Another Bitcoin Treasury Company Exits: 11 Months, from a High-Profile Entry to a Catastrophic Liquidation Loss
- Core Insight: The corporate Bitcoin reserve plan initiated by French semiconductor company Sequans in June 2025 has ended in failure within less than a year. Forced to sell Bitcoin to repay debt and planning a full liquidation, the company incurred massive losses, with its stock price plummeting over 80%.
- Key Elements:
- Sequans has sold its Bitcoin holdings 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 shareholders' equity fell below $50 million).
- The company raised $384 million through private placements, including $189 million in secured convertible bonds collateralized by Bitcoin, meaning the Bitcoin reserve was encumbered from the very beginning.
- As of October 3, 2025, the company's average holding cost was approximately $116,600, while Bitcoin's price fell to $73,000, resulting in a "buy high, sell low" scenario.
- Just one month after the plan's launch, the company had already sold 970 Bitcoins to repay debt, violating the core "HODL" principle of corporate Bitcoin accumulation strategies.
- The company's full-year 2025 net loss was $109.3 million, including an unrealized impairment loss on Bitcoin assets of $67.4 million, bringing cumulative losses to $145.1 million.
- The current stock price (approximately $3.98) has fallen over 80% from the launch date and 92% from its one-year high. The company has announced the termination of its Bitcoin reserve strategy.
Original Author: Protos
Original Compiled by: Chopper, Foresight News
11 months ago, French semiconductor company Sequans Communications launched a corporate bitcoin reserve plan to stave off delisting from the New York Stock Exchange. Now, this experiment has ended in failure.
The chip company confirmed that it has fully repaid its convertible notes by selling its bitcoin holdings and also plans to gradually liquidate the remaining 658 BTC. The company's bitcoin holdings once peaked at 3,234 BTC.
Sequans had previously stated its intention to accumulate over 3,000 BTC as a long-term reserve asset. However, 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 plunged 97% over the past five years.
Sequans' bitcoin reserve plan was launched on June 23, 2025, with Swan Bitcoin and its CEO Cory Klippsten heavily promoting the project (Note: Swan Bitcoin was the exclusive operator and advisor for Sequans' bitcoin reserve strategy). Just 18 days before the plan's implementation, the NYSE issued a delisting warning to Sequans: the company's market capitalization and shareholders' equity both fell below the exchange's minimum threshold of $50 million.
Sequans' latest announcement confirms full repayment of its convertible notes.
Klippsten stated at the time, "Sequans is poised to become a leader in the corporate bitcoin reserve space." At that time, SQNS shares were trading at $23.40. Today, the stock opened at just $3.98.
Bitcoin Reserve Strategy Fails Shortly After Launch
Following the market bubble burst in early summer 2025, a wave of publicly traded companies with digital asset reserves saw their stock prices weaken collectively, shattering the rosy picture Sequans had painted.
Sequans CEO Georges Karam had earlier expressed strong belief that bitcoin was a high-quality asset with significant long-term investment value.
The company selected Swan Bitcoin as the 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 amount, only $195 million came from the sale of American Depositary Shares at $1.40 per share; the remaining $189 million was from secured convertible notes using bitcoin as collateral. This means from day one of the plan, the bitcoin Sequans used as reserves was essentially already pledged to creditors.
As of October 3, 2025, Sequans held a total of 3,234 BTC, with an average cost basis of approximately $116,643 per BTC. As of this writing, bitcoin's price has fallen to $73,000.
Just one month later, the listed company became "notorious" for a piece of negative news: to repay part of its debt, the company sold 970 BTC.
This action fundamentally violated the core tenet of the corporate bitcoin accumulation school. The pioneer of this model, Michael Saylor, famously said, "Don't sell your bitcoin even if you have no other options." But Sequans ultimately chose to sell bitcoin to repay debt.
Percentage change in adjusted net asset value (mNAV) per share for various bitcoin treasury companies since July 22, 2025.
"Bitcoin Reserve Strategy Officially Terminated"
Another five months later, Sequans completely abandoned this plan. The company simply stated in an announcement: "The bitcoin reserve strategy has been terminated."
Karam, the CEO who was once extremely bullish on bitcoin, now says this debt repayment is a significant turning point for the company. Going forward, Sequans will fully focus on its core IoT semiconductor business to drive expansion.
The previous praise for bitcoin's value and promises of generating long-term returns for shareholders through crypto asset reserves have all been abandoned. What remains is a liquidation plan.
In fact, the company had already signaled its exit three weeks earlier in its Q1 2026 earnings report. In the risk factors section of the report, the company explicitly mentioned it would terminate bitcoin reserve-related operations. In that quarter, Sequans reported revenue of only $6.1 million and an operating loss of $50.5 million.
According to annual report data, Sequans recorded a net loss of $109.3 million for the full year 2025, including an unrealized impairment loss of $67.4 million on its bitcoin assets. The company's total accumulated losses have reached $145.1 million.
In summary, Sequans bought high and sold low on bitcoin, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in losses.
The company's original goals of using a bitcoin reserve to enhance financial resilience and create long-term value for shareholders have both failed entirely. Currently, the SQNS stock price is down over 80% from the day the bitcoin plan was launched and down 92% from its high point in the past year.
