Semler Scientific, a medical device company, purchased of $50 million worth of Bitcoin between May 13 and May 22, bringing the market value of the company’s Bitcoin (BTC) holdings to $474.4 million, keeping it within the top 13 of BTC Treasury companies.

According to a May 23 disclosure, Semler bought a total of 455 BTC for an average purchase price of $109,801. To buy the Bitcoin, Semler Scientific used proceeds from an at-the-market stock offering program. So far, the company has sold roughly 3 million shares of common stock for net proceeds of $115 million.

Semler Scientific’s shares have fallen 1.36% on the same day as the disclosure, though the decrease in its share price is largely in line with the Nasdaq’s performance. That index, which follows top tech stocks, is down 1% on the day.

Semler Scientific share price. Source: Google Finance

In its Q1 2025 earnings report released on May 13, the company revealed a 44% drop in revenue year-over-year. Despite the claimed success of its Bitcoin treasury plan, Semler Scientific’s shares have dropped 18% in 2025, according to Google Finance.

Bitcoin treasury companies, or companies that traditionally sell equity or issue debt to buy BTC, had been drawing the interest of investors looking for exposure to Bitcoin price fluctuations.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy debuted its BTC reserve in August 2020, when it started purchasing Bitcoin. Bitcoin is up 181.6% year to date, while Semler Scientific shares rose 53% since announcing the BTC approach in May 2024.

Magazine: ZK-proofs are bringing smart contracts to Bitcoin — BitcoinOS and Starknet

Blockchain privacy tools such as zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs will become increasingly necessary to protect online user data in the age of artificial intelligence, according to Eran Barak, CEO of Shielded Technologies, the developer behind the Midnight privacy chain.

In an interview with Cointelegraph at Consensus 2025, Barak said corporate service providers and centralized servers are expected to become honeypots for AI-assisted hackers and malicious actors looking to steal valuable data, including private keys, financial metadata, medical records, and government documents.

Hackers targeting centralized entities have a “massive” return on investment (ROI) and are incentivized to hack centralized targets that contain millions of valuable records, the CEO told Cointelegraph. Barak added that ZK-proofs, a way of verifying onchain data without revealing it, solve this problem:

“Blockchain is going to improve cybersecurity around the world, because, for a hacker to get to actual data, they need to hack individual wallets, but their ROI would be one record instead of millions — not worth it. They are going to go elsewhere.”

Privacy solutions have become a major focus for many Web3 developers, as the need to shield metadata from AI algorithms grows and large institutions demand privacy tools to protect sensitive data as a prerequisite to bringing their business operations onchain.

Midnight generates shielded assets that provide users with onchain privacy while maintaining compliance. Source: Midnight

Related: EU to ban anonymous crypto accounts and privacy coins by 2027

Cardano’s Hoskinson teases multichain airdrop

Speaking at Consensus 2025, Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson announced an upcoming Midnight token airdrop for holders of Avax (AVAX), XRP (XRP), Bitcoin (BTC), Brave Attention Token (BAT), and others. Midnight is a partner chain of the Cardano network.

Hoskinson the multichain airdrop will unite the industry through cooperative tokenomics and will promote collaboration. “We have a chance to come together again, and I think in this divisive era, the industry absolutely needs that.”

Charles Hoskinson at Consensus 2025. Source: Cointelegraph

Barak also told Cointelegraph that Midnight would invite interested users across the entire Web3 ecosystem to mine the Midnight token following the initial multichain airdrop.

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The current structure of capital markets is failing to serve a broad base of investors, according to Akshay BD, non-chief marketing officer at the Solana Foundation. During a panel at the Accelerate 2025 conference, Akshay argued that blockchain technology could help address these shortcomings, claiming that Solana could “make everyone an investor or a dreamer over time.”

Akshay noted growing uncertainty among investors, citing concerns from investment managers who report heightened anxiety among clients. “You have low bond yields, you have asset price bubbles, and people don’t really know how the traditional asset allocation model works anymore,” he said. The 60-40 portfolio hasn’t delivered consistent returns in a long time.”

He attributed some of this tension to a widening gap between income earned through wages and wealth accumulated through asset ownership. Retail investors, he added, are often locked out of private markets, which are typically accessible only to accredited investors — a dynamic that may be contributing to overheated public markets.

Akshay BD at Accelerate. Source: Cointelegraph

Akshay warned that the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence could further deepen existing economic divides. “The question is, which way do we go?” he asked. “Is it […] universal basic income, where we’re essentially creating a welfare economy to support those unable to keep jobs or own assets? Or is it what we propose, universal basic ownership, where everybody with a mobile phone can own assets?”

He outlined a vision in which crypto infrastructure enables broader asset ownership, allowing individuals to invest in everything from energy companies to local coffee shops through tokenization. In this model, acquiring an ownership stake could be as easy as scanning a QR code.

In the Solana ecosystem, the “Non-Chief Marketing Officer” (nCMO) is a role within the Solana Foundation that focuses on supporting the Solana community’s marketing efforts.

Related: Fractionalization of real world assets: Is this the holy grail of blockchain tech?

Markets remain above historical averages

Public equity markets in the US have been trading above their historical valuation norms for a long time. According to data from market analytics firm Multpl, the S&P 500’s price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has consistently remained above 19.6 since December 2018, higher than the index’s historical average P/E ratio of around 16.1 and suggesting that investors have been willing to pay a premium for earnings in recent years.

Zooming out, the S&P 500’s average valuation has been gradually rising for decades, driven by factors such as low interest rates, growing corporate gains, and investor optimism about technology. However, high valuations have also coincided with periods of market corrections, like the dot-com crash and the 2008 financial crisis after the collapse of the subprime mortgage market.

S&P 500 P/E ratio since inception. Source: Multipl

According to Akshay, a way to combat this overheating is to open up certain markets to retail investors, a lofty goal that some sectors of crypto, like RWA tokenization, aim to facilitate. Akshay noted that some entrepreneurs had tried this before, but the available technology didn’t support this view. “[Crypto] starts with the game, and very quickly becomes profound.”

“What it gives you is the ability for you to financialize all the productive assets in an economy, so you can have anybody who participates in that economy be an owner of that economy,” he said.

Magazine: Ethereum is destroying the competition in the $16.1T TradFi tokenization race