Strive Shares Fall 12% After Semler Deal To Expand Bitcoin Treasury

Strive’s stock fell about 12% on Tuesday after the asset manager announced an all-stock deal to acquire Semler Scientific, a transaction that will significantly expand its Bitcoin holdings.

The company, co-founded by Vivek Ramaswamy, said on Tuesday that it has secured shareholder approval for the acquisition, which would add Semler Scientific’s 5,048.1 Bitcoin to Strive’s existing treasury. Following the transaction, Strive’s total Bitcoin holdings would rise to 12,797.9 BTC.

Strive is already the 11th largest publicly traded Bitcoin holding company, according to BitcoinTreasuries.NET data. The company also disclosed the purchase of an additional 123 Bitcoin for its corporate treasury, lifting its standalone holdings to 7,749.8 BTC.

As part of the deal, Strive plans to monetize Semler’s operating business and pursue steps to retire existing obligations, including a $100 million convertible note and a $20 million loan from Coinbase, subject to market conditions.

The merger includes a 1-for-20 reverse stock split of the combined company’s Class A and Class B common shares, a move that would reduce the number of shares outstanding.

Related: Strategy kickstarts 2026 with $116M Bitcoin buy as Q4 paper loss hits $17B

Digital asset treasury stocks struggle after initial boost

Public companies that have shifted toward holding digital assets on their balance sheets have often seen volatile stock price reactions, with shares rallying sharply after treasury-strategy announcements before giving back a significant portion of those gains.

That volatility has already played out at Strive. After announcing its Bitcoin treasury strategy on May 7, its stock surged from $0.61 to a peak of $13.01 on May 22, a gain of more than 2,000%, before reversing course. The shares are currently trading at about $0.97.

Semler Scientific’s shares experienced a similar rise-and-retrace dynamic. In late May 2024, the company announced board approval to adopt Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset and the purchase of 581 BTC. Shares climbed to $67.17 by Dec. 9, up from roughly $30 in early May. The stock trades at about $20 at this writing.

A related, though slower-moving, pattern unfolded with Metaplanet, a Japan-based hotel operator that is now the world’s fourth-largest corporate Bitcoin holder, with 35,102 BTC on its balance sheet. 

The company’s stock was trading near $34 when Metaplanet announced its Bitcoin treasury strategy in April 2024, later climbing to roughly $232 by July and reaching a closing high of $1,781 on May 16, 2025. It has since retraced to around $528, according to Yahoo Finance data, still remaining well above pre-announcement levels.

Magazine: One metric shows crypto is now in a bear market: Carl ‘The Moon’