Tether Boosts Twenty One Capital’s Bitcoin Reserves with $459M Purchase Amid SPAC Merger
Tether has added 4,812 more Bitcoin to the balance sheet of Twenty One Capital, a Bitcoin-focused investment firm currently operating under Cantor Equity Partners as it awaits a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) merger. The purchase, worth approximately $458.7 million, was executed at an average price of $95,319 per BTC and was moved into an escrow wallet on May 9, according to Cantor’s SEC filing dated May 13.
This brings Twenty One’s total holdings to 36,312 BTC. Of that, 31,500 BTC are held in escrow by Cantor Equity Partners. Once the merger is finalized, the company will trade under the ticker symbol XXI.
Jack Mallers, CEO of Twenty One and also of Strike, confirmed that the merger approval process is underway but didn’t specify a timeline for completion.
Twenty One has quickly become the third-largest corporate Bitcoin holder, behind only Michael Saylor’s Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) and mining firm MARA Holdings, which hold 568,840 and 48,237 BTC, respectively.
Tether is the lead investor in Twenty One, alongside crypto exchange Bitfinex. The SPAC transaction is being led and underwritten by Wall Street’s Cantor Fitzgerald, which is also helping raise $585 million to fund additional Bitcoin acquisitions. Japanese investment giant SoftBank has committed $900 million toward the effort.
A Challenger to Strategy?
In an April investor presentation to the SEC, Twenty One positioned itself as a rival to Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin-holding firm, describing its business model as a more “capital-efficient” and “Bitcoin-native” way for shareholders to gain BTC exposure. The company aims to measure performance based on Bitcoin per share rather than traditional profit metrics like earnings per share.
The company’s target is to amass 42,000 BTC at launch. According to earlier filings, 23,950 BTC will come from Tether, 10,500 from SoftBank, and about 7,000 from Bitfinex, all of which will be converted into equity at $10 per share.
Following the announcement of the latest Bitcoin purchase, shares of Cantor Equity Partners surged 5.2% in after-hours trading. This came after a sharp rise from $10.65 to $59.73 on May 2, though the price later settled to around $29.84, per Google Finance.
