Another Bitcoin treasury company exits the stage: 11 months, from a high-profile entry to a clearance sale with huge losses
- Key Insight: The corporate Bitcoin reserve plan initiated by French semiconductor company Sequans in June 2025 has ended in failure in less than a year. Forced to sell Bitcoin to repay debt and plan a liquidation, the company incurred massive losses, with its stock price plummeting over 80%.
- Key Elements:
- Sequans has sold its held Bitcoin to fully repay convertible bonds and plans to gradually liquidate the remaining 658 Bitcoins. Its peak holdings reached 3,234 Bitcoins.
- The plan was launched on June 23, 2025, when the stock price was $23.40. Just 18 days prior, the company had received a delisting warning from the NYSE (market capitalization and shareholder equity were below $50 million).
- The company raised $384 million through private placements, including $189 million in secured convertible bonds collateralized by Bitcoin, meaning the Bitcoin reserves were encumbered from the very start.
- As of October 3, 2025, the company's average cost basis for its holdings was approximately $116,600 per Bitcoin, while the Bitcoin price had fallen to $73,000, resulting in a "buy high, sell low" scenario.
- One month after the plan's launch, the company had already sold 970 Bitcoins to repay debt, violating the core tenet of corporate Bitcoin accumulation strategies: "never sell."
- The company's full-year net loss for 2025 was $109.3 million, including an unrealized impairment loss on Bitcoin assets of $67.4 million, contributing to a cumulative loss of $145.1 million.
- The current stock price (approximately $3.98) is down over 80% from the launch date and down 92% from its high in the past year. The company has announced the termination of its Bitcoin reserve strategy.
Original Author: Protos
Original Translation: Chopper, Foresight News
11 months ago, French semiconductor company Sequans Communications launched a corporate bitcoin reserve plan to address the risk of delisting from the New York Stock Exchange. Now, this trial run has ended in disappointment.
The chip company confirmed that it has fully repaid its convertible bonds by selling its bitcoin holdings, and also plans to gradually liquidate the remaining 658 bitcoins. The company's bitcoin holdings once peaked at 3,234 coins.
Sequans had previously announced its intention to accumulate over 3,000 bitcoins as a long-term reserve asset. But this so-called "long term" ultimately lasted less than a year.
The company's stock (ticker: SQNS) has fallen 77% year-to-date, and has plummeted 97% over the past five years.
Sequans' bitcoin reserve plan was launched on June 23, 2025, at which time Swan Bitcoin and its CEO Cory Klippsten were actively promoting the project (Note: Swan Bitcoin was the exclusive operator and advisor for Sequans' bitcoin reserve strategy). Just 18 days before the plan was implemented, the NYSE issued a delisting warning to Sequans: both the company's market capitalization and shareholders' equity had fallen below the exchange's minimum threshold of $50 million.
Sequans' latest announcement confirms full repayment of its convertible bonds
Klippsten stated at the time, "Sequans is poised to become a leader in the corporate bitcoin reserve space." At that point, SQNS shares were trading at $23.40; now, the stock's opening price is just $3.98.
The Bitcoin Reserve Strategy Failed Shortly After Launch
After the market bubble burst in early summer 2025, a wave of publicly listed companies with digital asset reserves saw their stock prices collectively weaken, and Sequans' once-promising vision has now been dashed.
Sequans CEO Georges Karam had previously made bold statements, expressing strong belief that bitcoin is a high-quality asset with immense long-term investment value.
The company selected Swan Bitcoin as its execution partner and Coinbase Prime as the asset custodian. Meanwhile, Northland Capital Markets and B. Riley Securities acted as joint lead bookrunners, assisting the company in completing a private placement totaling $384 million.
Of this capital, only $195 million came from the sale of American Depositary Shares at $1.40 per share; the remaining $189 million came from secured convertible bonds backed by bitcoin as collateral. In other words, from the very first day of the plan's implementation, the bitcoin intended as reserves was effectively already pledged to creditors.
As of October 3, 2025, Sequans held a total of 3,234 bitcoins, with an average cost basis of approximately $116,643 per coin. As of the time of this writing, bitcoin's price has fallen to $73,000.
Just one month later, the listed company became "notorious" for a negative headline: to repay part of its debts, the company sold 970 bitcoins.
This action completely violated the core tenet of the corporate bitcoin accumulation school. Michael Saylor, the pioneer of this model, famously said: "If you're out of options, don't sell your bitcoin." Ultimately, however, Sequans chose to sell its coins to repay debt.
Percentage change in adjusted net asset value (mNAV) per share for multiple bitcoin treasury companies since July 22, 2025
"Bitcoin Reserve Strategy Officially Terminated"
Another five months later, Sequans completely halted the plan. The company stated briefly in an announcement: "The bitcoin reserve strategy has been terminated."
CEO Karam, who was once extremely bullish on bitcoin, now stated that this debt repayment marks a significant turning point for the company. Going forward, Sequans will focus entirely on its core IoT semiconductor business to drive expansion.
The previous praise for bitcoin's value and promises to generate long-term returns for shareholders through crypto asset reserves have all been abandoned; the company is left with only a liquidation plan.
In fact, the company had already signaled its exit in its Q1 2026 earnings report released three weeks earlier. In the risk factors section of that report, the company explicitly mentioned that it would terminate bitcoin reserve-related operations. For that quarter, Sequans reported revenue of only $6.1 million and an operating loss of $50.5 million.
According to its annual report data, Sequans posted a full-year net loss of $109.3 million in 2025, of which unrealized impairment losses on bitcoin assets alone reached $67.4 million. The company's total accumulated losses amounted to $145.1 million.
In summary, Sequans bought bitcoin high and sold low, ultimately generating tens of millions of dollars in losses.
The company had initially hoped to use the bitcoin reserve to enhance its financial resilience and create long-term value for shareholders; both goals were completely missed. Currently, the SQNS stock price has fallen over 80% from the day the bitcoin plan was launched, and is down 92% from its 52-week high.
