Semler Scientific and Metaplanet Adopts MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Playbook

Semler Scientific made its first Bitcoin purchase on May 28 and from that time till now, its shares have risen by 40%.

Adopting a Bitcoin (BTC) strategy is likely the best thing that has happened to Metaplanet Inc (TYO: 3350) and Semler Scientific Inc (NASDAQ: SMLR).

Apparently, shares in both companies have secured double and triple-digit increases in recent times. This started after the firms followed the MicroStrategy Inc (NASDAQ: MSTR) Bitcoin playbook this year. Noteworthy, this goes a long way to demonstrate how MicroStrategy inspires other firms to take a Bitcoin leap.

Zombie Companies Change Course with Bitcoin

On Thursday at the ongoing Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, Semler Scientific’s chairman Eric Semler explained how his company came to adopt a Bitcoin strategy.

According to Semler, MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor talked about some zombie companies that just earn enough to continue operating and service debt. Companies in this category barely have excess capital to spur growth and could end up insolvent.

After hearing this description, Semler agreed that his company fell into this category. This precipitated from the fact that the firm’s stock hardly showed any positive sentiment and “we were still very cash-rich”, he added. At that point, Semler decided to follow MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin playbook courtesy of Saylor and make best use of its cash.

Semler Scientific made its first Bitcoin purchase on May 28 and from that time till now, its shares have risen by 40%. Data from Bitcoin Treasuries shows that the shares are currently down on the Bitcoin investment by 3.6%. Metaplanet has a backstory similar to that of Semler Scientific.

Metaplanet Launches Bitcoin Acquisition Spree

Simon Gerovich, the CEO of Metaplanet, admitted that his firm began to exhibit characteristics of a zombie company. Once he reached this level of realization, adopting MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin playbook became imminent.

“[I was] cleaning up the balance sheet, getting rid of staff, paying down debt and effectively putting us in a position where I think Michael [Saylor] would call us a zombie company looking for a business,” Gerovich recalled from his early struggles at Metaplanet.

So far, the Japanese firm has jumped into a series of Bitcoin acquisitions. At the beginning of July, Metaplanet Inc announced that it had purchased an additional 42.47 Bitcoins, worth around $2.42 million. This took its entire Bitcoin holding to a total of 203.734 Bitcoins at the time. Last week, the firm made another Bitcoin purchase of 21.88 Bitcoin at a value of 200 million Japanese Yen, equivalent to approximately $1.2 million.

Metaplanet currently holds around 225.6 BTC, valued at over $15 million at the current price of $67,088.34 atop a more than 4% growth in 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap data. For this company, adopting Bitcoin is the best way to strengthen its balance sheet while reducing its exposure to the fast-depreciating Japanese yen.

Interestingly, both Semler Scientific and Metaplanet are open to accepting the extreme volatility that comes with Bitcoin too.