Semler Scientific buys another $23M in Bitcoin
2025-01-14
Category: None

Semler Scientific has bought an additional 237 Bitcoin BTCUSD for approximately $23 million, or just over $98,000 per coin, the healthcare technology company said on Jan. 13. 
It bought the BTC using proceeds from stock sales and operating cash flow. The company now holds a total of 2321 BTC, worth nearly $192 million. It bought the BTC for an average cost basis of less than $83,000 it said. 
Semler has issued more than $120 million of stock to finance BTC buying, among other activities. The BTC purchases brought the stock’s “Bitcoin yield” up from 72.6% to 99.3%, it said.
Bitcoin yield measures the ratio of BTC holdings to outstanding shares and sets BTC-per-share as a lodestar for corporate performance. Semler said the metrics serve to “supplement an investor’s understanding” of its BTC buying strategy. 
In July, Semler executives said buying BTC allowed the struggling company to finally emerge from “zombie” status. Zombie companies earn just enough to continue operating and service debts but have no excess capital to spur growth and are often close to insolvency.
On Nov. 4, the company’s CEO, Doug Murphy-Chutorian, said Semler Scientific remains “laser-focused on acquiring and holding Bitcoin.” 
Corporate Bitcoin buying
Bitcoin yield was originally coined by Microstrategy, a software company that started buying BTC in 2020 at the behest of former CEO Michael Saylor. Since then, shares of Microstategy’s stock gained about 2,000%, outperforming practically every sizeable public company except Nvidia. 
Other companies, including Semler, have followed in Microstrategy’s footsteps. They include drugmaker Hoth Therapeutics, artificial intelligence developer Genius Group and YouTube alternative Rumble. 
Corporate treasuries hold more than $54 billion in BTC as of Jan. 13, according to Bitcointreasuries.net. Semler’s Bitcoin treasury ranks 13th in size among public companies. Microstrategy’s more than $40 billion treasury is the largest. 
Investment managers, including Paul Tudor Jones, are longing Bitcoin and other commodities on fears that “all roads lead to inflation” in the United States. US state governments are also adding Bitcoin as “a hedge against fiscal uncertainty,” asset manager VanEck said in December.