VanEck, a global investment management firm, examined executive compensation across the 10 largest Digital Asset Treasury companies (DATs) and marked Metaplanet as “Bad” on executive compensation practices.
According to VanEck’s report, Metaplanet’s executive compensation adds to shareholder dilution. Hence, its 14.7% option pool represents potential dilution on a fully diluted basis. This happens along with the firm’s officer exposure reaching 8.2% and its largest individual officer position sitting at 3.8%.
Other DATs and their positioning
By comparison, Strategy, BitMine, Hyperliquid Strategies, Sharplink, Tron, and Bit Digital were given the “Good” band. This was because of fixed pools, shareholder approval required for increases, and officer exposure of 1% or less.
For context, Strategy has a fixed 8.35 million-share pool, which is about 2% of fully diluted shares, with executive exposure of 0.5%. On the other hand, BitMine’s pool is 3.2%, with officer exposure around 1%.
Whereas Twenty One Capital, Strive, and Forward Industries were placed in the “Acceptable” category due to weaker safeguards.
Why did Metaplanet lose the DAT game?
Speaking of Metaplanet, aka Japan’s MicroStrategy, its structure originated when Metaplanet was a struggling hotel operator and was designed to protect executive compensation from dilution.
After its shift to a Bitcoin [BTC] treasury strategy, the mechanism remained, allowing the executive option pool to grow as the company issued shares to fund Bitcoin purchases.
By mid-2026, the pool had reached 319.5 million potential shares (about 20% of the company) on a fully diluted basis. However, on 18 August 2026, Metaplanet removed the automatic “Evergreen” mechanism but retained the enlarged pool.
Then on the 11th of September, it rolled back the conversion ratio to its pre-September 2025 level, cutting the pool by 41% to 188.2 million shares. However, 82.8 million shares had already been issued to insiders, leaving 105.4 million potential new shares (roughly 7% of the company).
This compared with nine other DATs, Metaplanet’s 14.7% plan pool was 3.7x the 4.0% peer average, officer exposure was 10.4x the 0.8% average, and its largest officer position was 5.9x the 0.6% average.
Unlike Strategy, BitMine, and Strive, its rights had no performance conditions beyond continued service.
Solutions proposed by VanEck
Hence, VanEck has now proposed four changes to the structure. First, it wants to cancel approximately 273 million shares added through the adjustment mechanism.
Then it intends to replace the remaining rights with a smaller shareholder-approved plan, link compensation to Bitcoin per fully diluted share, and adopt a written equity-grant timing policy.
VanEck estimates that, before recent reductions, management dilution could have absorbed roughly 20% of the economic value created through Bitcoin purchases, leaving shareholders with about 80% in its analysis.
Metaplanet’s stock price
This comes as Metaplanet’s Bitcoin holdings have reached 43,000 BTC, worth $3.5 billion.
Meanwhile, the stock price of Metaplanet was also strong but trading at ¥243.00 after a hike of 2.10% in the past trading day. But the nearly 50% stock decline so far this year continues to stir the pot of already existing worries.
Final Summary
- Metaplanet’s 14.7% option pool has pushed the firm behind other crypto DATs.
- VanEck wants Metaplanet to cancel approximately 273 million shares added through the adjustment mechanism.