Meitu Discloses $40 Million Bitcoin and Ether Treasury Purchase

Hong Kong-listed software company Meitu Inc. disclosed on March 7, 2021 that it had purchased approximately $40 million of cryptocurrency with existing cash reserves, splitting the allocation between ether and bitcoin.

The transactions occurred on March 5, 2021, two days before the announcement. Meitu reported buying 15,000 ether for approximately $22.1 million and 379.1214267 bitcoin for approximately $17.9 million through open-market transactions.

The distinction between those dates matters: March 7 was the disclosure date, not the execution date. The announcement established the quantities and aggregate consideration but did not identify the trading venues, execution times, individual fills, fees, wallet addresses or custodians.

A treasury allocation with an Ethereum component

Meitu’s board had previously approved a plan permitting the group to make net cryptocurrency purchases of as much as $100 million. The company defined net purchases as the market value of cryptocurrency bought at acquisition minus the market value of cryptocurrency sold at disposal. It said the plan would use existing cash reserves, excluding any remaining proceeds from its initial public offering.

The disclosed $40 million represented 40% of that authorized ceiling. Ether accounted for 55.25% of the announced consideration and bitcoin for 44.75%. Those percentages are calculations from Meitu’s rounded dollar figures, not values reported separately by the company.

Dividing the stated consideration by the units acquired produces implied average costs of approximately $1,473.33 per ether and $47,214.42 per bitcoin. These are reconstructed averages based on rounded aggregate consideration. They should not be treated as exchange closing prices or precise execution prices, particularly because Meitu did not disclose whether its reported consideration included every fee.

The ether allocation made the announcement different from the bitcoin-centered treasury strategies then attracting institutional attention. Tesla had disclosed on February 8, 2021 that it invested an aggregate $1.5 billion in bitcoin after revising its investment policy. MicroStrategy’s February 12 annual report said it held approximately 71,079 bitcoin as of February 8, acquired for an aggregate $1.145 billion.

Against that contemporaneous backdrop, Meitu was not merely copying a bitcoin reserve strategy. It directed slightly more of its initial disclosed spending to Ethereum’s native asset.

Meitu’s stated case—and its limits

Meitu’s board presented two overlapping rationales. It described cryptocurrency as a possible diversification from cash and characterized bitcoin as an alternative store of value. Those were the board’s investment views, not independently established findings.

For ether, the company tied the purchase to possible operating uses. Meitu said it was evaluating Ethereum-based decentralized applications for overseas businesses and investments in blockchain projects that might accept ether. It therefore described the acquired ether as a potential reserve for transaction fees and project investment consideration.

That explanation made the purchase institutionally significant on March 7: a listed consumer-software company was treating a programmable-network asset as both a treasury holding and possible operating inventory. However, Meitu announced no completed decentralized application, blockchain investment or deployment. The operational case remained an intention under evaluation.

Custody was also only partially described. Meitu said the assets would reside with established cryptocurrency trading platforms selected for their security measures, but it did not name them or provide evidence permitting independent on-chain verification.

What the disclosure established

The central verified development was narrow but material: Meitu committed about $40 million of corporate cash to bitcoin and ether, under a board-approved authorization that allowed up to $100 million of net purchases. The company also warned shareholders that cryptocurrency prices were volatile and that future purchases or sales would depend on market conditions and board discretion.

As of March 7, 2021, the announcement demonstrated widening corporate experimentation with digital assets. It did not establish that the strategy would produce gains, that Meitu would use all of its authorization, or that its proposed Ethereum initiatives would proceed.