In a team-up of crypto and TradFi giants, Tether, Bitfinex, Cantor Fitzgerald, and SoftBank Group announced Wednesday that they will team up to launch Twenty One, a publicly traded, Bitcoin-centric company that plans to launch with a treasury of more than 42,000 BTC—or about $3.9 billion worth. Tether and Bitfinex will be majority owners, with a minority stake owned by investment holding firm SoftBank. Twenty One will be launched through a planned SPAC merger with Cantor Equity Partners, which trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker CEP and is affiliated with financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald.
“Our mission is simple: to become the most successful company in Bitcoin, the most valuable financial opportunity of our time,” he said in a statement. “We’re not here to beat the market, we’re here to build a new one.” The expected move was first reported late Tuesday by the Financial Times. Tether, the company behind USDT, the third-biggest cryptocy by market cap, will provide Twenty One with Bitcoin bought via debt. El Salvador-based Tether’s USDT product is the biggest stablecoin in the industry—a virtual token that the firm claims is backed by dollars, treasuries, and other assets.
Cantor Fitzgerald, an investment firm previously run by President Trump ally and current Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, is in charge of custodying Tether’s U.S. Treasuries reserves. The firm will also use debt to help Twenty One buy Bitcoin. Brandon Lutnick, Howard’s son, is the chairman and CEO of Cantor Equity Partners and chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald. In addition to amassing Bitcoin in its treasury, Twenty One aims to provide native Bitcoin lending services and other financial products, along with producing Bitcoin-centric content. Jack Mallers, who runs Bitcoin payments company Strike, will be Twenty One’s CEO, according to an announcement.
The announcement said that CEP will work with Twenty One to raise $385 million through convertible senior notes and $200 million through private investment in public equity, or PIPE, to buy Bitcoin and fund “general corporate purposes.” Investors will then be able to get returns from buying shares in the company, the announcement noted. Twenty One will trade under the ticker “XXI.” Stablecoins are now a hot topic: Lawmakers are currently debating two pieces of stablecoin-related legislation. President Trump’s new administration has taken a friendly approach to regulating the digital asset industry so far, with the SEC scrapping most of its lawsuits against and investigations into crypto companies.
Twenty One’s business model echoes that of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), a Nasdaq-listed software company that started buying Bitcoin in 2020. The firm now holds 538,000 BTC, or about $50 billion worth, making it the largest corporate holder of the asset. Investors buy the company’s shares to get Bitcoin exposure—a model that Twenty One apparently aims to emulate.
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