As the U.S. government decided to increase the size of long-term Treasury buybacks and Bitcoin prices surged, BITPLANET(049470) is drawing attention as the first among listed companies to enter the Bitcoin mining business. Last week, on news of the Treasury's buybacks, Bitcoin jumped from around $64,000 to above $70,000.
BITPLANET(049470) plans to purchase 454 Antminer S21 XP Hydro units and 750 S21e XP Hydro units on the 28th of this month for about 15.3 billion won. These devices are used to mine Bitcoin. BITPLANET(049470) adopted the MicroStrategy model, a U.S. Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) Bitcoin treasury strategy, becoming the first in Korea to include Bitcoin as a corporate treasury asset. It is the only listed company in Korea engaged in Bitcoin mining.
The company is targeting monthly output of seven Bitcoins and up to 90 per year. The miners will be deployed in Oman in the Middle East and Paraguay in South America, where electricity rates are relatively low and power supply is stable.
BITPLANET(049470) sees this mining business not as a simple new venture but as a mid- to long-term growth strategy. It is reviewing a plan to operate the mined Bitcoin by dividing it into liquidity reserves, risk-hedge funds, and reinvestment funds. While running the mining business, it also announced plans to transition to an AI data center in the future based on power procurement, cooling, and infrastructure.
The Bitcoin mining business has completed the necessary contract procedures, with only the funding execution remaining. The goal is to close the transaction by the end of this month. BITPLANET(049470) said the timeline was delayed from the original plan because there are few domestic cases related to Bitcoin mining, and it had to go through legal and accounting advice on everything from contract terms to accounting treatment, disclosures, and foreign exchange procedures.
A BITPLANET(049470) official said, "The mining business is not structured to be completed with a single contract. Multiple contracts, such as the sales contract for miners and financing agreements for the purchase, must be signed with different transaction counterparties, and the performance of each contract is linked as a condition precedent to the next stage," and added, "As these procedures took longer than expected during actual execution, the acquisition date was adjusted, and the mining start time was adjusted as well."
Accounting treatment is also an issue to be resolved. Most approaches by domestic listed companies to Bitcoin have been a treasury strategy of acquiring and holding it as an asset. In that case, it is reflected on the balance sheet rather than the income statement. By contrast, Bitcoin mining constitutes an operating activity that uses equipment and electricity to obtain output.
BITPLANET(049470) is preparing on the premise of recognizing the mined Bitcoin as revenue. A company official said, "There are not enough domestic precedents to reference for detailed standards such as the timing of revenue recognition and valuation methods, so we are consulting with an accounting firm and auditors."