I've been seeing vague rumors about Metaplanet these last few days. Metaplanet was that Japanese hotel chain turned Bitcoin treasury company for which Odell's one-time friend? Dylan Leclair became the chief Bitcoin officer or something.

Anyhow, all does not seem to be well. Apparently Metaplanet leadership had a somewhat rare stock option which allowed them to not get diluted during these last years of selling equity in the company...and it seems this was not widely known among retail.

In August, leadership exercised a chunk of these options.

So, leadership had an option to buy shares at 10yen and the number of option shares increased as the company issued more equity, so the leadership's options never get diluted.

Here's the whole article:

First, let me start off with a little about me since I am an anon account.

I owned Metaplanet in the past. I no longer own Metaplanet, nor am I short it today. That may change at any point in the future.

I went to a state school, and then went and worked for a few years in the treasury department at a quant fund. I am now independent.

At the state school that I attended, I did not take Japanese I, II, or III. I wish I had.

However, I did take honors rhetoric, so I will try to tell the story of the Metaplanet heist and the hucksters who participated, as I see it.

Hopefully this raises awareness of what happened.

When you dive into it, you realize why there is so much silence among many of the public bitcoin accounts/influencers. Many of the podcasters, conference hosts, and even other bitcoin treasury company CEOs have beneficial connections or direct income from those involved in the heist - legal or not.

I have provided an image at the bottom of the article that connects some of the dots but certainly falls short of connecting them all. Another article may warrant that. Like Metaplanet, I am sure the connections are intentionally obscure.

I will just point out that it should be no surprise that many of the podcasts, influencers, etc who follow the space religiously seem oddly blind and silent in the face of what happened at Metaplanet.

May I send a kind message to them:

The story goes as follows:

It all started in April 2024. Simon Gerovich pivoted a small, public hotel operator in Japan called Metaplanet, formerly Red Planet Japan, to a bitcoin treasury strategy, making its first BTC purchase on April 23, 2024 [1]. They owned a few hotels and were, by their own words, "struggling". The company's hotel subsidiary, Red Planet Hotels Japan, filed for bankruptcy in May 2024 [2].

Around the same time, Strategy, then MicroStrategy, was well underway in its parabolic move up from the 2023 bear market bottom.

Michael Saylor used a novel tactic of issuing common stock, via ATM, to purchase bitcoin. Every time Michael Saylor issued more common equity to buy bitcoin, he bore the full cost of dilution along with common equity (stock) holders.

Simon Gerovich's company had a niche Japanese structure — the 10th Series Stock Acquisition Rights, a paid stock option plan for executives, approved by board resolution in December 2022 and by shareholders in February 2023, with an exercise price of just ¥10 per share [3] — that allowed him to hold stock options that would not bear the cost of dilution that he created for other shareholders.

Lawrence Lepard has done a good job of explaining how rare these options are. Simply put, they are rare because they are an extreme form of executive compensation. Extreme forms of executive compensation are not likely to be approved by boards or permitted by regulators. Alas, it was - back during the Red Planet Hotel Days. At the start of the bitcoin strategy, it should absolutely have been discussed, amended, or removed by the board.

Perhaps this is why Eric Trump, appointed to Metaplanet's Strategic Board of Advisors on March 21, 2025 [4], was granted stock acquisition rights covering a reported 3.3 million shares [5]. To this day, I still have no idea what work Eric Trump ever did for Metaplanet other than promote the stock. There had to be some other benefit he provided, but I will let the reader figure that out.

Now, I will try not to jump to any large conclusions here; however, I don't think that the above is a large jump, and it is simply a conclusion many people don't see, or ignore, or are just afraid to point out.

I don't care. It is the truth.

Back to the Metaplanet story

Simon Gerovich, previously of Goldman Sachs, is sitting on a small, extremely rare stock options package in his small, public, struggling hotel chain that lets him sell shares and dilute shareholders without experiencing any of the dilution/inflation himself.

Imagine you are a startup and you can sell equity but not experience any dilution yourself. You can start to understand how insane this is.

So now Metaplanet needs to sell equity. They need new investors. The more equity management sells, regardless of how accretive it is to common shareholders, the more money management makes.

One way to think about it is that for every 5 shares management sells, existing common shareholders pay management, Simon and company, one share.

Or another way to think about it is that Simon is charging shareholders 20% every time he issues new equity. Selling equity, buying bitcoin, collecting 20%.

So you can obviously see how lucrative selling new stock is for management. So the only thing management needs, besides the board and government turning a blind eye, is more buyers of its common equity.

Enter Dylan LeClair.

Ragnar have public posts about these.

The above-linked tweet from Ragnar, directly asking Simon and Dylan about the options, is dated nearly 1 year ago today, September 26, 2025.

Promote, Deny, Delay, Obfuscate.

They also were repeatedly asked on podcasts what made Metaplanet different as a treasury management company. The answer was usually something along the lines about Japan, interest rates, inflation, and a conservative saving population. Not once did they answer with:

"What makes us different is that we have an extremely rare form of stock options where we experience non of the dilution that we impose on common shareholders, which effectively makes us 20% on each new common share we sell. Will you have us back on next week to promote more!"

At the peak of Metaplanet stock in June 2025, the options were worth well over a billion dollars — and most shareholders were largely in the dark about the very existence of these options. It was only after weeks of shareholder criticism in 2026 that Metaplanet amended the 10th series on August 18, 2026 — fixing the pool at 319,464,000 shares, scrapping the 20% adjustment mechanism, and adding a five-year lock-up through August 2031 [12]. Ten days later, on August 28, 2026, Gerovich exercised 92,000 units of the rights, converting them into 64,032,000 shares [13].

So, roughly $600M and huge losses for common shareholders later, Simon is willing to... not do that anymore, but keep the $600M.

For context, because I feel that bitcoiners have become a bit numb to large numbers:

$600M is more than LeBron James has made from his NBA salary over his entire 20+ year playing career.

$600M is more than 10X the roughly $50M Jensen Huang made as the CEO of Nvidia last year.

$600M is an egregious amount of money for management to receive while shareholders nurse losses of up to 85%. It is excessive.

That is the 80/20 of the story. And I want to keep it short to reach maximum exposure.

Simon had an ultra-rare options contract from back in the Japanese hotel company days that required common shareholders to pay Simon and management 1 share for every 5 new shares they issued.

The more shares they issued, the more common shareholders had to pay Simon and management.

Dylan LeClair used his influence and affinity with bitcoiners to help sell the Metaplanet dream in Japan and abroad. He was paid millions in compensation for his efforts, while shareholders lost billions.

Finally, as promised, a helpful visual

Those who expect Simon and Dylan to give back the money, I doubt they will. It's hard to believe they didn't know what they were doing all along. I suspect they will continue to deny, delay, and obfuscate what happened.

I wrote this article because, though they will walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars from investors, we must not let them walk away with their reputation.

Simon Gerovich and Dylan Leclair are grifters. Plain and simple.

They didn't make millions of dollars because they made some equivalent amount for shareholders; quite the contrary. Shareholders lost an enormous amount of money. They didn't make Millions of dollars because they are smart. No.

They made millions because they took advantage of a rare corporate pay package setup for a hotel chain in Japan, diluted the hell out of common shareholders, and promoted their stock everywhere they went.

Legal or not legal, I do not care, and I do not accuse.

Merely in practice, it is worth pointing out one example:

Bernie Madoff's illegal ponzi scheme fund lost most investors 100% of their capital, but he charged them no management or performance fee.

Simon and Dylan's operation has lost most investors most of their capital to date, some as much as 80%, and has simultaneously charged them 20% for the pleasure of doing so.

That is to say, while what Madoff did was clearly illegal, the results, in practice, are almost the same.

Please feel free to comment with questions or concerns.

Please continue telling the story of these guys.

Sources

1. The Block, "Metaplanet adds $12.6 million worth of bitcoin after appointing Eric Trump to advisory board" (Mar 24, 2025) — bitcoin strategy introduced April 2024; Cointelegraph notes first BTC purchase April 23, 2024. https://www.theblock.co/post/347652/
2. Reuters (via Malay Mail), "Eric Trump rallies Metaplanet shareholders" (Sep 1, 2025) — Red Planet Hotels Japan bankruptcy filing May 2024; stock down more than half from June 2025 peak. https://www.malaymail.com/news/money/2025/09/01/
3. COINOTAG, "Metaplanet Shares Plunge 7.51% to ¥271 Amid Warrant Governance Dispute" (Sep 2026) — 10th series: December 2022 board resolution, February 2023 shareholder approval, ¥10 exercise price, 20% fully-diluted adjustment clause. https://en.coinotag.com/metaplanet-stock-plunge-bitcoin-warrant-dilution-governance
4. Cointelegraph, "Eric Trump joins Metaplanet's strategic board of advisers" (Mar 21, 2025). https://cointelegraph.com/news/eric-trump-joins-metaplanet-strategic-board-advisors
5. Cryptopolitan, "Metaplanet stock down 50% as it plans $3.8 billion Bitcoin purchase with Eric Trump" (Aug 31, 2025) — Eric Trump granted 3.3 million shares via acquisition rights. https://www.cryptopolitan.com/metaplanet-3-8b-bitcoin-purchase-eric-trump/
6. Metaplanet announcement / Bitcoin Magazine (May 7, 2024) — Dylan LeClair named Director of Bitcoin Strategy. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/dylan-leclair-joins-microstrategy-of-asia-as-director-of-bitcoin-strategy
7. CCN, "Metaplanet Cracks Top Five Bitcoin Treasuries" — 10,854 shareholders in December 2023, 63,654 as of March 2025 (per CEO). https://www.ccn.com/news/crypto/metaplanets-strategy-bitcoin-btc-holdings/
8. CoinDesk, "Metaplanet Announces Full Year 2024 Results" (Feb 10, 2025) — shareholder base up 500% to ~50,000 in 2024. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/02/10/
9. Metaplanet FY2025 results (via Quartr) — 216,500 shareholders at end of FY2025; ¥517.2B cumulative capital raised. https://quartr.com/companies/metaplanet-inc_21524
10. CryptoBriefing, "Metaplanet reports 250,000 shareholders" (Jul 2, 2026). https://cryptobriefing.com/metaplanet-250000-shareholders-bitcoin-japan/
11. COINOTAG (Sep 2026) — closed ¥271 on September 7, 2026, down 7.51% on the day. Same as [3].
12. TipRanks, "Metaplanet Fixes Scope of Stock Options, Adds Five-Year Lock-Up for Executives" (Aug 2026) — August 18, 2026 amendment: pool fixed at 319,464,000 shares, 20% mechanism scrapped, five-year lock-up. https://www.tipranks.com/news/company-announcements/metaplanet-fixes-scope-of-stock-options-adds-five-year-lock-up-for-executives
13. CoinDesk / CryptoBriefing (Sep 2026) — Gerovich exercised 92,000 units → 64,032,000 shares on Aug 28, 2026; stake to 79,587,500 shares (~5.9%); lock-up to Aug 17, 2031. https://cryptobriefing.com/metaplanet-ceo-gerovich-acquires-64m-shares/
14. Investing.com, Metaplanet (3350) price history — 52-week range ¥229.0–¥1,930.0; stock down ~85% over the past year. https://www.investing.com/equities/red-planet-japan-inc-historical-data — corroborated by Protos, "Metaplanet pitches stock buybacks after 96% mNAV decline" (Jun 10, 2026): 52-week high of ¥1,930 hit in June 2025; shares ~87% below peak by June 2026. https://cryptonews.net/news/finance/32992998/