FastNail: Japan’s discount manicure chain hiding a 21,000-BTC mining empire
Have you heard of FastNail? It's a Japanese salon chain that offers ultra-cheap gel manicures to teens, the kind of place teenagers go for a quick beauty fix under 60 minutes.
Sounds ordinary enough, right?
Well, this same company also claims to own a data center and is busy mining Bitcoin. Yes, this is the real strategy of Convano Inc., the Tokyo-based owner of FastNail. In an almost surreal turn of events, Convano has transformed from a humble nail salon operator into one of Japan’s loudest crypto bulls.
Is it all a scam or are they serious? Let’s find out:
The original business: Fast, cheap manicures for all
Convano’s roots are firmly planted in the budget beauty industry. Founded in 2007, the company built its name on FASTNAIL, a chain of nail salons offering quick, affordable gel nails aimed at making manicures a casual, everyday luxury. The idea was simple: standardize and streamline nail services so that getting your nails done is as easy as grabbing a cup of coffee. FastNail promised consistent quality, transparent low pricing, and 60-minute sessions, attracting a young clientele who wanted trendy nails without breaking the bank. Over the years, Convano expanded to about 50 salons in prime areas like Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Ginza, even franchising the model to spread “fast nails” across Japan.
The company also dabbled in related “beauty media” and developed its own product lines. For example, a skincare brand called CONST and nail care goods under the Legaly label. By focusing on efficiency and listening to customer feedback, Convano turned what used to be an occasional treat (going to a nail salon) into something frequent and accessible. In short, Convano’s core business was thriving on the concept of volume and value: lots of salons, quick turnover, and prices so low that even teenagers could become regular patrons. This strategy saw Convano through ups and downs (even the COVID-era lockdowns, which the company weathered without laying off staff, according to shareholder letters) and eventually landed Convano on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2018. By 2021, founder Shigehito Tsuboi was proudly reporting that Convano had emerged from the pandemic slump and was poised for new growth.
Little did investors know how new that growth would be…
Enter 2023–2025: Convano’s strategy takes a wild detour into the world of cryptocurrency.
The sudden Crypto pivot
In mid-2025, Convano shocked observers by officially launching a Bitcoin business alongside its nail salons. One July day, the company announced it had created a “Bitcoin Reserve Strategy Office” and was embarking on an aggressive plan to accumulate and mine Bitcoin. The nail salon operator declared its intention to hold up to 21,000 BTC by March 2027, roughly 0.1% of all bitcoins in existence, as a treasury reserve. For context, 21,000 BTC is an enormous sum (over $600 million USD at recent prices) and an unprecedented target for a firm whose primary business involves polishing nails.
Yeah, except for Convano’s eager shareholders, many people are smelling a scam.
To address this crazy pivot, Convano’s management explained that this pivot was a response to economic trends. Citing inflation in Japan and wild currency fluctuations, they argued that Bitcoin could serve as an inflation hedge and store of value to protect the company’s financial stability. In other words, the nail salon chain essentially said: “We’re worried about the Yen, so we’re going all into crypto.”
This sounds like quite a normal strategy, if it wasn’t for the fact that they wouldn’t buy Bitcoin on the open market, but instead buy enough datacenter capacity to become Japan’s biggest Bitcoin miner!
To execute this plan, Convano appointed one of its directors, Taiyo Azuma who has experience in early-stage crypto investments, to lead the new Bitcoin Strategy Office and oversee investment and risk management.
As a cherry on top for the investors, Convano’s mining rigs will, according to Taiyo Azuma, be fully powered by renewable energy and even integrated with the company’s existing infrastructure. They boast about using dynamic load control and shared cooling between the data center and mining farm to cut costs.
Convano has marketed this expansion as “Green Bitcoin Goes Glam” portraying itself as an unlikely pioneer marrying beauty and high-tech sustainability.
Convano is serious
To prove it was serious, Convano put forward a concrete roadmap: accumulate 2,000 BTC by end of 2025, 10,000 by late 2026, and 21,000 by early 2027. The strategy involves a mix of mining and direct purchases, funded by new financing.
In fact, within two weeks of announcing the plan, Convano had already bought about 165 BTC as a start. The company raised ¥1.5 billion (around $10 million) in one tranche and then another ¥2 billion (~$13.5 million) in August 2025 to pump into Bitcoin acquisitions. It even issued corporate bonds earmarked for crypto buying sprees, effectively betting a chunk of its corporate credit on Bitcoin.
Convano insists this is a long-term, prudent strategy, not a speculative stunt. It has repeatedly stated that Bitcoin is a “defensive asset” for them, not a short-term trading vehicle, and it set up internal monitoring to track crypto volatility’s impact on their earnings.
Financially, what has this pivot done? In the immediate term, Convano’s balance sheet now includes a growing stash of BTC. The company even revised its profit forecasts upward, citing the Bitcoin strategy as a net positive. It raised its expected revenue for fiscal 2026 by ¥160 million and operating profit by ¥520 million, apparently optimistic that crypto-related gains or new business will boost the bottom line. Skeptics might note that such gains could just be from one-off investment windfalls (or mark-to-market accounting of their BTC holdings), rather than sustainable salon income.
A soaring stock and frenzied investors
If Convano’s pivot sounds crazy, it has certainly been crazy profitable for its stockholders. Upon unveiling its Bitcoin reserve strategy, Convano’s stock went limit-up and skyrocketed. The share price surged as much as 78.8% to a record high in short order. In fact, since the start of the crypto adventure in July, Convano’s stock more than tripled, making it one of the hottest tickets on the Tokyo exchange. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock is up roughly 277%, vastly outperforming the market average.
The rally was so sharp that Convano announced a 10-for-1 stock split to improve liquidity. Sure enough, when Convano revealed the split plan in mid-August 2025, the stock jumped another 22% in a day, hitting ¥1,647. The hype is real, a lot of retail investors are buying into the plan to make Convano Japan’s biggest Bitcoin miner.
Importantly, this phenomenon isn’t happening in isolation. Convano is part of a broader trend in Japan where small-cap companies pivot to crypto to catch a wave of investor enthusiasm. The “nail art concept stock” Convano actually seems inspired by the success of another unlikely crypto convert: MetaPlanet, a struggling budget hotel operator that went big on Bitcoin earlier in 2025. MetaPlanet’s bold Bitcoin-buying flywheel sent its value soaring and, as of August, that company held over 17,000 BTC on its balance sheet.
Seeing that, a flurry of Japanese firms, from fashion retailer ANAP to AI developer Quantum Solutions to even a textile company, announced their own crypto asset allocations. It’s almost a crypto gold rush among Japanese micro-caps, and Convano has become one of the poster children of this movement. The stock market’s response suggests that many investors are rewarding these pivots handsomely, perhaps betting that Bitcoin’s long-term uptrend will enrich these otherwise mundane businesses.
Echoes of past crypto mania
If all this rings a bell, it’s because we’ve seen similar oddball crypto pivots before, particularly during the 2017–2018 crypto bubble. Back then, a number of obscure US companies famously changed their names or business models to latch onto bitcoin-mania, resulting in eye-popping stock surges:
Long Island Iced Tea Corp. – a small New York beverage maker – suddenly rebranded itself Long Blockchain Corp. in Dec 2017. The mere announcement that it would explore “opportunities that leverage blockchain technology” (despite having no real crypto operations) sent its stock up 432% in one day. Long Blockchain never actually did any crypto business and was later delisted from Nasdaq amidst SEC investigations.
SkyPeople Fruit Juice – a Florida-based juice manufacturer – renamed itself Future FinTech and saw its stock jump over 200% practically overnight. The company claimed it would focus on blockchain e-commerce; investors went giddy on the buzzwords.
Kodak – yes, the iconic camera and film company – in January 2018 announced it was launching “KodakCoin” (a cryptocurrency for photographers) and a Bitcoin mining scheme called Kodak KashMiner. Kodak’s stock promptly spiked 60-120% on the news. Eventually the KashMiner idea was scrapped and KodakCoin’s fate is unclear.
Rich Cigars, Inc. – perhaps the most extreme example – was a defunct cigar company that decided to enter crypto mining in late 2017. Its stock went from literally pennies to 70 cents, a 2,233% increase on the announcement. Even after the initial hype cooled, it still traded at 10x its pre-pivot price for a while.
Is Convano a scam?
Is Convano’s pivot an actually serious strategic move, or is it likely a speculative pump-and-dump designed to inflate the stock in the short term?
Arguments that Convano is serious and here to stay:
The company is putting real resources into the crypto venture. They raised capital, issued bonds, and spent billions of yen to buy BTC and equipment. This isn’t just a name change or a press release with empty words – they’ve literally started moving cash into Bitcoin and building mining capacity. That’s more commitment than some of the 2017-era pivots ever made (Long Blockchain, for instance, never purchased the mining rigs it said it would).
Convano has set up a dedicated Bitcoin Strategy Office with an experienced crypto director. They are treating it as a new business unit, suggesting at least an attempt at professional execution and risk management. They also still affirm their core nail business is ongoing, implying this is an expansion, not a complete abandonment of what they do best.
The rationale given – hedging against inflation and diversifying treasury assets – is not too far-fetched. Many companies (like MicroStrategy in the US) have adopted Bitcoin as part of their treasury strategy, arguing similar points about protecting purchasing power. Japan’s macro environment (low interest rates, potential inflation uptick) and discussions of friendlier crypto tax treatment might indeed make holding BTC attractive. In that light, Convano could be genuinely preparing for a future where having crypto reserves is advantageous.
The pivot also aligns with a trend among Japanese small-cap companies modernizing their image. In a country where retail investors dominate trading, having a cutting-edge narrative (AI, crypto, etc.) can draw attention – which in turn can help a company raise funds more easily or use its stock as currency for acquisitions.
Arguments that it’s likely hype / pump-and-dump:
The scale of Convano’s Bitcoin ambition (21,000 BTC) is extremely aggressive and arguably unrealistic without taking on enormous risk. To reach that, they’d need to keep raising money or hope their mining yields an almost magical amount of Bitcoin. Currently they have ~165 BTC after initial buys. Even if they continue buying 10 BTC a month through mining and purchases (as they claim is their pace), that’s only ~120 BTC a year – nowhere near 21,000 by 2027. Achieving the target would require massive additional financing or a skyrocketing BTC price (which could inflate the value of holdings but not the count of BTC).
The timing of the pivot raises eyebrows. Crypto was on an upswing in 2023–2025 again, and other companies had gotten stock boosts from similar moves. It feels like Convano jumped on the bandwagon opportunistically. The fact that the stock shot up almost 80% on cue indicates that market speculation was likely a motive. If management or large shareholders wanted to create an exit opportunity or conduct equity financing at higher prices, stirring crypto hype is a proven tactic.
Convano’s core competency is in salons, not technology or finance. When non-tech companies wander into highly technical fields, there’s a high, high risk they’re out of their depth. For instance, running a crypto mining operation requires expertise in sourcing ASIC miners, managing electricity contracts, cybersecurity, and handling coin custody, none of which overlap with running nail salons. The company’s materials tout things like AI integration and dynamic cooling, but those read like buzzwords that investors want to hear.
Comparisons to those past cases like Long Blockchain are hard to ignore. In each of those, initial enthusiasm gave way to sobering reality. For example, after the hype, Long Blockchain’s market cap evaporated and it was delisted, as noted, never delivering on its blockchain promises. The concern is that Convano might similarly fail to follow through in a meaningful way once the spotlight moves on. The ultimate pump-and-dump hallmark would be if insiders profit from the inflated stock and the Bitcoin plan is left half-baked.
Final thoughts
Convano’s story is one of the more absurd yet fascinating corporate pivots in recent memory. It’s not every day you see a business go from offering ¥3,000 manicures to wanting to become Japan’s biggest Bitcoin miner.
On one hand, you have to admire the boldness. Convano saw an opening to make itself more relevant by pivoting into a high-growth sector. Rather than languish as a low-margin consumer service business, it’s swinging for the fences. If Bitcoin becomes as integral to finance as true believers think, Convano could end up extremely well-positioned even if they, which they most likely will, fall well short of their targets.
On the other hand, the whole thing is literary peppered with cliches straight from the 1990s dot-com bubble era. Slapping a trendy theme onto a company tends to be a short-lived way to boost valuation. Eventually, reality bites. Either the company delivers results in the new domain or investors move on.
For now, consider this article your notice: the next time you walk by a FastNail salon in Tokyo, remember that beneath the pastel polish and teenage clientele, there beats the heart of a would-be Bitcoin titan, or a very funny pump-and-dump scheme!
Sources:
Convano’s Bitcoin strategy announcement and background
Press coverage of Convano’s pivot and mining plans
Market reactions and stock data
Historical parallels: Long Blockchain and others rebranding during crypto mania