Written by: Protos
Compiled by: Chopper, Foresight News
Eleven months ago, French semiconductor company Sequans Communications launched a corporate Bitcoin reserve program to mitigate the risk of delisting from the New York Stock Exchange. Today, this experiment has ended in disappointment.
The chip company confirmed that it has fully repaid its convertible bonds by selling its Bitcoin holdings and plans to gradually liquidate the remaining 658 Bitcoin. The company’s Bitcoin holdings once peaked at 3,234 BTC.
Sequans previously announced that it intended to hold more than 3,000 bitcoins as a long-term reserve asset, but what was termed "long-term" lasted less than a year.
The company's stock (ticker: SQNS) has declined by 77% this year and a staggering 97% over the past five years.
Sequans's Bitcoin reserve program launched on June 23, 2025, at a time when Swan Bitcoin and its CEO Cory Klippsten were actively promoting the initiative (note: Swan Bitcoin is the exclusive operator and advisor for Sequans's Bitcoin reserve strategy). Just 18 days before the program’s implementation, the NYSE issued a delisting warning to Sequans, as the company’s market capitalization and shareholders’ equity both fell below the exchange’s $50 million minimum listing threshold.
Sequans's latest announcement: all convertible bonds have been fully repaid
At the time, Klippsten stated, "Sequans is poised to become the leader in the corporate Bitcoin reserve space." At that time, SQNS stock was priced at $23.40; today, it opens at just $3.98.
The Bitcoin reserve strategy failed shortly after its inception.
After the market bubble burst in early summer 2025, the stock prices of numerous publicly traded companies that had positioned themselves with digital asset reserves collectively weakened, and Sequans’s once-promising vision has now fallen through.
Sequans CEO Georges Karam previously made a strong statement, firmly believing that Bitcoin is a high-quality asset with significant long-term investment value.
At the time, the company selected Swan Bitcoin as the execution partner and Coinbase Prime as the custodian. Northland Capital Markets and B. Riley Securities served as joint lead underwriters, assisting the company in completing a private placement totaling $384 million.
Of this funding, only $195 million came from the sale of American Depositary Receipts at $1.40 per share; the remaining $189 million consisted of secured convertible bonds collateralized by bitcoin. This means that from the very first day the plan was implemented, the bitcoin held by Sequans as reserves was effectively pledged to the creditors.
As of October 3, 2025, Sequans holds a total of 3,234 bitcoins, with an average cost basis of approximately $116,643 per bitcoin. As of the time of this article, the price of bitcoin has dropped to $73,000.
Just one month later, the publicly traded company became known for a negative news story: it sold 970 bitcoins to repay part of its debt.
This action completely contradicts the core principle of the corporate HODL philosophy. Michael Saylor, the pioneer of this model, once famously said: “Never sell your Bitcoin, even in desperation.” But Sequans ultimately chose to sell its Bitcoin to repay debts.
Percentage change in adjusted net asset value per share (mNAV) for multiple Bitcoin treasury companies since July 22, 2025
The Bitcoin reserve strategy has been officially terminated
Five months later, Sequans completely halted the plan. The company stated briefly in its announcement: "The Bitcoin reserve strategy has been terminated."
Karam, who once strongly championed Bitcoin, now says this debt settlement is a pivotal turning point for the company, and Sequans will fully focus on its core IoT semiconductor business to drive expansion.
All previous praise for Bitcoin’s value and promises of generating long-term returns for shareholders through cryptocurrency reserves have been abandoned; the company now has only a liquidation plan remaining.
In fact, as early as the Q1 2026 earnings report released three weeks ago, the company had already signaled its exit. In the risk factors section of the report, the official explicitly mentioned the termination of Bitcoin reserve-related operations. For that quarter, Sequans generated only $6.1 million in revenue and incurred an operating loss of $50.5 million.
According to the annual report, Sequans reported a net loss of $109.3 million for the full year 2025, with $67.4 million of that attributable solely to unrealized impairment losses on bitcoin assets, bringing the company’s total accumulated losses to $145.1 million.
In summary, Sequans bought high and sold low on Bitcoin, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in losses.
The company originally intended to strengthen its financial risk resilience and create long-term value for shareholders by leveraging its Bitcoin reserves, but both goals have failed. Currently, the SQNS stock price has dropped more than 80% since the launch of the Bitcoin initiative and over 92% from its high point over the past year.