Crypto Currents: Strive, Semler Scientific announce bitcoin treasury merger

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STRIVE, SEMLER SCIENTIFIC ANNOUNCE BITCOIN TREASURY MERGER: Strive (ASST) announced Monday it (SMLR) in an all-stock transaction. In addition, Strive announced the purchase of 5,816 bitcoin to its corporate treasury at an average price of $116,047 per bitcoin, for a total purchase price of $675M, inclusive of fees and expenses, bringing Strive’s total bitcoin holdings to 5,886. The deal represents an approximately 210% premium, equivalent to approximately $90.52 per share, based on the trading price of Semler Scientific common stock and Strive Class A common stock as of the market close on September 19. Each common share of Semler Scientific will be exchanged for 21.05 Class A common shares of Strive. The combined company announces post-merger intention to explore monetizing or distributing Semler Scientific’s historically profitable diagnostics business at a future date, with a new management team and expanded mandate in preventative diagnostics. The combined company would own over 10,900 bitcoin prior to any additional bitcoin raised from future financings, in addition to sufficient cash held in reserve to support future perpetual preferred offerings.

“We are proud to announce this exciting strategic merger combining two pioneering Bitcoin treasury companies to form a scaled, innovative and accretive Bitcoin acquisition platform,” said Matt Cole, CEO of Strive. “This merger cements Strive’s position as a top Bitcoin treasury company, and we believe our alpha-seeking strategies and capital structure position us to outperform Bitcoin over the long run. This transaction showcases how we can grow Bitcoin holdings and Bitcoin per share at an unmatched pace in the industry to drive equity value accretion.”

Following the report, Benchmark lowered the firm’s price target on Semler Scientific to $86 from $101 and kept a Buy rating on the shares.While the market is sorting out the longer-term implications of the transaction, it appears to the firm that Semler shares “represent an opportunity right now” and that this deal seems to have “rung the opening bell for consolidation in the corporate bitcoin treasury space,” the analyst said.

IREN DOUBLES AI CLOUD TO 23K GPUS: IREN (IREN) announced Monday it has doubled its AI Cloud capacity to 23k GPUs following the procurement of an additional 12.4k GPUs, and is now targeting more than $500M in AI Cloud annualized run-rate revenue by 1Q26. To meet rising demand, IREN has purchased 7.1k NVIDIA B300s, 4.2k NVIDIA B200s and 1.1k AMD MI350Xs for approximately $674M. Deliveries will be staged over the coming months at IREN’s Prince George campus and are expected to support the >$500M AI Cloud ARR target.The expanded fleet will total approximately 23k GPUs. IREN is well positioned to capture this demand, with its British Columbia campuses capable of supporting more than 60k Blackwell GPUs, in addition to its Texas data centers. Financing workstreams are underway to support this growth, with any impact to IREN’s bitcoin mining capacity expected to be mitigated by redeploying ASICs to other sites.

“As global demand for compute accelerates, customers are increasingly seeking partners who can deliver scale quickly,” said Daniel Roberts, Co-CEO. “Doubling our fleet to more than 23,000 GPUs in just a few months highlights the strength of our vertically integrated platform and our ability to meet urgent, long-term demand. The shift toward pre-contracting ahead of delivery provides further momentum for the growth of our AI Cloud business.”

Following the news, Roth Capital raised the firm’s price target on IREN to $82 from $35 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The long-term mix for IREN is uncertain, but as visibility improves and execution is achieved, the firm contends that multiples could expand, the analyst said.

Additionally, Arete rolled out coverage (RIOT) and Cipher Mining (CIFR). The firm put a $78 price target on IREN, $26 target on Riot and $24 target on Cipher. Demand from artificial intelligence computing provides long-term opportunities, the analyst said. Arete sees IREN benefitting from self-funding its data center construction and upgrading its bitcoin mining fleet, Riot reaching $2.3B of recurring EBITDA by 2031 from two high performance compete data centers on a co-location rental model, and Cipher offering a lower-risk play on the AI compute shortage given its joint venture structure.

Meanwhile, Bernstein raised the firm’s price target on IREN (NVDA) relationships. The firm believes IREN has made adequate progress for it to take the AI cloud business seriously, and build an investment case for re-rating.

CIPHER MINING, FLUIDSTACK ENTER HOSTING AGREEMENT: Cipher Mining announced Thursday (GOOGL) will backstop $1.4B of Fluidstack’s lease obligations to support project-related debt financing and will receive warrants to acquire approximately 24M shares of Cipher common stock, equating to an approximately 5.4% pro forma equity ownership stake, subject to adjustment and a potential cash settlement under certain circumstances. Cipher plans to retain 100% ownership of the project and access the capital markets as necessary to fund a portion of the project.

“We are thrilled to be working with Fluidstack to develop HPC data centers, and we look forward to welcoming Google as an investor in Cipher. This transformative transaction reinforces our HPC momentum as we continue to attract attention for our large and growing pipeline of sites,” said Tyler Page, Cipher’s CEO. “We believe this transaction represents the first of several in the HPC space as we continue to scale our capabilities and strengthen our position in this rapidly growing sector.”

CLOUDFLARE, COINBASE TO CREATE X402 FOUNDATION: Cloudflare (NET) announced Tuesday (COIN), to further the development of an open Internet standard for digital payments. The x402 Foundation will help to create a new standard to simplify the process of sending and receiving payments on the Internet for website owners, developers, and content creators globally. Soon, creators and developers will have access to an open, flexible standard that will empower them to communicate payment requests and responses, regardless of geography, currency, or payment method.

“Coinbase deserves immense credit for starting the work on the x402 protocol and we’re excited to partner with them on our shared vision for a neutral foundation,” said Matthew Prince, Cloudflare CEO. “The Internet’s core protocols have always been driven by independent governance, which is why we’re proud to work with Coinbase to ensure x402 has the same path, given its likelihood to become a core protocol for agentic commerce.”

Cloudflare also announced on Thursday plans to introduce NET Dollar, a new U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin that will enable instant, secure transactions for the agentic web.

Additionally on Tuesday, Caliber (CWD) announced it has selected Coinbase Prime as its institutional platform for trading and custody in support of Caliber’s Digital Asset Treasury Strategy. Coinbase, through its Prime offering, is providing Caliber with access to deep liquidity and institutional-grade custody.

Caliber also announced on Thursday the completion of a strategic $4M purchase of Chainlink tokens. Caliber acquired 183,421 LINK tokens at an average price of $21.81 per token. This acquisition grows Caliber’s total holdings in LINK to 467,632 tokens valued at approximately $10.1M.

Meanwhile on Monday, CleanSpark (CLSK) announced that it has expanded its capital strategy by increasing its bitcoin-backed credit facility with Coinbase Prime by $100M. The $100M in financing will be deployed into strategic capital expenditures, including expanding CleanSpark’s energy portfolio, scaling its bitcoin mining operations, and investing in high-performance computing capabilities.

CleanSpark also announced Thursday that it has expanded its capital strategy by opening a new $100M Bitcoin-backed credit facility with Two Prime. This financing brings CleanSpark’s total collateralized lending facilities to $400M, providing additional non-dilutive capital to accelerate data center growth. Proceeds are expected to support Bitcoin mining hashrate deployment, invest in high-performance computing capabilities, and fund the company’s evolving Digital Asset Management strategies.

JPMORGAN UPDATES BITCOIN MINER RATINGS: On Friday, JPMorgan downgraded CleanSpark to Neutral from Overweight with a price target of $14, down from $15. The firm updated bitcoin miner ratings and price targets to reflect changes in bitcoin mining profitability, and upside from high performance compute colocation and cloud services. CleanSpark shares are fully pricing in the company’s recent expansion to 50 EH/s, and investors will likely need more clarity around its latest thinking on high performance compute to drive further upside from current levels, the analyst said.

The firm also downgraded IREN to Underweight from Neutral with a price target of $24, up from $16. IREN shares are pricing in over a 1 GW colocation agreement at Sweetwater, which would be a deal of record scale and capex, the analyst said. JPMorgan believes this could be possible over time, but thinks it creates more downside risk than upside potential at current share levels.

JPMorgan upgraded Riot Platforms to Overweight from Neutral with a price target of $19, up from $15. JPMorgan applies a 50% probability that Cipher, IREN and Riot sign high performance compute colocation deals at remaining near-term capacity they are shopping. It sees the most relative upside at Riot.

The firm also raised its price target on Cipher Mining to $12 from $6 and kept a Neutral rating on the shares.

JPMorgan lowered the firm’s price target on Mara Holdings (MARA) to $20 from $22 and kept an Overweight rating on the shares.

OTHER CRYPTO NEWS:

• Circle (CRCL) reportedly explores ‘reversible’ transactions involving tokens
• Roth Capital raises Bitdeer (BTDR) price target to $40 from $18, Riot price target to $42 from $17.50, TeraWulf (WULF) price target to $21.50 from $14
• Citi upgrades Riot Platforms to Buy on AI transition
• Forward Industries (FORD) to launch tokenized shares on Solana via Superstate
• Bitmine Immersion (BMNR) announces ETH holdings exceed 2% of Ethereum network
• Strategy (MSTR) acquires 850 bitcoin for an aggregate purchase price of $99.7M
• Morgan Stanley (MS) to reportedly offer crypto trading via E-Trade by 1H26
• PayPal (PYPL) invests in Stablecoin-focused layer 1 ‘Stable’
• Hive Digital (HIVE) reaches 2% of global Bitcoin network, mines 9 BTC daily
• Stripe, Visa (V) to power Fold’s (FLD) new bitcoin rewards credit card

CRYPTO STOCK PLAYS: Publicly traded companies in the space include Bit Digital (BTBT), Coinbase, Core Scientific (CORZ), Greenidge Generation (GREE), Mara Holdings, Strategy, Riot Platforms and TeraWulf.

PRICE ACTION: As time of writing, bitcoin fell roughly 6% this week to $109,420 in U.S. dollars, according to CoinDesk.