Metaplanet, the largest corporate bitcoin (BTC) holder outside North America, has purchased an additional 797 BTC, worth around $96 million, bringing its total bitcoin holdings to 16,352.

Simon Gerovich, CEO of the Tokyo-listed hotelier, recently told the FT that the firm aims to leverage these holdings as collateral to finance acquisitions of cash‑generating businesses, particularly in digital financial services.

Metaplanet’s strategy mirrors the blueprint used by Michael Saylor’s Strategy (MSTR): accumulate bitcoin via equity and debt issuance, then use the asset base to secure financing for broader expansion.

Metaplanet has already tapped zero‑interest bonds, stock acquisition rights, and U.S. capital markets—including a planned $5 billion injection into its Florida subsidiary—to fund BTC buying and strengthen its treasury infrastructure.

Read more: Metaplanet Wants to Use Bitcoin Holdings for Acquisitions: FT

Bitcoin (BTC) rose past $120,000 for the first time on record, taking the year-to-date gain to 28%.

BTC is currently trading above $121,000 as of midday Hong Kong time, according to CoinDesk market data.

The move follows President Donald Trump’s decision to impose a 30% tariff on the EU and Mexico, starting Aug. 1, and marks a bullish resolution to roughly 48 hours of choppy price action that allowed overbought signals from short-duration indicators to reset to bullish.

The focus now shifts to the U.S. inflation data due this week, which is expected to show the cost of living ticked up in June against the backdrop of Trump’s trade war.

According to FactSet, economists expect that the consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.25% on a monthly basis in June, equating to 2.6% annualized growth. The core CPI, which excludes the volatile food and energy, is forecast to have risen 0.3% monthly and 3% on an annualized basis.

Risk assets, including BTC, may wobble a bit if inflation accelerates, delaying the Fed rate cut. That said, the downside could be limited given the strong momentum in terms of corporate adoption of BTC, ETF inflows and positive regulatory outlook in the U.S.

According to John Glover, CEO of Ledn, BTC’s rally has legs and prices could rise to $136,000 by the year-end.

«We have finally broken to new highs, which confirms that the dip to $96k in late June satisfied the wave (ii) pullback (yellow line) within the larger Wave 5 (orange line),» Glover said in an email.

«While this doesn’t change the ultimate target of circa $136k to complete this bull run, it does likely reduce the time it will take to complete. I was previously looking for this in Q1 of 2026, but now it looks likely to hit $136k by year-end,» he added.

Good Morning, Asia. Here’s what’s making news in the markets:

Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of top stories during U.S. hours and an overview of market moves and analysis. For a detailed overview of U.S. markets, see CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.

Rest in Peace, Coinbase Wallet.

No, the app itself isn’t going away, but it is getting a new name.

On its X profile, its name is crossed out and replaced with a ‘TBA’ and a few question marks.

«There’s plenty of speculation about what it means, but I’m leaning toward ‘The Base App.’ That would fit the idea of Base unveiling a range of in-app experiences directly inside its wallet,» Bradley Park, a Seoul-based analyst with DNTV Research, told CoinDesk in an interview.

Base Creator Jesse Pollak was tapped to lead Coinbase’s Wallet team last October, which lends credence to Park’s theory.

In an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok last year, Pollak played up the decentralization of Base. It could be that the wallet is due for a rebrand to highlight its decentralized nature and distance from Coinbase itself.

It’s not the first time Coinbase has re-branded its wallet. Originally it was launched as ‘Toshi’, and in 2018 that name was dropped in favor of Coinbase Wallet.

Ethereum’s ZK Upgrade Earns Institutional Praise from Cathie Wood

ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood says Ethereum is “proposing the right moves for scalability and privacy to maintain its lead in the institutional world,” as the Ethereum Foundation unveils a roadmap to bring zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) directly to its base layer.

While Wood acknowledged she does not grasp all the technical details, her endorsement highlights growing institutional confidence in Ethereum’s long-term vision.

The proposed upgrade would let validators verify cryptographic proofs of block validity rather than re-executing each transaction, dramatically reducing computational overhead. These proofs would be generated by block builders or third-party zk-prover networks and verified in under 10 seconds, using hardware that costs less than $100,000 and consumes no more than 10 kilowatts of power.

The plan would boost network throughput and decentralization, but comes with tradeoffs. Shifting the burden of computation from validators to provers could introduce liveness risks if those provers go offline or collude. The Ethereum Foundation aims to mitigate these risks through prover diversity, protocol hardening, and eventually enabling at-home participants to contribute to proving.

If successful, this would make Ethereum the first major blockchain to integrate ZKPs at the protocol layer, reinforcing its position as the dominant infrastructure for both decentralized applications and institutional adoption. Combined with cheaper data availability via blobs and advances in zk-rollups, Ethereum is positioning itself as the chain most ready for scale.

Market Movements:

BTC: Bitcoin rallied 1% to nearly $119K over the weekend amid triple-normal trading volumes, while BlackRock’s IBIT crossed $80 billion in crypto assets under management, signaling strong institutional demand despite a late-session profit-taking reversal.

ETH: Ethereum surged past $3,000 for the first time since February, rising 3% amid record institutional inflows and heightened trading volumes that signaled strong bullish momentum.

Gold: Gold climbed to $3,371 as central banks continue their historic accumulation spree, over 1,000 tonnes annually since 2022, fueling a bullish breakout above key technical levels and setting sights on $3,578 and beyond.

Nikkei 225: Asia-Pacific markets opened lower Monday as investors reacted to President Trump’s surprise weekend announcement of 30% tariffs on the EU and Mexico starting August 1, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 falling 0.33%.

Elsewhere in Crypto:

• Chart of the Week: ‘Hyperbitcoinization’ May Not Be Just Maximalist Fantasy Anymore (CoinDesk)
• State of Crypto: Previewing Congress’ ‘Crypto Week’ (CoinDesk)
• Coinbase hires pseudonymous poster AlexOnchain as first ‘Crypto Twitter lead’ in bid to expand social media presence (The Block)