Simon Gerovich, the CEO of Japan-based Bitcoin treasury company Metaplanet, has acknowledged that the ongoing crypto journey has been painful.
At the end of 2025, the company’s stock (35,012 BTC) experienced a paper loss of $619 million due to the BTC price crash. The unrealized loss is now the case doubled to more than $1.2 billion as of February.
However, Gerovich assured that the company has no plan to get rid of its stock as the crypto winter deepens. add That,
“Our strategy remains unchanged. We are here to accumulate Bitcoin and grow Bitcoin per share, which we increased by over 500% by 2025. We will never sell our Bitcoin.”
As for Bitcoin’s next direction, Gerovich, like Fidelity and most analysts, was cautiously optimistic about a potential market bottom around $60,000.
“Personally, I believe Bitcoin has found a bottom around $60,000, although I hold that opinion with humility. No one knows.”
But he claimed that BTC is likely to print a new all-time high and slammed critics of Bitcoin treasury companies.
Bitcoin sees a spike in downside bets
However, in the short term, demand for downside protection remained strong, with some seeing a potential BTC price drop below $60,000.
According to the Options tracking platform Laevitasthere was a rise in bearish bets, targeting $58,000 and $55,000 in late February and March.
“Demand for downside protection remains. In the last few hours: bought 1864 BTC $58K puts for 27FEB26 ($687.72k), bought 276 BTC $58K puts for 6MAR26 ($205.14K). Also bought 600 BTC $55K puts for 27MAR26 ($551.18K) on February 17.”
The above positioning was interesting as the broader put/call ratios were still constructive and leaning bullish.
This underlined that despite the potential for a recovery, the major players remained cautious about one another leg down can occur before a real bottom is reached in the market.
Still, Bitfinex analysts noted that whales have accumulated 200,000 BTC in the past 30 days. According to them, the continued accumulation of whales strengthened their price outlook. add on it,
“That can stabilize the price, but the uptrend is usually slower and range-limited until retail spot demand increases. The confirmation is a spot-led continuation, not leverage-led spikes.”

Source: CryptoQuant/Bitfinex
Final summary
- Metaplanet’s CEO was cautiously optimistic that BTC could hit a low above $60,000, adding that the Bitcoin treasury will not sell its BTC holdings.
- Whales raised 200,000 BTC and were able to push the sideways structure above $60,000, but there was increasing demand for downside protection.
