Japanese Bitcoin treasury firm Metaplanet is facing renewed shareholder pressure after objections over its ongoing executive stock option pool, which is tied to how the company finances and expands its Bitcoin accumulation. Critics argue the mechanism has led to heavy dilution for existing shareholders as new shares are issued—while Metaplanet says it has taken steps to freeze part of the pool.

The dispute centers on Metaplanet’s “10th Series” executive option pool, structured to represent 20% of fully diluted shares and to automatically expand when additional shares are issued to fund its Bitcoin purchases. The backlash has now broadened from social media commentary to demands for clearer governance and compensation decisions.

Key takeaways

• Shareholders are disputing the design of Metaplanet’s 10th Series executive option pool, arguing it mechanically increases dilution as the company issues new shares for Bitcoin buys.
• Metaplanet says it froze the executive pool at 319.5 million shares on Aug. 18, but critics say that still magnifies dilution because the pool expanded from 46 million shares.
• Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey defended the incentive structure publicly, while some holders claim the awards benefited him personally.
• Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich said the company will review governance and compensation policies and clarified his relationship to shareholder MMXX Ventures.
• VanEck’s Matthew Sigel urged further action, recommending Metaplanet freeze remaining exercise rights and consider a shareholder-approved replacement plan.

Shareholder backlash over the “10th Series” pool

Multiple Metaplanet shareholders have criticized the company’s 10th Series executive option pool on X, focusing on how it scales. The pool was described as being set at 20% of fully diluted shares, then expanding when Metaplanet issues additional shares to finance its Bitcoin accumulation.

According to Metaplanet’s own materials, the company acknowledged on Aug. 18 that expanding the share pool “amplifies the dilution borne by existing shareholders.” While Metaplanet states it froze the pool at 319.5 million shares on Aug. 18, critics argue the damage was already done—claiming the pool grew from 46 million shares to 319.5 million, effectively increasing the dilution experienced by earlier holders.

One pseudonymous shareholder account, Bitcoin Pharaoh, alleged that the stock-option structure created a situation where management participation disproportionately benefits the team relative to what shareholders contributed. In a Wednesday reply on X to David Bailey, Bitcoin Pharaoh summarized the argument as a “cut” that management takes from each unit of bitcoin financed by shareholder money, framing the mechanism as one that disadvantages existing holders.

David Bailey defends the incentive model

Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey pushed back against the criticism. In a Tuesday X post, Bailey defended Metaplanet’s executive stock model, arguing that granting the team 20% of the cap table over a multi-year period “isn’t some crazy number.” He also said his company has been invested in Metaplanet since “day zero,” positioning his comments as aligned with long-term support rather than short-term gain.

Bailey’s defense has not ended the debate. Bitcoin Pharaoh claimed Bailey personally benefited from Metaplanet’s stock options, stating Bailey received 300,000 options at a 105 Japanese yen strike price when the shares were trading at 510 yen, describing this as compensation tied to Bailey’s role as a strategic board advisor.

While Bailey’s public remarks focus on the reasonableness of the percentage allocation, the core disagreement remains practical: whether the pool’s automatic expansion tied to new share issuance creates dilution levels that shareholders consider excessive, and whether Metaplanet should have designed compensation that doesn’t scale in lockstep with funding mechanics.

Source: David Bailey (X)

Metaplanet CEO: governance review and MMXX clarification

Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich responded to the wider controversy by indicating the company would reassess governance and compensation arrangements. In a Sunday X post, Gerovich said the firm is continuing to review governance and compensation policies and will share updates when the work is complete.

Gerovich also attempted to address questions tied to shareholder MMXX Ventures. In his post, he said he is a significant but non-majority shareholder in MMXX’s parent company and that he holds no executive role within it. The clarification appears intended to separate Metaplanet’s executive compensation decisions from any perceived influence by MMXX-related stakeholders.

On Aug. 31, Metaplanet disclosed that the CEO exercised 92,000 shares from the 10th Series executive option pool. That disclosure adds specificity to the discussion about how executives are participating in the incentive framework currently under scrutiny.

Source: Simon Gerovich (X)

VanEck’s Matthew Sigel urges freeze and shareholder-approved redesign

External analysts have joined the discussion, particularly around whether the executive option pool should continue to operate as designed. Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, advised in a Wednesday X post that Metaplanet should “freeze” further exercise rights from the 10th Series pool. He also suggested holders voluntarily surrender any excess rights and weigh additional options related to shares already exercised.

Sigel further argued that Metaplanet should replace Series 10 with an incentive plan that is approved by shareholders and tied primarily to BTC performance on a per fully diluted share basis. The suggestion is a direct attempt to change the incentive structure from one that scales through dilution mechanics to one that is more directly anchored to outcomes shareholders choose to authorize.

Source: Matthew Sigel (X)

Metaplanet has already acknowledged the dilution impact of its pool-expansion decision in an Aug. 18 notice, and a separate question now hangs over the company: whether it will extend the freeze to remaining portions of the 10th Series option pool or restructure future incentives to address the concerns raised by shareholders. Cointelegraph reported that it requested comment from Metaplanet on whether it would consider freezing the remaining shares in the executive pool.

Stock reaction in Tokyo as the dispute continues

As the debate unfolds publicly, Metaplanet’s share performance has been mixed. According to Yahoo Finance, the company’s stock closed up in Wednesday’s Tokyo trading, reducing its five-day decline to roughly 16.3%. While price action does not settle the governance argument, it shows that the market is still actively repricing near-term sentiment while investors wait for any company response beyond the existing freeze and promised policy review.

Source: Yahoo Finance

For investors, the key uncertainty is what Metaplanet will do next with the remaining rights and whether it will move toward a shareholder-approved compensation redesign. The combination of a stated pause on the pool, promised governance review, and calls from both shareholders and external analysts sets up a clear watchpoint: whether compensation becomes more outcome-tied and less dilution-linked, and how Metaplanet demonstrates transparency around future decisions.

Ant International has partnered with Visa and Mastercard to develop common standards for identifying and monitoring AI agents as autonomous software takes on a larger role in global payments.

Ant International said Thursday that the companies will work on an interoperable “Know Your Agent” framework designed to let merchants and payment providers verify which AI agents are behind transactions and whether they are authorized to act.

The work comes as payment companies prepare for AI systems that can search for products, place orders and make payments for consumers and businesses. Ant cited McKinsey projections that AI agents could handle between $3 trillion and $5 trillion of global consumer commerce by 2030.

Jiang-Ming Yang, chief innovation officer at Ant International, said safeguards will be needed as agents gain more authority over financial transactions because AI systems can produce incorrect information or take actions users did not intend.

“Trust is the foundation of the AI transformation,” Yang told CNBC.

Ant, Visa and Mastercard target a common AI agent identity system

Under the collaboration, Ant International, Visa and Mastercard plan to establish common methods for linking an AI agent to a valid entity, evaluating its behavior and monitoring its activity.

The companies are focusing on interoperability between their separate systems so an agent that has already established its identity with one payment provider would not necessarily have to repeat the process with another.

“If [an] agent registers with Ant, they don’t need to register again with Visa, Mastercard,” Yang said.

Such a system would give merchants and payment processors a consistent way to determine which software agent is requesting a transaction and the party on whose behalf it is operating.

Pablo Fourez, chief digital officer at Mastercard, said interoperability between Know Your Agent frameworks will be needed if agentic commerce is to operate across different platforms.

“Interoperability across Know-Your-Agent frameworks is essential to making agentic commerce work at scale,” Fourez said, stressing the need for merchants and payment companies to consistently identify AI agents they can trust.

Each of the three companies has spent the past year developing its own technology for AI-led payments. Mastercard on Wednesday launched Agent Connect, a system that gives merchants a single integration for product discovery, cart creation and customer-approved payments across AI shopping platforms.

Agent Connect works with Mastercard Agent Pay, which records customer authority through tokenized permissions when an AI system is allowed to make a purchase. Merchants and payment providers can use the permission to determine whether the transaction falls within instructions provided by the customer.

Visa and Mastercard have been building their own agent payment rails

Visa has been developing a separate stack for autonomous payments. In April, the company introduced Intelligent Commerce Connect, bringing payment initiation, tokenization, authentication and spending controls into infrastructure designed for AI agents.

The system allows agents to search for products and complete transactions on behalf of consumers while using Visa’s existing payment network and security tools.

Visa expanded that work in June with new AI and stablecoin capabilities, including a partnership with OpenAI to support payments within agentic commerce experiences. Its stablecoin settlement activity had reached a $7 billion annualized run rate at the time, crypto.news previously reported.

Mastercard has taken a similar route through Agent Pay for Machines. The company unveiled the payment network in June with support from more than 30 payment, blockchain and technology companies, including Ripple, Coinbase, Stripe, Adyen and the Solana Foundation.

The network was built for transactions initiated by autonomous software, including high-volume and low-value payments. Users can set spending limits, authorization requirements and settlement conditions, while transactions can run through conventional payment networks or stablecoin rails.

Both card companies have consequently been developing controls for a payment environment in which the person buying a product may not directly interact with the merchant’s checkout page.

Ant brings more than 50 digital wallets into agentic commerce push

Ant International gives the collaboration access to another part of the global payments market through Alipay+, its cross-border payment and digitalization platform.

More than 50 electronic wallets have partnered with Ant International through Alipay+, according to the company. Such wallets are widely used in markets where consumers frequently rely on mobile payment systems instead of physical credit or debit cards.

Digital wallets represented 56% of global e-commerce transaction value and 33% of point-of-sale value in 2025, according to Worldpay data cited by the companies. Total spending through the payment method exceeded $13 trillion.

Card networks and digital wallets have become increasingly connected as wallets add support for cards and other funding sources, giving AI payment systems multiple routes through which transactions could eventually be completed.

Visa has already been testing combinations of AI payments and blockchain-based settlement. Wirex joined Visa’s Agentic Ready program in June to test AI agents making stablecoin payments, initially focusing on software subscriptions, marketing spending and procurement.

The tests were designed to determine how autonomous software could initiate financial transactions while preserving security controls and user authority.

Stablecoins have become another part of the infrastructure being developed for machine-led transactions. Visa and Artemis said in July that stablecoins could be suited to low-value machine-to-machine payments, while traditional cards could continue handling consumer purchases.

Alipay is already letting users automate Starbucks orders

Ant’s work on payment standards is arriving as its former parent company’s Alipay platform begins putting AI-assisted purchasing tools in front of consumers.

Ant International separated from Hangzhou-based Ant Group nearly three years ago. Ant Group operates Alipay, the mobile payment service widely used in mainland China.

Alipay said Wednesday that users can now create recurring Starbucks requests through one of its AI features.

A customer can instruct the app to “buy me a Starbucks iced Americano at 10 a.m. every day,” according to the announcement. The system can then place the requested order at the scheduled time before asking the customer to complete payment.

The arrangement keeps the payment approval with the user even though the AI feature handles the recurring order.

Alipay users can make recurring ride-hailing requests from Didi through the same AI tool, extending the automated system from retail purchases to transportation services.

Hardware wallet makers Trezor and BitBox have warned users about phishing emails disguised as urgent security notices after suspected compromises involving third party email services.

Trezor said on Wednesday that its email provider had been breached and warned users not to interact with a fraudulent message titled “Critical Security Alert: STM32 Entropy Vulnerability.” The company told recipients not to click any links in the email.

BitBox issued a similar warning the same day after users received a phishing email impersonating the company. Its preliminary review found that its newsletter provider was likely compromised, with several Bitcoin companies appearing to have been targeted through a provider they shared.

Trezor phishing email claims entropy vulnerability

The fraudulent Trezor email presented the supposed STM32 entropy vulnerability as a security problem requiring users to take action.

Trezor rejected the message and confirmed that it was a phishing attempt. The company said the affected third party email provider had been breached, while its warning focused on preventing recipients from following links contained in the message.

The phishing campaign comes after a real entropy related vulnerability affected another hardware wallet maker earlier this year. A Coldcard firmware flaw disclosed in July involved weak random number generation that could result in vulnerable wallet seeds.

The Coldcard issue stemmed from a build configuration error that caused affected devices to use a software pseudorandom number generator instead of the intended hardware random number generator. The vulnerability affected Coldcard Mk3 firmware dating back to March 2021.

Attackers later exploited the weakness to identify wallets created with vulnerable seeds. An attack on July 31 initially moved 594 BTC worth approximately $38 million from around 500 addresses, with later analysis connecting more addresses and Bitcoin to the same vulnerability.

As crypto.news previously reported, the Coldcard security incident prompted Kraken Chief Security Officer Nick Percoco to call for independent audits of hardware wallet seed generation. Coinkite released firmware fixes, but wallets created using vulnerable seeds still required users to generate new seed phrases and move their Bitcoin.

BitBox said in July that its devices were not affected by the random number generation vulnerability.

BitBox points to newsletter provider compromise

BitBox said its preliminary investigation indicated that its newsletter provider was likely compromised after phishing emails impersonating the hardware wallet company reached users.

The company found that several other Bitcoin businesses had been targeted and appeared to use the same newsletter provider. BitBox warned subscribers about the phishing attempt while continuing to investigate the incident.

The phishing campaign followed a separate BitBox security disclosure in August, when the company patched two firmware flaws affecting its hardware wallets.

One of the vulnerabilities could have allowed malicious firmware to be installed under certain conditions. The second involved Bitcoin address handling and could have affected how addresses were verified.

BitBox said there was no known exploitation of either vulnerability and no user funds were reported stolen. Updated firmware was released to address both issues.

Hardware wallet users have faced attacks that do not require compromising the devices themselves. Some campaigns instead rely on impersonating wallet manufacturers and persuading users to disclose recovery information.

In February, attackers sent physical letters impersonating Trezor and Ledger and directed recipients to scan QR codes for supposed authentication or transaction checks.

The hardware wallet phishing campaign used official looking letters and deadlines to create urgency. The QR codes directed users to malicious websites that requested 12, 20 or 24 word recovery phrases under the pretense of verifying wallet ownership.

Anyone who obtains a recovery phrase can recreate the associated wallet and control its funds. Trezor and Ledger said legitimate hardware wallet providers do not ask users to enter, scan, upload or share recovery phrases through websites or other external channels.

Trezor customer data breach affected more than 80,000 users

Trezor’s latest phishing warning follows separate disclosures involving customer information held by its shipping provider ShipMonk.

On Aug. 13, Trezor disclosed that unauthorized access to ShipMonk systems had exposed data belonging to 13,689 customers.

The initial disclosure covered 11,742 customers whose names, email addresses, phone numbers and shipping addresses were exposed. Another 1,947 customers had their names, cities and email addresses compromised.

Trezor said its own systems were not breached and its hardware wallets, private keys and recovery phrases remained secure. The company warned that the exposed customer information could be used for more convincing phishing and impersonation attempts.

The ShipMonk incident was mentioned in previous coverage of the BitBox firmware vulnerabilities, alongside another customer data exposure involving hardware wallet maker SafePal. Neither incident compromised the companies’ hardware wallets or recovery phrases.

Trezor expanded its ShipMonk disclosure on Sept. 4 after learning that another approximately 67,000 U.S. customers were affected.

The additional records belonged to customers who placed orders between November 2019 and August 2021 and included names, email addresses, phone numbers, shipping addresses and order numbers.

Combined with the customers identified in August, the expanded disclosure brought the number affected by the ShipMonk breach to more than 80,000.

Trezor said it had previously received assurances that the older customer information had been deleted from ShipMonk’s systems. The company learned on Sept. 2 that the records had remained stored by the shipping provider.

Hardware wallet phishing has taken several forms

Trezor has dealt with phishing attempts through other communication channels before the latest email provider incident.

In June 2025, attackers abused the company’s contact form by submitting requests using targeted users’ email addresses. Trezor’s system then generated automated responses that appeared to come from its legitimate support infrastructure.

The Trezor contact form attack allowed the phishing messages to appear more credible because recipients received communications associated with the company’s support process.

Trezor said at the time that its internal email infrastructure had not been breached. The company warned users that it would never request their wallet backup and said recovery information should remain private and offline.

The phishing attempts targeting Trezor and BitBox this week instead led both companies to point to third party email services. BitBox said several Bitcoin companies appeared to have been targeted through a shared newsletter provider, while Trezor confirmed that its email provider had been breached.