Metaplanet cancelled 131 million shares tied to its executive reward pool on Friday, shrinking the disputed insider stake by 41.1% after weeks of shareholder pressure.
The Tokyo-listed Bitcoin treasury company also scrapped a planned executive incentive vehicle outright and pushed the surviving warrants years further out before anyone can cash them in.
“This is a meaningful concession and a much better alignment of management and shareholders. Credit to them for taking the criticism seriously,” said Mathew Sigel, Head of digital assets research at VanEck.
What Metaplanet Gave Up in Its Executive Reward Pool
Warrants are rights to buy shares later at a price fixed in advance, in this case 10 yen each. The board cut how many shares each warrant converts into, from 696 down to 410.
That takes the pool from 319.46 million shares to 188.19 million. Strip out warrants insiders already exercised and the cut is steeper, with the remainder falling 55.5% to 105.37 million.
Chief Executive Simon Gerovich valued the destroyed claim at more than $220 million. Metaplanet also scrapped a plan to move up to 90,000 warrants into a separate executive incentive vehicle.
Whatever remains unvested now unlocks in equal thirds across 2029, 2030 and 2031.
Why Shareholders Forced the Reset
BeInCrypto reported on September 8 that the frozen insider share pool had swollen from 46 million shares to 319.5 million, because it was pegged to a percentage of issuable stock rather than a fixed number.
That is the dilution in the complaint. Metaplanet’s share count climbed from 153.9 million to about 1.35 billion in two years as it sold stock to build one of the largest corporate Bitcoin treasuries. The insiders’ claim grew in step, without a second vote.
Not everyone accepts the grievance. David Bailey, chief executive of Metaplanet investor Nakamoto, has argued that 20% of the cap table is not unreasonable for the team that rebuilt the company.
“We also now recognize that disclosure and awareness are not always equivalen,” said Gerovich, conceding the criticism, rather than contesting it.
Metaplanet says the reduction lifts Bitcoin per fully diluted share by roughly 8.8%. Its stock closed at 251 yen in Tokyo, up 2.87%, according to Yahoo Finance, barely above the 244 yen it sank to when the pool was frozen last week.
The harder verdict waits on what replaces the scheme. Gerovich has promised an outside consultant will design it, and nothing has been published. Investors who forced this reversal in three weeks will judge that plan faster.
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