The number of users of the Korean Stock Exchange increased by 450%, and Metaplanet bought 21 thousand Bitcoins: Asia Express

Japan and “microstrategy” Adopts $21 million plan to buy Bitcoin

Metaplanet, a publicly traded Japanese company often called “Asia’s MicroStrategy,” is raising more than 116 billion yen ($745 million) to expand its bitcoin holdings.

On January 28, the company Announce It has issued 21 million shares through sliding strike warrants, which give investors the rights to acquire shares at adjustable exercise prices. While such warrants are typically issued at a discount, Metaplanet’s offer does not, setting the stock price at $1,000. Full closing value On the pricing date.

The company claims that this is the largest capital increase in Asian stock markets dedicated to purchasing Bitcoin.

Metaplanet has set an ambitious target of 21,000 BTC by 2026, after reporting a 308% BTC return in Q4 2024. The company has amassed 1,761 BTC since adopting MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin chart in April 2024 and plans to push that number to 10,000 by the end of 2025.

According to Bitcoin Treasuries, Metaplanet is the 15th largest publicly traded Bitcoin investor globally. At the current ranking, 21,000 bitcoins would help the Japanese company leapfrog Riot Platforms to become the third-largest bitcoin holder in the world.

MicroStrategy remains the undisputed leader in corporate bitcoin holdings, with 471,107 bitcoins worth $49.6 billion. He – she Another 10,107 BTC added At a price of approximately $1.1 billion over the past week. It has announced its “21/21 Plan,” a fundraising targeting $21 billion in equities and $21 billion in fixed-income securities.

Trump sends South Koreans to cryptocurrency exchanges

South Korea’s five licensed cryptocurrency exchanges reportedly saw a 4.5-fold increase in new account requests following Donald Trump’s victory over former Vice President Kamala Harris in the US presidential election in November.

According to the data distributed to Local media According to lawmaker Lee Hounseong, exchanges averaged 108,695 new orders per month from January to October. This number rose to 492,464 per month in November and December.

In total, 2.07 million new cryptocurrency trading accounts were registered in 2024, with nearly half (47.6%) in just the last two months of the year. Legislator Lee’s office also noted a significant rise in applicants ages 40 and older, who made up 47.5% of new accounts.

South Korea remains a major player in global cryptocurrency markets, with the Korean won ranked first The highest fiat currencies in terms of trading volume in the industry In early 2024.

The country’s cryptocurrency market is largely retail-based, with local guidelines making it difficult for companies to trade digital assets. However, regulators are considering potential rule changes that could open the door to institutional trading.

Chinese AI star DeepSeek is scaring Wall Street and Bitcoin

DeepSeek, a Chinese-born AI app, has reached the top of Apple’s App Store in multiple regions, including the US, challenging the assumption that the best AI models require high-powered chips — an industry dominated by Nvidia.

The shockwaves hit Wall Street hard as Nvidia led a fall in AI stocks in the US, dragging global markets with it. Cryptocurrencies are not saved with Bitcoin It fell below $100,000 for the first time Since US President Donald Trump, who is supposedly a friend of cryptocurrencies, took office.

As DeepSeek’s popularity has risen, so have speculation and scams. At least 75 malware DeepSeek-themed tokens have flooded the market on January 27, according to security firm Blockaid. Some of them link directly to DeepSeek’s official website and social media accounts despite the company announcing that it has never launched a token.

One memecoin has nearly inflated $50 million market capitalization before the collapsereflecting a similar pattern to what has occurred recently Trump-themed memecoin craze.

Meanwhile, questions have been raised about the veracity of the success of DeepSeek, which claims to have only matched OpenAI models with… A fraction of the cost.

US export restrictions prevent Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips from being imported from China, however DeepSeek He claims to have trained Its latest model, DeepSeek-V3, runs on 2,048 Nvidia H800 GPUs, which is much lower and less powerful than the 16,000 H100 GPUs. Definition used for llama. DeepSeek insists it trained its AI model with just $6 million in funding, a small fraction of the billions that support OpenAI and its competitors.

Skeptics, such as analysts at Bernstein, claim that the production cost of DeepSeek’s AI is higher than advertised. Alexander Wang, CEO of Scale AI, The alleged one That the company uses banned Nvidia chips, although his claims have not been verified.

Microsoft and OpenAI have it It is said that she was fired An internal investigation into whether data from the OpenAI technology group was improperly accessed by a group associated with DeepSeek.

Bitcoin rebounds in the Lunar New Year

Since DeepSeek spooked markets, Bitcoin has rebounded to above $100,000 over the Lunar New Year period with trading activity in the East leading the way, what digital asset services firm Matrixport calls one of Bitcoin’s continued positive periods.

Bitcoin’s trading volume has historically been skewed towards the West, IntoTheBlock data shows. But eastern trading hours closed the gap and recorded an almost even split on the eve of January 29, while surpassing western trading volumes on Lunar New Year.

The cryptocurrency industry has also found other ways to celebrate the festivities other than just trading Bitcoin. In classic decadent cryptocurrency fashion, traders were quick to launch tokens in the shape of a snake (a nod to the Year of the Snake), the sixth of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. As expected, Most of them are already broken.

Meanwhile, cryptocurrency exchanges with strong ties to Asia welcomed the Lunar New Year with traditional hongbao-style airdrops, or red packets.

In Chinese culture, money is given in red envelopes during celebrations such as New Year, and the color symbolizes prosperity and luck. Other Asian cultures follow similar traditions, and cryptocurrency exchanges have adapted by distributing “red cryptocurrency bundles” to users.

Hong Kong gives the green light for the first batch of licenses in 2025

Hong Kong has issued its first cryptocurrency service provider licenses for 2025 to YAX and PantherTrade.

The Securities and Futures Commission approved the batch of applications, bringing the number of licensed cryptocurrency trading platforms in the city to nine.

Until recently, the cryptocurrency market in Hong Kong was dominated by just two exchanges: OSL and HashKey, the first two companies to gain approvals, with HashKey’s license being granted in November 2022. The regulator then went nearly two years without issuing another license before approving the Hong Kong virtual asset exchange last October.

Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SFC) has warned investors about a rise in cryptocurrency scams impersonating HashKey Exchange. The regulatory body recently added 33 fraudulent websites to its list of suspicious cryptocurrency platforms.

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Johan Yun

Johan (Hysop) Yuen is a Cointelegraph staff writer and multimedia journalist who has been covering blockchain-related topics since 2017. His background includes roles as an assignment editor and producer at Forecast, as well as technology and policy-focused reporting positions at Forbes and Bloomberg BNA. He has a degree in journalism and owns Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana in amounts that exceed Cointelegraph’s disclosure threshold of $1,000.