Bitcoin development company MicroStrategy has found another copycat willing to mimic its investment strategy of going all-in on BTC.
Semler Scientific (SMLR), a little-known medical company trading on the NASDAQ, announced on Tuesday that it had adopted Bitcoin as its “primary treasury reserve asset” that will henceforth be bought using the company’s excess cash.
Semler Scientific Makes The Bitcoin Leap
Semler kicked off its plans with an initial purchase of 581 BTC at a cost of $40 million, tax and expenses included. Before the end of trading on Tuesday, SMLR stock surged as much as 38% to a high of $33.25 in response.
“Bitcoin is now a major asset class with more than $1 trillion of market value,” said Eric Semler, Semler Scientific’s chairman, when explaining the company’s decision. “We believe it has unique characteristics as a scarce and finite asset that can serve as a reasonable inflation hedge and safe haven amid global instability.”
Semler said the company recognizes Bitcoin as “digital gold” – a moniker afforded to it by numerous famous investors including BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. Much like its predecessor, Bitcoin has a limited supply making it a strong store of value, but is much easier to move thanks to being digital.
“Its digital, architectural resilience makes it preferable to gold, which has a market value of approximately 10 times that of bitcoin,” said Selmer. “Given the gap in value between gold and bitcoin, we believe that bitcoin has the potential to generate outsize returns.”
The company said it will continue to operate its profitable healthcare company and generate and actively evaluate how it uses its excess cash. Bitcoin will be used as its principal treasury holding, “subject to market conditions and the anticipated cash needs of Semler Scientific.”
Adopting A Corporate Bitcoin Standard
The firm’s strategy mimics that of MicroStrategy (MSTR), the business intelligence software firm that began rapidly acquiring Bitcoin in August 2020. Since then, MicroStrategy has amassed over 214,000 BTC on its balance sheet, and its stock price has surged by over 1000%.
After MSTR, a smaller Japanese investment firm called Metaplanet announced its strategy to acquire as much BTC as possible, planning to use stock dilution and other capital markets tools to achieve that goal.
Last week, the Tokyo Stock Exchange was forced to suspend trading for the stock after it reached its maximum daily price crease limit for two consecutive trading days.
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