governance, key rotation, and disaster recovery, without exposing operational risk.

Technically, the bar is rising. Companies can publish periodic on-chain attestations through a third-party auditor, use time-stamped transaction proofs, and provide Merkle-verified statements without doxxing live addresses. This isn’t virtue signaling; it compresses rumor premiums that can widen equity discounts to NAV during volatility.

Psychologically, expectations need calibration. The “corporate as BTC proxy” narrative often sets shareholders up to demand levered upside with none of the tradeoffs. A disciplined program looks “boring” at the top and “too defensive” at the bottom because it optimizes for survivability, not headlines. If leadership defines success explicitly—grow BTC per share across cycles, maintain X months of fiat runway, cap financing costs at Y, target Z tracking error—investors can judge outcomes against a playbook rather than vibes.

Ethically, there’s also a disclosure equilibrium to hit. Over-promising creates moral hazard; under-sharing invites conspiracy. Clear frameworks and periodic letters reduce information asymmetry without turning treasury operations into a live trading diary that could be gamed by the market.

What would move this conversation from contention to conviction: - Publish a one-page scorecard each month: BTC held, BTC per share, blended cost basis, fair value vs book, cash runway, and any issuance/repurchases. - Adopt a plain-English treasury charter with risk limits and scenarios for deploying or defending cash. - Provide semiannual independent attestations of BTC holdings and custody controls. - Explain any variance in equity performance relative to BTC with financing math, not narratives.

Gerovich’s rebuttal lands best if backed by a consistent, auditable disclosure cadence. Set the benchmark, share the math, and let the market decide. In corporate Bitcoin, transparency is leverage that doesn’t show up on the balance sheet but compounds trust the same way BTC compounds on the ledger.